Government schools in Seattle are making news for dropping gifted student programs in order to be “more inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive.” It’s an ongoing trend in school districts across the country that penalizes higher-achieving students by removing challenging curricula and “honors” courses.

An April 2 Fox News report noted that Seattle Public Schools (SPS) began phasing out its “Highly Capable Cohort (HCC) classrooms and schools for advanced learners during the 2021-22 school year, claiming the program did not address racial inequalities.”

The HCC will be phased out by the 2024-25 school year, and removed entirely by 2028, critics say, with a dumbed-down, cumbersome program that will likely benefit no one but will force teachers to “create personalized lesson plans for as many as 20 or 30 students.” The new program already requires that students be screened annually for “an ability to learn at an accelerated pace.” This begs the question of whether some students could be forced to fill a niche they are uncomfortable with or unqualified for in order to achieve progressive SPS political goals.

The SPS insists that its advanced program is “getting better” and “will be more inclusive, equitable, and culturally sensitive. In particular, students who have been historically excluded will now have the same opportunities for services as every other student and get the support and enrichment they need to grow.”

But skeptics abound. Johns Hopkins University School of Education Professor Johnathan Plucker, told the The Seattle Times: “The devil’s in the implementation. The district promises it will conduct a complete review of all the data, giving a holistic evaluation of every student’s strengths and academic achievement ... But it’s too early to know if the new system is effective yet.”

One parent who found her son’s HCC school to be a “lifesaver” after he learned to read at age 4 and continued to progress at an accelerated pace, is appalled that the program is being phased out. The Seattle Times reported that this mom and her like-minded peers doubt that “the new model will work because teachers in neighborhood schools won’t know how to teach to gifted kids and might overlook them, causing them to turn disruptive or slowing their academic progress.”

Some teachers agree, citing the excessive time and resources required to prepare individualized learning plans for every student in their classrooms. Plucker concurs that teachers will be unfairly burdened. “That is almost asking the impossible of people; that is just so hard,” he said.

Woke school board catalyst

Instrumental in shuttering the SPS’s gifted and talented program was school board head Chandra Hampson, who ironically was accused of racism in 2021. According to the Daily Mail.com, Hampson and another board member were found to have “violated the policy against harassing, intimidating, and bullying over their treatment of two black employees who were working on an anti-racism plan.”

While an investigation failed to find “clear evidence” that the board chief and her colleague discriminated against the staff members because of their race, it did conclude that they “used their positions and authority to the detriment” of these employees.

Hampson now stands accused by parents of a different type of racism; this time as discriminating against white and Asian students because there were too many of both groups enrolled in the HCC programs. SPS data show that for the 2022-23 school year, 52 percent of highly capable program students were white, 16 percent were Asian, and 3.4 percent were Black. The SPS points to this data as proof that the program was discriminatory and needed revamping.

But popular Seattle talk radio personality and researcher, Jason Rantz, observed that while critics argue that the HCC “did not reflect the diversity of the community,” the move to dismantle it “was prompted by Black Lives Matter activism.” Rantz added:

• Outraged more by the success of white and Asian students than by the untapped potential of black and Hispanic pupils, progressives would rather drag achievers down than elevate everyone. These self-proclaimed saviors boast on social media about tackling inequities, oblivious to the harm they inflict. 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. In other words, everyone will be equitably harmed.

War on merit?

One black father was quoted by several news outlets, including’s Rantz’s radio show, as pleading with the Seattle School Board to “consider the disservice you would be doing to the minorities that are already in the HCC program.” The concerned dad argued that the HCC “does more for Black children, particularly Black boys, than it does for their peers.” But the board, allegedly so committed to supporting diversity and minority interests, was unmoved.

Last year, the Culver City School District in southern California eliminated accelerated class programs from its high school curriculum. A Fox News op ed by reporter and writer Asra Q. Nomani charged that the “Woke Army” is attacking America’s future “by trying to destroy [the] concept of merit.”

She described the many students and parents who were “understandably angry about advanced learners left behind in the name of ‘equity,’” and charged district officials with waging a war on merit for years as self-described “equity warriors.”

Nomani wrote: “School district officials have been seeking ‘equitable education’ not equal [education]. Their plan included ‘Learning workshops on the concept of Critical Race Theory for parents and Professional Development on the concept of Critical Race Theory in the Classroom.’” She noted that the action in Culver City is “emblematic of a wider trend in which ‘equity’ is being used as an excuse to take away opportunities from advanced learners and high achievers to cover up the miserable failures of public-school officials who have not been able to close the achievement gaps between black and Hispanic students with Asian and white students.”

