Clicking on the circle graph representing SFUSD demographics above you can see that Asians are the largest ethnic group of students in our district at 44% of the population. If you click on the GATE graph, you see they represent 66% of the GATE population. While Black students make up 9% of the general population, yet only 4% of the GATE population.

How do these numbers square up? Why are Asians and whites overrepresented in GATE programs while black and Latino (and Samoan) students are woefully under-represented? Should we chalk this all up to poverty? Parent education levels? Cultural predispositions? I don’t think so…

Interested in reading more?

Related reads: Why We Can’t Talk About Honors Programs without Talking About Race, It’s Time We Stopped Playing the Blame Game with Gifted Programs