Who’s Got Talent for Identifying Talent?: Predictors of Equitable Gifted Identification for Black and Hispanic Students

Students who are Black or Hispanic have long been disproportionately underrepresented in K-12 gifted and talented services. However, there are schools that have diverged from this trend by identifying atypically high numbers of Black and Hispanic students. In this paper we present predictors of access to and equity within gifted and talented populations for schools that enroll ten or more Black or Hispanic students. Our results show that state policy mandates for gifted education are predictive of higher levels of access to and equity within gifted services at the school level. The average achievement and socio-economic status of the district were positive predictors of access and equity while district proportion eligible for special education services was a negative predictor of both. Finally, we end with a description of how the top 5% most-equitable schools in the country look different from their peers.