#readwise # Miss Buchanan’s Period of Adjustment  This Revisionist History podcast looks at how racism negatively impacts education of Black students in the United States. This is an example of poor [[Capitalization of Human Potential]], and, also shows how the [[Educational System in the United States Helps Maintain Class Segregation]] (as Black families tend to be poorer). It's a story of how the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision actually lead to more racism and inequality, in spite of allowing Black kids access to White schools. ## Metadata - Author: [[Revisionist History]] - Full Title: Miss Buchanan’s Period of Adjustment - URL: https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/miss-buchanans-period-of-adjustment/ ## Highlights - MG: Gifted programs are supposed to be meritocracies, places where the brightest children are given a chance to shine. Grissom's saying that's not the way things work in practice. JG: And you can go a little further because you can throw other things into the equation that aren't just achievement, you can look at differences in income, how healthy the parent says that child is. We know what age that child entered kindergarten. You know, on average, White students and Black students enter kindergarten at different ages, because of the phenomenon of red shirting. White parents are more likely to hold their kids back at the start of schooling than, Black students are. That doesn't explain the gifted gap. MG: In other words, you match up bright Black kids with equally bright White kids, then you make sure the two groups are similar in age, class, and [health] and you still find that the White kids are far more likely to be admitted to gifted and talented programs. Kind of puzzle, right? Finally Grissom and Redding say: look, in many cases, teachers play a big role in which students get into gifted programs: they encourage them, they recommend them. So they think maybe the answer here lies with not who the child is but who the child's teacher is. JG: In the overwhelming majority of school districts in the United States, the way that a kid ever gets to be identified as gifted is if someone in the school, usually a classroom teacher, has to look at that kid and say, "I think this kid might be gifted." MG: So Grissom does something really simple. He looks at the race of the teacher and what he finds is that, for White kids, there's no effect; it doesn't matter, but not for Black students. JG: For a Black student, the world looks different. So if I am a Black student and I have a Black classroom teacher, the probability that I'm assigned to giftedness in, in the next year looks very much like the probability for a White student. But if I am a Black student and I have a White classroom teacher, my probability of being identified as gifted is substantially lower. MG: How, how much lower? JG: Okay, so for very high achieving Black students, the probability of being assigned to gifted services under a White teacher is about half the probability, um, as an observably similar Black student taught by a Black teacher. ([Time 0:15:11](https://www.airr.io/quote/617422c83b174903fab2c620))