Watch an Update on the Excellence Gap

Excellence Gap panelists: Dr. Jennifer Giancola, David Steiner, Dr. Amy Lynne Shelton, and Chester E. Finn

Last week, a panel of education policy researchers gathered in New York to discuss recommendations and strategies for closing the Excellence Gap. America’s low-income students often lack equal access to our country’s gifted and talented programs, but the resulting inequity remains off the radar for many of our country’s leaders.

The Excellence Gap: The State of Gifted and Talented Education was a public, livestreamed discussion inspired by the Cooke Foundation’s report, “Equal Talents, Unequal Opportunities: A Report Card on State Support for Academically Talented Low-Income Students.” Watch the video below to learn about acceleration, universal gifted screening, providing parents with resources to advocate, and other research-supported ideas to close the Excellence Gap.

Meet the panelists:

Discussants

  • Jennifer Giancola, Ph.D.
    Director of Research, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
    Co-author, “Equal Talents, Unequal Opportunities”
  • David Steiner
    Executive Director, Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy
  • Amy Lynne Shelton, Ph.D.
    Director of Research, Center on Talented Youth, Johns Hopkins School of Education
    Associate Dean for Research, School of Education, Johns Hopkins University
  • Chester E. Finn, Jr.
    Distinguished Senior Fellow and President Emeritus, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Final Remarks

  • Harold O. Levy
    Executive Director, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation

To learn more about the Excellence Gap and find out how your own state was graded, explore these resources from the Cooke Foundation: