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Baltimore

When Cellini Eastman searches for potentially gifted students, she defies convention.

Eastman bypasses the impeccable report cards and off-the-charts test scores鈥攖here are already programs set up for those students.

She wants to find bright children who don鈥檛 stand out in a traditional classroom.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 look at what they ... have, I look at what they need,鈥� Eastman said.

The children Eastman works with in a weekly after-school program are part of an experiment, the Baltimore Emerging Scholars program. A partnership between the district and the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, the program is designed to mine untapped potential in Baltimore, a school system where student test scores are nearly two grade levels below the national average.

At 21 schools across the city, the program introduces 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade students to above-grade-level lessons on architecture, engineering, and astronomy.

Most of the schools, which serve large numbers of black and English-learner students, rank among the bottom quarter of schools in the state of Maryland.

When the program began in 2014, the organizers had to convince principals that there were potentially gifted students in their schools.

The principals 鈥渨ould say, 鈥楾his is great and really exciting ... but we don鈥檛 have any of those kids in our school,鈥欌�� said Ashley Flynn, the associate director of research and special initiatives at the Center for Talented Youth, a gifted education program for school-age children around the globe.

鈥淭hat dialogue has changed and people are recognizing that there鈥檚 academic talent and that it comes in different shapes and sizes,鈥� said Flynn, a former Baltimore high school math teacher. 鈥淚t may not look the way that they鈥檙e used to.鈥�

Effective talent-development programs train teachers to work as talent scouts, spotting children who may not have the motivation or support they need to excel academically in traditional classrooms, said Del Siegle, the director of the National Center for Research on Gifted Education at the University of Connecticut.

But more often than not, teachers instead serve as deficit detectives, weeding out the students they assume won鈥檛 be a good fit because they have less-than-stellar achievement test scores, don鈥檛 pay attention in class, or are English-language learners, Siegle said.

鈥淵ou need someone who can say, 鈥楲ook at the interesting questions this kid asks, there鈥檚 something going on in that brain up there,鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really hard to pick potential. Without giving kids opportunities, the talent won鈥檛 surface.鈥�

鈥楽he Wants Us to Be Smart鈥�

The science, technology, engineering, and math-based classes in the Emerging Scholars program are interdisciplinary, weaving in lessons on reading, writing, and social studies, but the instructors have latitude in how they teach.

Schools determine whether the 25-week-long classes鈥攁ll taught by Baltimore city schools teachers鈥攁re held before or after school, or as pullout classes during the day.

At Moravia Park Elementary on Baltimore鈥檚 east side, Jeannine Disviscour selected Awaicha (pronounced o-ay-shah) Tafah, the French-speaking son of Cameroonian immigrants, because his classroom teacher marveled at how quickly he processed information, especially in math.

A 2018 study from Siegle鈥檚 national center found that few school districts offer programs to identify and recruit potentially gifted students who don鈥檛 perform well on traditional measures.

Some of the students at Moravia Park have failed math, struggled with phonics, or been labeled as 鈥減roblem kids鈥� because they do not focus in class.

Despite their struggles, Disviscour or another teacher saw something in them.

On a recent morning, Disviscour kneeled on the carpet in her architecture class to console a teary-eyed 7-year-old struggling to spell 鈥減arallel.鈥� At the same time, she encouraged Awaicha to lead his classmates on a scavenger hunt for shapes.

The constant movement and inquiry are by design. Disviscour aims to keep the children engaged and asking questions, challenging the teacher and classmates.

鈥淪he gets to teach us that she wants us to be smart,鈥� 2nd grader Aubrey Chestnut said.

Racial Imbalance

The Center for Talented Youth sought out the partnership with the city schools because certain students鈥攎ainly black and low-income鈥攈ad largely been shut out of its programs, which benefit academically talented students in all 50 states and more than 90 countries.

Leaders there decided the key to finding a more diverse pool of students was not testing more children or lowering the bar for participation; it was finding another way to identify them.

鈥淥ur focus is on those kids who have the strength in academics that we just have to try and uncover,鈥� said Amy Shelton, the center鈥檚 interim executive director. 鈥淗ow do we really serve these kids in Baltimore city in a way that pushes as many as possible to reach the highest level of potential?鈥�

At the end of each Emerging Scholars session, instructors write evaluations for each student that gauge whether they are ready for traditional CTY programming. Seventy percent of Baltimore Emerging Scholars students are deemed Center for Talented Youth-ready. This compares to only 3 percent of Baltimore schools students qualifying through above-grade-level testing.

The bar for participation is high. Johns Hopkins uses above-grade-level tests, such as the SAT and the School and College Ability Test, that measure math and verbal reasoning abilities.

In the Emerging Scholars program, each school also sets its own selection process for the program, with most relying on staff recommendations or teachers鈥� intuition.

But data show similar scores on some cognitive measures, such as those for processing speed and spatial skills, for students who complete the Emerging Scholars program with high evaluations and those who come to CTY by more traditional paths.

Johns Hopkins and Baltimore are not alone. School districts across the country have struggled to address the racial imbalance of their gifted learning programs.

In New York, 70 percent of students are black or Hispanic; yet white and Asian students represent more than 70 percent of students in the city鈥檚 gifted programs.

The disparities in the Baltimore schools aren鈥檛 as stark but still exist. While nearly 80 percent of the school system鈥檚 students are black, black students represent slightly less than half of the students classified as gifted. District data for the 2019-20 school year indicates 57 percent of students classified as gifted are black.

鈥淭hese programs have tried to be more equitable,鈥� said Donna Ford, a distinguished professor at Ohio State University鈥檚 College of Education and Human Ecology. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not there yet. They are by no means there yet.鈥�

To bring the demographics of identified students closer in line to the overall makeup of their districts, educators must do four things, Ford said: address educator bias that leads to the underreferal of black, Latino and low-income students; review screening procedures to ensure all students are evaluated; use qualifying tests that are less linguistically and economically biased; and, most importantly, improve outreach to families from underrepresented groups.

鈥淲e can educate and enlighten them about ... how their children could and should qualify [for programs],鈥� Ford said.

鈥楲et鈥檚 Feed Them鈥�

The Center for Talented Youth staff train the program instructors, warning them to expect pushback and frustration when students struggle with the above-grade-level material.

鈥淪tudents will be pushed in ways that they have not been pushed in the past,鈥� Flynn told teachers during a training earlier this year.

At another Baltimore school, Gwynns Falls Elementary, on a fall afternoon, Eastman guided students through a lesson on engineering design: developing a step-by-step guide to making a sandwich.

David Edwards and Tayler Logan sat at a table, working through the task. The 8-year-olds alternated between eureka moments and eye rolls.

With the Emerging Scholars curriculum, 鈥渢he kids can actually grapple with the material and don鈥檛 have to worry about time constraints,鈥� Eastman said.

Eastman said she also taught David, a methodical thinker, and Tayler, who鈥檚 quick on her feet, in the Emerging Scholars summer program. The two are, by traditional measures, average students in the classroom, she said, but they crave challenge.

The typical Emerging Scholar is 鈥渁 kid who has not been challenged, has not been valued enough prior to this,鈥� said Dennis Jutras, the coordinator of gifted and advanced learning for the Baltimore schools.

鈥淚n many ways, in many cases, this is the first time this student is being seen, given a voice and is being allowed to flourish.鈥