Gifted Programs: Who Gets Excluded — and What the Research Shows

A third-grade teacher is asked to nominate students for gifted testing. She thinks through her class. She pictures the students who complete work quickly, who ask sophisticated questions, who seem to already know the material. The students she pictures, research consistently shows, tend to be white and from higher-income families — even when students of other races and income levels are performing at equivalent or higher levels on the actual assessments.

This isn’t a description of malicious intent. It is a description of how teacher referral systems work in practice — and why they produce the representation gaps that show up in gifted program enrollment data year after year.

The research on gifted program exclusion is more consistent than the research on almost any other equity question in education. Black and Hispanic students are underrepresented in gifted programs relative to their share of the student population, and that underrepresentation persists even when you control for academic performance, household income, and school quality. The mechanism — teacher referral bias — is well-documented. The fix — universal screening — is well-tested. What’s missing is political will to implement it at scale.

If you are a parent navigating this system on behalf of a specific child, this piece covers what the research shows, what the evidence says about why it happens, and what your actual options are.

Key Takeaways

• Black and Hispanic students are underrepresented in gifted programs by 40–50% relative to their share of the student population, even after controlling for academic performance
• Teacher referral is the primary identification mechanism in most districts and shows consistent racial and socioeconomic bias in who gets nominated
• Universal screening (testing all students rather than relying on referrals) substantially closes the representation gap — by over 40% in the most studied natural experiment
• Multi-criteria identification, which includes measures of potential and not just current performance, produces more equitable outcomes than IQ testing alone
• Parents have documented pathways to request evaluation for their child if they believe a referral was missed or biased

The Identification Gap — What the Data Shows

The underrepresentation of Black and Hispanic students in gifted programs is not a small statistical artifact. It is a large, consistent finding that has been replicated across decades and datasets.

The National Association for Gifted Children’s 2023 data shows that Black students represent approximately 15% of the U.S. school-age population but only 10% of students identified as gifted. Hispanic students represent approximately 27% of the school-age population but 17% of gifted-identified students. White students represent approximately 48% of the school-age population and 58% of gifted-identified students. Asian-American students show overrepresentation relative to population share in most datasets.

These aggregate numbers understate the gap in many individual districts, where underrepresentation is more extreme. In some large urban districts, Black students make up 60 to 70 percent of enrollment but fewer than 15 percent of gifted program participants.

Donna Ford’s research, developed across multiple publications including her 2010 book Reversing Underachievement Among Gifted Black Students and updated in subsequent papers through 2022, has documented this gap systematically over three decades. Ford’s work traces the gap not primarily to differences in measured ability but to differences in referral rates and in which types of giftedness identification systems are designed to detect.

The broader context on how gifted identification works — including IQ cutoffs, the history of the process, and the definitional debates — is covered in the primer on gifted identification and its structural problems. This piece focuses specifically on the exclusion mechanism and its remedies.

What the Research Shows About Teacher Referral Bias

Teacher referral is the front gate of most gifted identification systems in the United States. If a teacher doesn’t nominate a student for testing, that student typically doesn’t get tested. And the research on teacher referral is consistent in a way that is uncomfortable but important.

A 2019 study by Grissom and Redding, published in AERA Open, analyzed data from over 1 million elementary school students and found that having a Black teacher significantly increased the probability that a Black student would be referred for gifted services — and that effect was not explained by differences in student performance. Black students were 54% more likely to be referred for gifted testing when they had a Black teacher rather than a white teacher. For Hispanic students, the effect with Hispanic teachers was smaller but in the same direction.

This finding does not establish that white teachers are intentionally biased. It establishes that teacher referral reflects something other than pure academic potential — and that whatever that something is, it produces systematically different outcomes by race. The “fit” hypothesis suggests teachers nominate students who match a cultural prototype of giftedness: verbal, compliant, confident in classroom participation, with parents who communicate regularly with school staff. Students who don’t match that prototype — including students whose behavior or communication style reflects a different cultural context — are nominated at lower rates even when their academic performance is equivalent.

Worrell, Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius, and Dixson’s 2019 review in Gifted Child Quarterly documents the same pattern from a different angle: teachers consistently underestimate the academic potential of students who are quiet, who are behavioral outliers, or who are twice-exceptional (meaning they have both high intellectual ability and a learning difference). Twice-exceptional students, covered in depth in the guide to twice-exceptional identification, are particularly at risk of being missed entirely — their giftedness masked by their disability profile and vice versa.

The Identification Method Problem — What Different Approaches Produce

The most consequential research finding in this area is the Card and Giuliano (2016) natural experiment. When a Florida school district implemented universal screening — testing every third grader for giftedness rather than relying on teacher nominations — representation of Black and Hispanic students in gifted programs increased by over 40%. The students were there. The referrals were not.

