The Center's Astral Codex Ten Grant
And our plan to chart the policy landscape of advanced education in America
The Center for Educational Progress is proud to announce that we have received an ACX Grant from Astral Codex Ten, a blog by psychiatrist Scott Alexander that covers topics such as science, medicine, philosophy, politics, and futurism. The grant will be used by the Center to chart the policy landscape of advanced education in America.
As one of our previous posts discussed, polling shows that Americans support advanced education, but are often unaware of the state of it in their communities. The reports we will publish, detailed below, are the first step to make the general public more aware of the current state of advanced education nationwide.
Finally, the grant has a crowdfunding component. Anyone who is interested in funding this work can click here and make a donation. Thank you!
Report #1: America’s Missing Gifted
Every other year, the federal Department of Education Office of Civil Rights releases publicly available data on every district and school in the United States. Included in this data is whether a district and/or school has a gifted program, the number of students enrolled in the program, and demographic composition of the program.
The next release of this data, which will cover the 2023-24 school year, is scheduled for December 2025.
The Center’s first report will be an analysis of this data, as well as all previous releases of the data going back to 2013. We will be answering the following questions at both the national and state levels:
What percentage of schools have gifted programs?
What percentage of students attend a school that has a gifted program?
What percentage of students are enrolled in gifted programs?
What is the demographic composition of gifted programs?
What is the demographic composition of gifted programs compared to student enrollment?
What number of students would qualify for gifted programs if they were offered at their school?
What number of students would qualify for gifted programs if their school followed best practices for identification?
Answers to each of these questions will be published as separate pieces on the Center’s Substack starting in early 2026.
Report #2: State of the States
The Center’s second report will be an analysis of state laws to determine whether they have in place best practice policies for gifted student identification and flourishing. We will be looking to see whether states do the following:
Produce an annual report on gifted programs
Monitor or audit gifted programs
Require schools to identify gifted students
Require schools to identify gifted students using universal screening
Provide funding for universal screening
Require schools to provide unique services to gifted students
Provide specific funding for gifted programs
Have an accountability system that includes measures of advanced learning and excellence
Have a policy that allows early entrance to kindergarten, taking above grade level courses, grade-skipping, and early graduation
Have a policy that allows for middle/high school concurrent enrollment
Have an automatic enrollment policy
Have a concurrent/dual enrollment policy for high school students
Provide financial support for SAT/ACT/AP testing
Require teachers, administrators, and/or counselors to take coursework on gifted education
Like the previous report, answers to these questions will be published as separate pieces on our Substack starting in fall 2026.
My GOODNESS, congratulations!
This is excelent work. The state by state analysis will be particularly valueable since gifted program implementation varies wildly. Many schools dont even use universal screening which leaves so many talented students unidentifed. The demographic disparity data will be crucial for pushing policy reform, especialy in states that dont require schools to provide any gifted servces at all.