Searching for Answers or Creating More Questions? A Response to Robinson

Carolyn M. Callahan

Grappling with the issues of equity and excellence has become evermore complex, solutions seem more and more remote as the divides between socioeconomic groups become greater and greater, and the ethnic diversity of the student population continues to present ever-increasing stress on the educational system. Robinson’s concerns that redress to inequities has been at the expense of a particular subgroup of gifted students are serious. The concerns should spark an important discussion within the field of gifted education and should be an impetus for further examination of the long-term consequences of short-term efforts to achieve equity. As Robinson noted, we may not be achieving equity for any group when we engage in educationally unsound decision making. While the interpretations that Robinson offered of the responses to gifted students and gifted programs are well grounded, I would like to offer some expanded thinking on several of the interpretations she put forward, present some alternative observations and interpretations, and raise related questions about our assumptions in the field of gifted education—and in the field of education, in general—that may have led us astray. I would first like to separate the responses to the equity issues that Robinson has identified as negative— the elimination of self-contained classrooms and the ever-increasing alternative strategies for identifying students from underserved populations—because I see the genesis of these movements resting in different spheres.

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