This is the second article in a three-part exploration of the values that underpin support for gifted education and other forms of streaming students (and the fierce resistance to it). Read the first article here.
Last week, I opened a discussion on the costs and benefits of streaming students into academic and non-academic tracks, such as through gifted education programs. Despite the rancorous debate about the merits of these initiatives, there is little evidence that they make a difference in academic outcomes for students in either Canada or the United States. In other words, students in gifted education programs don’t perform much better than similarly intelligent students in ordinary schools. At the same time though, and there is little evidence that gifted programs are using disproportionate resources that could otherwise be used to improve the educations of a broader subset of the population. In sum, gifted education introduces few measurable costs and benefits.
This leaves us with a puzzle: if gifted programs don’t matter, why are they so contentious? Why did protesters almost come to blows when the mayor of New York tried to widen the eligibility requirements for specialized high schools (a form of gifted education)? Certainly, there is a perception that gifted education programs are superior, so maybe that explains why parents are so invested. But policymakers should know better. Why not let sleeping dogs lie and just leave gifted programs alone?
This article will provide an answer: the debate surrounding gifted education has little to do with the educational merits of the programs. This is fundamentally a moral disagreement between two different conceptions of fairness.
The FairnessValue
In my original description of the Fairness value, I provided a short moral vignette to explain this value:
You see a runner taking a shortcut on the course during a marathon in order to win.
Any non-sociopathic reader will immediately understand that the runner acted improperly and that his actions were unfair. It probably didn’t take much thought either; this was a System 1 reaction (i.e. quick and intuitive). Although this example is an excellent basic illustration of the fairness value, reality is more complex; there are two different ways to understand fairness. Think of it like two “flavours” of the value, with some people preferring one and other people preferring the other. To demonstrate, look at these two vignettes, both of which are considered violations of the Fairness value according to this study, but for subtly different reasons. Take a minute and see if you can figure out the distinction:
You see a tenant bribing a landlord to be the first to get their apartment repainted.
You see a student copying a classmate’s answer sheet on a makeup final exam.
At first glance, these seem to be similar examples. An individual (the tenant and the student) is behaving unfairly. That much is clear. But the two examples aren’t identical. The difference lies in the way that the two individuals ought to be treated according to our natural moral compass.
In the first example, this is certainly not a fair way to determine who gets their apartment painted first. Most people would agree that wealth and the willingness to spend it clandestinely should not be the basis for distributing services. Instead, the tenant should wait his turn and the landlord should find an equitable selection mechanism. Perhaps there should be a lottery or the painters would start on the bottom floor and work their way up the building. Regardless, the tenant with the most money and fewest scruples shouldn’t get special treatment. That violates the Fairness value, because all the tenants are not being treated equitably.
In the second example, the issue is certainly not the inequitable treatment of the students. The entire point of a test is to demonstrate individual knowledge – and ideally to outperform classmates, too. Cheating sidesteps the need to rely on personal ability, thereby making cheating on a test inherently unfair. Clearly, there is a different “flavour” of the Fairness value at play here. The moral issue in this example is that the cheating student won’t deserve the grade they eventually receive. They could have not studied, gone binge drinking the night before, sat beside a hard-working student, glanced over a few times, and received a high grade. Unlike in the first scenario, this isn’t a violation of equity. In fact, enforcing equity by giving all students the same grade would be the violation of fairness. The moral problem in this example is that the student’s outcomes are not proportional to their efforts.
Here is another example of the two flavours of the Fairness value: think back to a group project that you had to complete in school or university. Yes, that group project. The one where you pulled an all-nighter to get it done by the deadline while your group members were doing God-knows-what. You did 90% of the work, handed it in, and received an A. But what happened next? Everyone in your group shared the grade, despite doing basically nothing for it. Is this fair?
Based on how I framed the issue, you’re probably feeling the pull of proportionality. If you did more work, you should get a better grade. That’s fair. But you could probably see the teacher’s perspective too. One group, one grade. Everyone contributed, so they should share the results. Maybe the others only did 10% of the work, but it could have been the best 10% of the final product. Therefore, it is fair for everyone to receive the same grade. Both perspectives are valid.
It is important to note that some people are far more partial to one of the two flavours, depending on the specifics of the situation and people’s political views. As you may have predicted, those on the left of the political spectrum are far more interested in the equity value than those on the right. This aligns with the high level of importance left-wing groups place on equity in contemporary political debates. In contrast, everyone believes that proportionality is highly relevant to moral decision-making. This is reflected in bipartisan disgust for cheating, as it strongly violates proportionality. As a result, we can predict that proportionality is going to be more important to the wider population than equity, although equity concerns will be central to left-wing groups.
This distinction is extremely useful; if we distinguish between the equity value (i.e. everyone is treated in the same way) and the proportionality value (i.e. everyone gets what they deserve), we can better understand the moral underpinnings of certain major public debates.
Gifted Education Program: Equity or Proportionality?
