Inside: Education
and Luxury Living Special Sections Education A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat
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September 2016
A Nation’s Loss
Minority Students Underreprese
nted in Gifted Programs
D
Across U.S. t BY CAROLYN COSMOS
ecades of research have documented a pervasive problem in American public schools and tried to offer a variety of solutions — to little effect: The general neglect of gifted students with a persistent underrepresen coupled tation of low-income and minority kids in talented programs nationwide. gifted and
VOLUME 23, NUMBER 9
United Nations
Race Heats Up For Next U.N. Secretary-General What do Portugal, Argentina, New Zealand and Costa Rica have in common with eight Eastern European countries — five of which used to form part of Yugoslavia? Not much, really, except that all are fielding candidates to replace United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon when his term expires on Dec. 31. / PAGE 6
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GREECE ON FRONTLINES
South Sudan Envoy Insists Young Nation Can Overcome War
Culture
African Artists Take on Time Time loops, layers and jumps in a new video- and film-based exhibition at the National Museum of African Art. / PAGE 32
SEPTEMBER 2016
People of World Influence SEE GIFTED t PAGE 22
NUSACC Is U.S. Bridge To Arab Business |
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Despite reports that often portray an Arab landscape in chaos, David Hamod, president and CEO of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce, says business between the U.S. and Arab world is brisk. In fact, the Iowaborn businessman who is of Lebanese, Irish and Norwegian descent described economic ties as stronger than ever. / PAGE 4
Africa
South Sudan will likely postpone its 2018 presidential elections because of recent violence, according to Ambassador Garang Diing Akuong, although he insists his government doesn’t want to go back to war and that his boss isn’t at fault for this latest bout of bloodshed. / PAGE 8
Many people assume that smarter kids naturally get school, but they face their ahead in own unique set of obstacles. thing, certain behaviors can For one be misinterpreted. Social skills may lag behind academic ones. The assumption that bright will automatically succeed students without additional resources hold back high-achieving can also children, whose particular talents often need to be nurtured just like any other special needs. Even identifying the parameters of what it means to be and talented” — high IQ, above-average reading scores, “gifted aptitude, motivation, potential creative etc. — is fraught with difficulty. Many of those challenges are disparities, a timely issue given compounded by ethnic and racial the bitter racial discord in election year and debates this U.S. about elitism and the 1 percenters. Studies have consistently shown that black and Latino students are far less likely than their white in gifted and talented programs, or Asian peers to participate scores among the four groups. often mirroring the gap in test But a study by Vanderbilt University published earlier found a stark difference this year even with similar test scores: When among white and black students scholars surveyed 10,000 ementary children with the U.S. same math and reading scores, elfound that a high-scoring they white student was twice likely scoring black student to get as a highassigned to a gifted and talented gram (interestingly, the gap probetween Hispanic and white virtually disappeared). students “We document that even among students with high ized test scores, black students standardare less likely to be assigned gifted services in both math to and reading, a pattern that when controlling for other persists background factors, such and socioeconomic status, as health and characteristics of classrooms schools,” wrote researchers and Jason A. Grissom and Christopher Redding. A January 2016 article in U.S. the Vanderbilt study did uncoverNews & World Report noted that one factor that seemed to the playing field: When high-achieving level black children were taught by a black teacher, they were just ing white children to be assigned as likely as similar high-achievto a gifted program. Similarly, a 2016 Atlantic piece on the study titled “Why Are There So Few Black Children possible racial bias, conscious in Gifted Programs?” pointed to rals as one possible explanation.and unconscious, in teacher referThe Vanderbilt scholars, however, were careful not to draw conclusions about cause and effect biased. In many school districts,or labeling non-black teachers as for example, tests not teachers determine gifted eligibility. Theories behind this black-white divide include varying ceptions of behavior (one student may be labeled a problem perchild,
Diplomatic Spouses
As world leaders converge on New York to debate the refugee crisis, cash-strapped Greece finds itself on the frontlines of the mass exodus of people washing up on Europe’s shores. Haris Lalacos, Greece’s new envoy, tells us why the refugee crisis is a global problem that “requires an international approach to a long-term solution — and this has not happened yet.” / PAGE 13
EU Wife Does Diplomacy By Design Living through a home renovation is never easy. But most architects and interior designers don’t sleep inside their projects. Agnes O’Hare does. The wife of EU Ambassador David O’Sullivan, O’Hare is an architect and interior designer who has taken on the job of remodeling the bloc’s Kalorama residence. / PAGE 33