Is Gifted Education a Bright Idea? Assessing the Impact of Gifted and Talented Programs on Achievement

Sa A. Bui, Steven Craig and Scott Imberman

No 17089, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In this paper we determine how the receipt of gifted and talented (GT) services affects student outcomes. We identify the causal relationship by exploiting a discontinuity in eligibility requirements and find that for students on the margin there is no discernable impact on achievement even though peers improve substantially. We then use randomized lotteries to examine the impact of attending a GT magnet program relative to GT programs in other schools and find that, despite being exposed to higher quality teachers and peers that are one standard deviation higher achieving, only science achievement improves. We argue that these results are consistent with an invidious comparison model of peer effects offsetting other benefits. Evidence of large reductions in course grades and rank relative to peers in both regression discontinuity and lottery models are consistent with this explanation.

JEL-codes: H75 I2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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