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BOB HIRSHON (host):
Gifted and overlooked. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
Black and Hispanic kids are less likely to be enrolled in advanced academic courses. One reason could be that their grade school teachers never recommended that they be tested for admission into gifted and talented programs. This according to UC Berkeley economist David Card, writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DAVID CARD (University of California, Berkeley):
They’re coming from disadvantaged families and maybe they don’t particularly catch the eye of the teacher. And so these children are just kind of passed over.
HIRSHON:
He and University of Miami economist Laura Giuliano looked at one urban school at which all second-graders got tested. There, the fraction of minority students in the gifted programs doubled. Revealing that at least some of the earlier discrepancy was based not on intelligence or economics, but merely on not being given the chance to succeed. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.
Story by Bob Hirshon