Let’s turn back to the issue of gifted education and other efforts to sort students based on academic ability. As demonstrated last week, analysis of the costs and benefits of streaming leaves much to be desired. It does little to explain why so many people have such strong views on this topic. If anything, an exclusive focus on the cost/benefit calculation just shows how irrationally people act when they consider the education system. However, if we consider the two flavours of the Fairness value, the ferocity of the debate makes much more sense.
Fairness as Equity
The most cited argument against streaming is explicitly based on equity: those who are accepted into specialized programs tend to come from privileged backgrounds. This argument often centred around race, as gifted classrooms are considerably paler than ordinary public classrooms. New York, where debates about streaming have been particularly fierce, provides a useful example: although 70% of the city’s public-school students are Black and Latino, about 75% gifted elementary school classes are white or Asian American. The same inequities exist in Canada. Evidence from the Toronto District School Board, the fourth largest school board in North America, shows that the gifted education system is disproportionately populated with children from wealthy and white backgrounds, although the difference is not as severe as in New York.
Given these demographic realities, equity-based arguments are central to the opposition to gifted education programs. New York mayor de Blasio’s approach to reforming the Big Apple’s education system, which includes a crusade against gifted education and other forms of streaming, was explicitly based on equity considerations. When the Vancouver School board cut its honours classes, it leaned heavily on the equity value, and evidenced by this FAQ from their website:
Q: Why will the remaining honours courses in the District be phased out?
A: These classes are not part of the BC Ministry of Education’s Redesigned Curriculum. The District is committed to supporting diversity, equity and inclusion. By phasing out these classes, all students will have access to an inclusive model of education, and all students will be able to participate in the curriculum. This avoids streaming students, while allowing those students who wish to work ahead to do so.
Notice what the Vancouver School Board doesn’t say here: there is no mention of the questionable value of honours classes to students or the costs associated with the programs. To the Vancouver School Board, it was “diversity, equity, and inclusion” that drove their decision-making. In other words, the lack of equity in honours classes was a sufficient reason to cancel them. This is the only reason that the School Board felt it needed to list.
This makes sense when we think about the equity flavour of the Fairness value. Like the tenant who pays bribes to get their apartment painted first, opponents of gifted education charge that certain children are benefiting from unjust factors (such as race and wealth). This is inequitable and unfair, so something needs to be done. Furthermore, since the inequity of gifted education is inherent to how the system works (i.e. it aims to segregate students based on ability, which will always be influenced by socio-economic factors), reforms to the admission process for gifted education are unlikely to satisfy opponents. They are likely to prefer to cut the programs wholesale and integrate classrooms.
Fairness as Proportionality
Proponents of gifted education appear to follow the other flavour of fairness. They rarely deny that inequities exist in streaming, but they still claim that those who are admitted deserve their status. Consequently, there is nothing inherently wrong with streaming students based on academic status.
This argument was visible across many social media platforms during the debates over the cutting of honours classes. For example, see this highly rated comment on this article about the Vancouver School Board’s decision:
It looks like we are seeing inclusion ignoring motivation, to average down everything. Effort is not a virtue anymore.
It would be hard to find a more succinct expression of Fairness as proportionality. Effort is of moral worth, and students who apply themselves deserve rewards (say, admission into a gifted program). Of course, many people who see gifted education through the lens of proportionality are aware of the racial and socio-economic inequities in the system, but they propose to expand accessibility rather than end the gifted programs. See this comment on the same article:
I’m all for inclusion and equity, but cancelling options for higher achievement students isn’t the way to do it. If anything we need to strengthen options for them. Having such options isn’t not inclusive or inequitable. Not every kid learns the same way nor do they shares [sic] the same level of aptitude or interest. We need a core curriculum (which we have) bolstered by remedial help for those who struggle (which we have) and options for those who excel (which Vancouver is eliminating).
Notice the differing emphasis between the views of these commenters and the Vancouver School Board? To the school board, inequity is fundamentally wrong. If all students cannot access honours classes, they probably shouldn’t exist. To the commenters, inequity is a feature, not a bug. Those who make disproportionate contributions merit disproportionate rewards. If there are unfair inequities, they should be remediated within the existing system, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
So What?
In the previous article, I showed how the debate over gifted education can’t be fully understood when viewed with costs and benefits alone. Rather, moral concerns, specifically with regards to fairness, are driving the debate. This also explains why streaming is so controversial and emotionally charged. People have strong opinions on gifted education, but few of them are based on a neutral reading of the facts. In writing this post, I read dozens of articles and testimonials from a wide range of different perspectives. Almost every article came down strongly on one side of the debate, even though most of them were sparsely cited and questionably researched, preferring to provide anecdotes over hard evidence. Even the best articles seemed to treat the effectiveness of gifted education as a side-show to the fundamental moral discussion of equity and proportionality, even if they lacked the awareness to explicitly frame the issue as such. This suggests that technocratic, cost-benefit analysis has little explanatory power. Only a systemic study of values can reveal the contours of this debate.
With this in mind, we’ll look at the policy options that flow from values analysis next week and determine if we can create policies that are more acceptable to everyone.