Exam schools, gifted programs, and "giftedness"

 Are some children more gifted than others, and can they be identified in ways that aren't irreparably confounded with socioeconomic status? Those questions are part of what lies behind long-standing controversies about public schools that require entrance exams (typically high schools), and interventions for gifted children at earlier ages.   

Below are two recent stories that tackle those questions from different parts of the life cycle, i.e. from exam-school admissions to adult achievements. 

Here's a NYT story about admissions:

An Elite N.Y.C. Public School Admitted 777 Students. Only 3 Were Black.  New York’s specialized high schools give disproportionately few seats to Black and Hispanic students, continuing a pattern that has drawn criticism. By Matthew Haag  July 14, 2026

"About 62 percent of the students in the city’s public schools are Black or Hispanic. But at its eight most prestigious high schools, about 10 percent of the students in the incoming freshman class are expected to be Black or Hispanic, roughly the same as last year. About 80 percent of the seats went to Asian and white students.

"At Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, often considered the most selective of the city’s specialized high schools, three of the 777 offers were made to Black students, and 21 were for Hispanic students, together representing a nearly one-third decline from the previous freshman class. One Black student was admitted to Staten Island Technical High School.

"While only 5 percent of high school students attend a specialized school, the annual release of the admission results has stirred debate and scrutiny for decades, especially as the profile of students in those schools stands in stark contrast to the rest of the school system, the nation’s largest. Gaining entrance to the schools has been perceived as a path out of poverty and a gateway to the nation’s top colleges and, perhaps, a flourishing career.

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"Critics have called the one-day, high-stakes test racially discriminatory, saying it does not capture a student’s intelligence or capabilities. Supporters say it is a fair, rigorous and meritocratic assessment."
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"“It’s not how we do admissions for colleges, for law school, for business school, for medical school,” Mr. Restler said. “How on earth do we do it for these specialized high schools?”

"Yiatin Chu, a public school parent and the co-founder of Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, a group that has supported gifted and talented programs, said that the entrance exam was a “race-blind, income-blind test."

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And here's an article from New Scientist on adult achievement:

We’re finally learning what happens to gifted children in adulthood
A spate of new studies is revealing the lifelong impact of being marked as exceptional during childhood – and the results suggest we may need to revise how we view giftedness
By David Robson, 15 July 2026

 " a spate of studies is providing answers and revealing the fascinating lifelong impacts of being marked as exceptional at a young age.

"Far from growing into troubled adults, many gifted individuals appear to flourish later in life. Long-term studies suggest they are more likely than average to achieve professional success and, contrary to popular stereotypes, often enjoy better mental health. Scientists are also starting to understand what makes gifted brains so exceptional, finding that they are better integrated and can process information more efficiently, which raises the question of whether we should view giftedness as another form of neurodiversity. While that is still an open debate, what is becoming increasingly clear is that many of our assumptions about extraordinary minds – and the lives of those who possess them – may need revising.

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“Despite their exceptional talent, identifying gifted children is challenging, especially when accounting for differences in socioeconomic backgrounds. Even though genetics play a large role in intellectual development, family circumstances heavily influence performance on traditional intelligence tests, particularly in early childhood. Children growing up in working-class families tend to develop a smaller vocabulary in their first years, for instance, which may increase the likelihood that teachers or psychologists ignore their learning potential.”