Identification Method	How It Works	Representation Outcomes	Who It Advantages	Who It Disadvantages
Teacher referral only	Teacher nominates students perceived as gifted for testing	Significant underrepresentation of Black, Hispanic, ELL, and low-income students (Grissom & Redding, 2019)	White, higher-income, verbally compliant students	Students whose cultural presentation doesn’t match gifted prototype; twice-exceptional students
Universal screening	All students tested at a set grade level; referral not required	40%+ increase in Black and Hispanic identification (Card & Giuliano, 2016)	All students tested equally	None specific — improves equity across all groups
IQ testing only (single score cutoff)	Students who reach testing receive a single IQ score; cutoff (usually 97th–98th percentile) determines eligibility	Advantages students with strong verbal and processing speed scores; disadvantages students with learning disabilities that affect specific subtests	Students with evenly distributed cognitive profiles	Twice-exceptional students; students strong in specific domains
Multi-criteria identification	Multiple measures used: IQ subtests, achievement, creativity, teacher rating, portfolio	More equitable than single score; catches domain-specific gifted students	Students with uneven profiles; creative and non-traditional learners	Less predictable; harder to defend legally and administratively
Local norms (top 5% of a school)	Students identified relative to their school population, not absolute cutoffs	More equitable at the school level; some concern about “gifted in name only” for students below district benchmarks	Students in high-poverty schools who would be overlooked by absolute cutoffs	Inconsistency across schools in what “gifted” means
Nonverbal IQ assessment	Uses measures that don’t require English fluency (Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test, etc.)	Significantly increases identification of ELL and recently immigrated students	English language learners; students from non-English-speaking homes	Students whose strengths are verbal — may underidentify some types of giftedness

The comparison across identification methods tells a clear story: teacher referral produces the most inequitable outcomes, and universal screening produces the most equitable outcomes. The middle ground — multi-criteria identification, local norms, nonverbal assessment — produces intermediate improvements in equity relative to pure teacher referral, and is more practical to implement than full universal screening in large districts.

What the table also shows is that no identification method is bias-free. Universal screening eliminates referral bias but retains whatever biases are embedded in the assessment instrument itself. IQ tests that rely on culturally specific content disadvantage students who have had less exposure to dominant-culture vocabulary and concepts. This is not an argument against universal screening — its equity impact is clearly positive — but it is an argument against treating any single assessment as an objective measure of a child’s full intellectual potential.

Why Universal Screening Isn’t Universal

If Card and Giuliano’s 2016 study showed a 40% increase in representation from universal screening, and the evidence is this clear, why isn’t universal screening the standard?

The honest answer involves resources and politics, not evidence.

Universal screening requires administering a cognitive assessment to every student at a target grade level — not just those nominated by teachers. In a large district with 10,000 third graders, that is 10,000 assessments. The cost of administration (including substitute coverage for teachers, psychologist time for review, and parent communication) is substantial. Districts facing budget constraints routinely prioritize other expenditures.

There is also a political dimension. Districts in which gifted programs currently serve predominantly white and higher-income families have constituencies that benefit from the current arrangement. Shifting to universal screening changes who gets identified — which changes who gets the resources of the gifted program — which produces resistance from the families that currently benefit. This is not comfortable to say, but the politics of gifted program reform consistently reflect it.

Research by Peters and Engerrand (2016) in Gifted Child Quarterly reviewed 15 states that had adopted some form of universal screening and found that implementation was most successful — and most durable — when district leadership was explicitly committed to equity goals and when changes were accompanied by professional development helping educators understand why identification reform was needed. Districts that adopted universal screening as a compliance measure without genuine commitment to equity goals tended to implement it minimally or abandon it within a few years.

What Parents Can Do If They Believe Their Child Was Overlooked

If you believe your child has the capacity to qualify for gifted services and was not referred for testing, you have documented options.

Request an evaluation directly. In most states, parents have the legal right to request gifted evaluation for their child without a teacher nomination. The specific mechanism varies by state, but NAGC maintains a state-by-state summary of parent request rights. A written request to your child’s school principal or the district’s gifted coordinator initiates a formal process.

Document evidence of advanced ability. The request is stronger with supporting evidence. This can include writing samples, projects, test scores, assessments from outside the school (educational psychologist evaluations, achievement testing), or observations of your child’s reasoning that suggest advanced capacity. You don’t need to prove giftedness — you need to establish a reasonable basis for evaluation.

Understand the specific criteria your district uses. Request a copy of your district’s gifted identification policy. This is a public document. Knowing whether your district uses teacher referral only, universal screening, or multi-criteria identification helps you understand exactly what the obstacle is and what evidence would be relevant.

Advocate for the method that fits your child. If your child is twice-exceptional — meaning they have both advanced ability and a learning difference — the standard identification instruments may underestimate their capacity. A child with dyslexia whose processing speed score is low may produce an average full-scale IQ even with a 99th-percentile reasoning score. You can request subtest score analysis rather than a single composite score. The guide to gifted and bored students covers practical strategies for navigating schools that aren’t serving advanced learners well.

Request nonverbal assessment if language is a factor. If your child is an English language learner or has a language processing difference, request that the evaluation include a nonverbal cognitive measure. The Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT) and the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) nonverbal battery are commonly used instruments that reduce the English-language bias in standard IQ assessment.

Pursue outside evaluation if necessary. A private evaluation from a licensed educational psychologist is expensive (typically $1,500–$3,500) but produces documentation that districts are required to consider. If a district evaluation has concluded your child does not qualify and you disagree, a private evaluation can provide a second opinion with different instruments or different subtest focus.

What to Watch for Over the Next 3 Months

If you have initiated a gifted referral process or are monitoring a child who you believe may have been overlooked, here is what to track.

The timeline. Most states specify response timelines for parent-requested evaluations — typically 60 to 90 days from a written request. If you’ve made a written request and haven’t received acknowledgment within 30 days, follow up in writing. Documentation of your requests matters if you later need to escalate.

Whether the evaluation instruments match your child’s profile. Ask specifically which assessment instruments will be used before evaluation occurs. If verbal IQ tests are the only planned measure and your child has a language difference, request the inclusion of nonverbal measures in writing.

Your child’s classroom experience in the meantime. If your child is significantly advanced relative to current instruction, the academic cost of waiting is real. The strategies for advocating for a bored gifted child in school are directly applicable while you navigate the formal identification process.

Systemic advocacy opportunities. Your district’s gifted advisory committee (if one exists), school board meetings, and NAGC’s parent advocacy network are channels for systemic change. Individual family advocacy matters for individual children; collective advocacy changes policies for all children.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the research evidence that teacher referral is biased? The most direct evidence is Grissom and Redding’s 2019 AERA Open study of over 1 million students, finding that Black students were 54% more likely to be referred for gifted testing by Black teachers than white teachers, even controlling for academic performance. Card and Giuliano’s 2016 Journal of Political Economy natural experiment confirmed the referral gap by showing a 40%+ increase in underrepresented group identification when referrals were replaced with universal screening.

If universal screening works, why isn’t it used everywhere? Cost and politics. Universal screening requires assessing all students, which is expensive. It also changes who gets identified, which shifts resources away from the families that currently benefit from the existing system. Implementation requires both funding and genuine political commitment to equity goals.

Can a parent request gifted evaluation without a teacher referral? In most states, yes. Parent request rights exist under state gifted education statutes, though the specific process varies. NAGC and your state’s department of education website are the best sources for your state’s specific parent rights.

What if my child was evaluated and didn’t qualify, but I still believe they’re gifted? You can request subtest score analysis rather than accepting a composite score as the only evidence. You can also pursue a private evaluation from an educational psychologist using different instruments. If your child has a learning difference, requesting a twice-exceptional evaluation — which specifically looks for the combination of high ability and disability — may produce different findings than a standard gifted evaluation.

Are gifted programs actually beneficial for students who are identified? The research on gifted program outcomes is modest but generally positive for academic challenge and engagement. The bigger equity question the research raises is not just about who gets in, but about what resources those programs provide — and whether differentiation within regular classrooms could provide equivalent benefit without the exclusion. The evidence on differentiated instruction within standard classrooms is covered separately in the research on standardized testing and what scores predict.

Do gifted programs help Black and Hispanic students who are identified? The research on this is limited. Ford’s work suggests that Black students who are identified show strong academic outcomes, but that gifted programs often fail to provide culturally responsive instruction, which limits engagement and sense of belonging. Identification is necessary but not sufficient for equitable outcomes.

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About the author

Ricky Flores is the founder of HiWave Makers and an electrical engineer with 15+ years of experience building consumer technology at Apple, Samsung, and Texas Instruments. He writes about how kids learn to build, think, and create in a tech-saturated world. Read more at hiwavemakers.com.

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Sources

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2. Card, D., & Giuliano, L. (2016). “Universal Screening Increases the Representation of Low-Income and Minority Students in Gifted Education.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(48), 13678–13683.
3. Ford, D. Y. (2010). Reversing Underachievement Among Gifted Black Students. Prufrock Press.
4. Ford, D. Y. (2022). “Equity in Gifted Education: The Role of Race, Culture, and Access.” Journal of Advanced Academics, 33(1), 5–32.
5. Worrell, F. C., Subotnik, R. F., Olszewski-Kubilius, P., & Dixson, D. D. (2019). “Gifted Students.” Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 551–576.
6. National Association for Gifted Children. (2023). State of the States in Gifted Education: Policy and Practice Data 2022–2023. NAGC.
7. Peters, S. J., & Engerrand, K. G. (2016). “Equity and Excellence: Proactive Efforts in the Identification of Underrepresented Students for Gifted and Talented Services.” Gifted Child Quarterly, 60(3), 159–173.
8. Naglieri, J. A., & Ford, D. Y. (2003). “Addressing Underrepresentation of Gifted Minority Children Using the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT).” Gifted Child Quarterly, 47(2), 155–160.
9. NWEA. (2021). National Access Report: Academic Opportunity in the US K–12 System. NWEA Research.
10. Renzulli, J. S. (1978). “What Makes Giftedness? Reexamining a Definition.” Phi Delta Kappan, 60(3), 180–184.

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