Policies Have Consequences

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced that he would end the Gifted & Talented (G&T) program in the New York City Schools. BizPac Review posted an article yesterday detailing the consequences of that decision.

The article reports:

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio may have inadvertently started a religious revival in the Big Apple after announcing the elimination of the Gifted & Talented (G&T) program for the city’s schools.

The Diocese of Brooklyn, which serves 1.2 million Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens, cited that their Catholic elementary schools’ enrollment grew by 2.4 percent for the current school year, according to a report by the New York Post.

The increased interest in religious education comes after more than a decade of decline in enrollment for parochial schools in New York.

But this year the tables are turned as public schools in the city have been plagued by low attendance and steep declines in enrollment with nearly 18 percent of New York City school children failing to show up on the first day of instruction. A risqué drag queen performance at a 2017 New York City elementary school talent show probably didn’t help enrollment numbers either.

“The families that came to us last year stayed with us,” Dr. Thomas Chadzutko, superintendent of the Diocese of Brooklyn’s schools explained. “This is a positive time for Catholic education within the diocese […] It is an alternative for families.”

Many parents do not believe that drag queen performances in elementary schools are appropriate. Unfortunately, that is not the only inappropriate thing going on in some of our schools. Parents are beginning to realize that in recent years our public schools have forgotten their mission to teach children how to read, write and do mathematics. Somehow the schools have instead adopted the idea of undermining the values many of the parents are trying to teach their children. The past year or so of remote learning educated parents about what their children were being taught. As parents wake up, we are seeing more children going to religious schools, private schools, or being homeschooled. Parents should be applauded for the actions they are taking to protect their children and making sure that their children will have the chance to excel in the things they do well.