Which Students Benefit from Gifted and Talented Programs? A Case Study of New York City's Gifted and Talented Program

The Gifted and Talented (G&T) program in New York City (NYC) is one of the largest and longest running programs for gifted students in the nation. Yet little is known about its effects on student outcomes. Using student-level administrative data of NYC public school students between the 2010-11 and 2018-19 academic years, we studied the effects of the G&T program on students' test score performance. Estimates from a matched comparison study show significant gains in middle school ELA and Math proficiency, after controlling for cohort, ethnicity, and district. Our balanced treatment and control groups provide sufficient sample sizes with which to analyze the performance of under-represented minority groups, and we find significant treatment heterogeneity, where Black and Hispanic students see the largest increase in academic proficiency scores after participating in the G&T program. Implications of these findings for education policy- particularly related to new developments in selective school admissions- are discussed.