Yesterday, the MacArthur Foundation named 22 people to their hallowed fellowship program, often referred to as the “Genius Grant.” The foundation awards $800,000 grant to individuals from across different fields who external nominators believe exemplify remarkable creativity and potential future work. MacArthur believes that this no-strings-attached grant would help further their singular pursuits. This announcement comes at a vexing time for those of us working in education policy and practice. For New York City denizens, The Times shook the educational hornet’s nest by asking mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani about gifted and talented programs. When asked, Mamdani said he would end gifted and talented programs for kindergarteners.

Gifted and talented programs are popular among a set of upwardly-aspiring middle and upper class parents. Gifted and talented programs breed segregation and deficit thinking in the nation’s public school system. Both are true at the same time.

Scholars have explored the concept of “genius” in important ways (with deference to Drs. Gholdy Muhammad, Christopher Emdin, Donna Y. Ford, and others). I should also let you in on a secret: for research, I informally review the MacArthur fellowship winners’ biographies. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting them, usually before they won the award. Every time I call them “genius,” they either blush or tell me to “stop it!”. When I ask them why, they pause. Then, after some ruminating, they acknowledge the generous gift they’ve been given and push me to think of their work as a public-facing endeavor.

In other words, the grant helps them advance works that help their communities and, potentially, humanity. They’ll quibble about the source of their creativity. But they see that award as an opportunity to create something larger than themselves.

Interestingly, the vast majority of the winners passed through all the academic filters our system uses to sort students. Many of them probably found themselves at the top of their class at some point. The “genius” unfolds despite and because of their circumstances. All the while, our education systems over the last quarter century have consistently found ways to stifle our students’ creativity, imaginations, and dreams.

The United States left millions of children behind on a bipartisan basis. Policymakers focused so much on test scores, core content areas, and jobs that “haven’t been created.” The third feels more cogent now, as corporations seek to replace skilled people with deskilling algorithms. If K-12 education boils down to a standardized test, then the byproduct is a student body that uses large language models to offload lower and higher order thinking. When teachers receive scripted lessons without enough time, space, and compensation to collaborate and write, teachers follow suit. Schools spent two decades cutting back on arts in favor of tested subjects all for people to write a prompt into a machine that generates renderings for them.

And we confuse the products generated by the machines for art, too. Who does that serve? In this light, children have more opportunities to see education, and life, as meaningless.

Furthermore, thousands of “gifted and talented” programs at multiple levels of schooling screen students for academic aptitude. While the aspects of gifted and talented programs vary district to district, the results are mixed at best. Authors of that study highlight an array of ideas worth bringing into this:

The analysis revealed that internal factors such as motivational, emotional-social, and demographic factors, as well as external factors including environmental perception, family, peers, and socio-economic/cultural factors, play significant roles in the underachievement of gifted students. The study underscores the importance of understanding and addressing these factors in all stages of a gifted student’s educational journey, from screening and assessment to identification, planning, and rehabilitation. It highlights the need for a comprehensive strategy that goes beyond solely focusing on the psychological empowerment of students.

Some bring in their individual stories about children who can read and do math at levels higher than their peers. I won’t debate personal experiences at first. Yet, the adults who’ve gone through these programs as children tell a nuanced story (myself included). From the research, there’s a positive but mixed body of research on those who people consider “gifted.” Some studies show that, generally, those labeled as “gifted” had a positive academic experience, but others show the negative effects of “giftedness” on their adult lives.

Many of my former students never got to showcase their acuity because schooling segmented them immediately. Abbreviations as labels appeared next to their names, which stifled their prospects. Many of my multilingual learners were implicitly not given the opportunity to take higher level algebra. (I taught it anyway.) Others were given individualized education programs and were given an unwieldy list of reasons they couldn’t excel in school. Many of my students, who, through no fault of their own, have bore the weight of a society that has rarely seen them for their most luminous selves. That played into their self-concept to this day.

As a sociologist, I can’t help but to think to why “gifted and talented” programs are such a tenuous issue. Part of it is that parents see their children as special, but also an extension of themselves. That’s natural. But our society confuses “my kid is special and deserves an experiences that matches their abilities” with “no one else’s children should have the type of education mine is getting.” Some parents are looking for any edge that makes their children the beneficiary of market-based odds.

Increasing the odds for one child to get into a problem while advocating to decrease the odds for another child is weird at best, oppressive at worst.

To that end, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, like Mayor Eric Adams, has advocated for expanding gifted and talented programs. But expansion won’t solve the segregation chasm in a city with a student body that’s 85% students of color. Rather than ensuring that every school gets a great education, people prefer the disparities if it means only acceptable children matriculate into those programs. A framework that pushes families to compete with each other gives us an inherently divided school system.

Also, what good is a program in which our schools label children gifted and talented, but don’t give them authentic opportunities to explore their radiance?

All of our children are gifted and talented. A framework in which every child had the largesse of opportunities to thrive would break down barriers, including the idiosyncratic Specialized High School Aptitude Test. The goal is to support students across the academic and socio-emotional spectrum without making any student feel worthless for choosing their own path. Some advocates, including those on the BrilliantNYC committee, have tried to bring this issue to light with research and nuance. We can actually keep expectations high, teach students how to read and do math, and scaffold so every student can climb up their ladder of genius. That takes resources, a concerted effort, and a collective moral will to do so.

As Linda McMahon and those who aspire to her political vision attempt to destroy public education, more people ought to see the wisdom in guaranteeing educational opportunities for our children. I’m not just advocating for personalization. I’m advocating for a complete transformation of why we want children to get an education to begin with.

Surely, the genius we see in our children will hopefully help us build more ingenuity now and in the future. For us all.

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