A Fox News report on the network’s popular program, The Five, also called out the Culver City School District for abandoning its gifted students curriculum. Host Brian Kilmeade called the development “sickening,” and noted that some districts backed off from eliminating such courses after parents fought back. Fox News host and former press secretary for President George W. Bush, Dana Perino, voiced her total opposition to the removal of accelerated classes in the name of equity, calling the practice “gross.”

Fox News pundit Patrice Lee Onwuka urged school districts to “stop punishing gifted students” and that “the war on merit and honors programs is hurting black children [and] others.” Onwuka cited the story of Dr. Patricia Bath, an ophthalmologist who pioneered laser eye surgery in the 1980s.

“A merit-based program set Bath on a career path,” Onwuka wrote. “In high school, she won a competitive research opportunity from the National Science Foundation at Yeshiva University. Bath called it ‘life changing’ for a White Jewish school teacher to mentor her, a Black teen from Harlem.”

Onwuka’s point is that all children are harmed by the withdrawal of merit-based programs, and that more students could be inspired to follow the path of successful achievers such as Bath “by providing more enrichment programs and rigorous courses of study to gifted young people of different backgrounds. We must challenge their intellectual curiosity, not dull it.”

Not all gifted programs are equal

Gifted education programs and curricula vary from state to state and are typically locally based. There are no official federal standards or mandates governing gifted education or its administration, which many would doubtless consider a good thing. However, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act does define gifted students as those “who give evidence of high potential or capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity who need special services and activities not ordinarily provided to fully develop those capabilities.”

A November 2022 article in U.S. News (usnews.com) noted that schools for gifted children “encompass a wide range of schools, including both private schools and public charter and magnet schools. The article quoted Lauri Kirsch, president of the National Association for Gifted Children’s board of directors, as cautioning parents “to keep in mind that just because a school is labeled for gifted students doesn’t necessarily mean it’s all that different, instructionally speaking, from a traditional school environment. Because there can be so much variety, parents should research each individual school carefully to make sure it's the right fit for their child.”

The late Phyllis Schlafly would have stressed that parents should examine both curricula and extra-curricular activities for gifted students. As long ago as 1997, she uncovered a program in New Jersey public schools that was little more than an exercise in guided imagery and amateur psychological analysis, which she described in her weekly Phyllis Schlafly Column. The document she acquired defined the “Philosophy of the Gifted and Talented Program” for 4th graders. Phyllis explained:

• Page after page instructs the teacher how to give guided imagery exercises under the caption “Your Mind’s Eye.” “Room will be darkened. Students must find comfortable position. Eyes may be closed or open. Closed is preferable.... Concentrate on slowly breathing, releasing energy from body.”
• “Tranquil Scene” is the title of one imagery exercise. “You’re standing on a sandy beach.... Feel the sand between your toes.... See little white fluffy clouds drifting, drifting.... See yourself sipping your favorite drink. Taste it ... enjoy.”
• At the end of the exercise, the teacher is instructed to count to ten, thereby “giving the students an opportunity to adjust to returning.” It certainly sounds like an out-of-body experience if it takes a count of ten to return to reality.

The New Jersey program included clairvoyance, sleep and dream analysis, and other psych-related topics. Parents today might be more skeptical than ever about the quality of any type of government school curriculum, including programs for gifted children, and thus more vigilant.

Nonetheless, parents across the country are seeking out gifted options and objecting loudly when they are sacrificed on the altar of “equity.” And there is at least one online platform that promises to help parents find the best schools and neighborhoods for their kids, should they be inclined to search. Niche bills itself as “the country’s leading platform connecting students and families with colleges and schools” that best fit their needs, including gifted and talented schools and programs.

Keeping gifted programs

Indications are that it’s unlikely gifted programs will disappear completely from the educational landscape anytime soon. Most parents want them to continue, and after decades in school districts nationwide, they have become, to an extent, entrenched.

Additionally, states have their own means of defining and assessing “giftedness,” and most gifted schools and programs are seeking to include more minority and low-income students by advocating for more effective means of identifying them. So, the outcry against these programs and the scramble to remove them may soon lose a primary excuse for doing so.

In any case, it may be more important for parents to continue fighting to retain the programs that genuinely offer academic advancement for students, accelerated or otherwise. For as Asra Nomani wrote: “It’s not just a war on merit. It’s a war on kids and the future of America ... In the 1950s and 1960s, communists in China targeted intellectuals for murder and labor camps during the violent Cultural Revolution of China’s past, and, in the same way, social justice warriors in America’s Woke Army have kids in honors classes in their crosshairs.”

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