Seattle Public Schools Abolishes Gifted Students Programs

Seattle Public Schools abolishes all gifted and talented programs for students for equity reasons.

By Eileen Griffin

Government-run Seattle schools will eliminate all gifted and talented programs by the 2027-28 school year.

Administrators in the Seattle school district said that gifted and talented programs included too many white and Asian students, the New York Post reports. The dismantling of these programs began in 2020-21 to address racial inequalities. Going forward, all students are expected to be provided with “equal enrichment.”

Historically, the enrichment program, called Highly Capable Cohort (HCC), only included the top 2 percent of students based on standardized exams. A 2018 survey revealed that only 1.6 percent of students in the enrichment program were black. Nearly 70 percent of the students were white.

In 2020, the Seattle School District voted to terminate the program and replace it with an “enrichment for all” approach.

Other school districts around the country have made similar moves, as Heartland Daily News previously reported. From Baltimore to Los Angeles schools are choosing to promote equity and abandon merit. They are prioritizing diversity and ignoring achievements.

Seattle’s neighbor, Portland, Oregon has already adopted “equitable” grading practices, as Heartland Daily News previously reported. Equity grading allows students to skip homework and receive no failing grades. In some cases, grading has been eliminated altogether.

Seattle’s new system to promote equity will require teachers to create individual learning plans for each of their students. The estimated cost is $1.1 million for the first three years.

Seattle schools are already facing a significant budget shortage. School districts are funded based on the number of students attending. With enrollment dropping in Seattle schools, the amount of money allocated is also reduced.

Since the pandemic, enrollment is Washington state public schools has dropped by approximately 60,000, King 5 reported at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year. The five largest school districts in the state have all reported a decline in student enrollment.

In the 2019-20 school year Seattle public schools enrolled 56,193 students but by 2023-24 that number dropped to 51,542. At the same time, the number of students in private schools has increased.

A Washington State Board of education policy brief reported that between the school years of 2019-20 and 2023-24 private school enrollment has increased by approximately 11 percent in the state. The number may actually be higher as private schools are not all required to report enrollment.

In addition to the growth of private school enrollment, homeschooling has grown by 43 percent in the state of Washington. During the 2023-24 school year, 29,798 students are registered as attending a home school.

“One of the most striking effects of the pandemic was an historically unprecedented exodus from public schools,” said Professor Thomas Dee told King 5.

With declining enrollment and corresponding budget shortages, rather than making efforts to enhance services and entice parents to return their children to the public option, the state-run institutions are moving to decrease educational options.

Seattle will eliminate HCC and replace it with a system that does not recognize academic excellence or unique achievements. The replacement model has been called “unworkable” as it demands individualized and customized teaching.

“Indeed, the program to replace the HCC, and be implemented in every classroom, ensures that gifted students will be unchallenged, struggling students will escape the attention they deserve and teachers will be overwhelmed,” writes Jason Rantz for KTTH. “In other words, everyone will be equitably harmed.”

Teachers anonymously told KOMO that the new situation is impossible. All students are expected to be screened for accelerated learning, yet students have differences. Those with language barriers are ten times less likely to be included in a gifted program than English speaking students.

With the various levels of learning, teachers are being asked to customize curricula with no additional resources and no support. No additional curriculum assistance will be offered.

“In what world does it make sense to deprive the most promising students because of their skin color?” writes Ward Clark for RedState “Isn’t that, well, racist? Wouldn’t it be better to study why the students who are achieving at a higher level are doing so? What are the root causes, here? Family influences? Neighborhoods? Diet?”

“Who knows, but wouldn’t that be a better path forward than just throwing up hands and saying, we give up, now we’re schooling for the lowest common denominator? But then, our education system seems to favor style over substance of late.”

“The move to end the Seattle gifted program was not merely another boneheaded decision,” Rantz writes. “It was one that does measurable damage. It’s also another decision added to the long list of reasons why so many parents have pulled their kids from SPS.”

“Parents with financial means will rightly pull their kids from SPS and enroll them in private education so they’ll get the academic challenges to meet their needs. It will be an environment where their gifted child isn’t purposefully held back.”