On Thursday, The New York Post reported that Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani has said that he will phase out the gifted and talented programs in the New York City schools.
The article reports:
Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor, said Thursday he would eliminate the accelerated learning program at the kindergarten level, something that’s likely to anger parents, who have been passionately divided on the issue.
The gifted classes would remain active through the school year, but would no longer be available next fall, he said.
Critics have attacked the coveted learning model as racist due to the higher number of white and Asian students that gain entry through the exam.
Maybe it’s time to examine the cultural factors behind the fact that white and Asian students do better on the exam. Let’s look at family structure, family discipline, parental involvement in a child’s education, etc. I remember one of my daughter’s classmates in Massachusetts who began preparing for the SAT’s in seventh or eighth grade. I think that’s a bit excessive, but the child did very well.
The article notes:
Danyela Souza, vice president of Community Education Council 2 in Manhattan, and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute think tank who tracks education, flunked the plan, saying it could spark an exodus from the city public school system.
“Mamdani is eliminating opportunities for low and middle income students to access an advanced education,” Souza, a public school parent, told The Post.
The article concludes:
“Parents are going to look to private schools or charter schools as an option or they’re going to move out of the city. You have one chance to educate your child.”
Mamdani’s two general election opponents — independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, also slammed his plan.
“Eliminating opportunities for excellence doesn’t help underserved kids, it perpetuates the problem. It creates a false equality, by eliminating any opportunity to excel,” Cuomo said.
“The Democratic ideal has always been about providing more opportunities for historically marginalized students to access these programs—not eliminating academic excellence altogether.”
Sliwas, during a press event Thursday, said, “I would not only maintain the gifted and talented as I saw up close and personal, I would expand it.”
He noted that Mamdani did “outstandingly well” at Bronx HS of Science, where students need strong scores on a single-test exam to get in.
“So he benefited from all that, but he wants to deprive young children who need advanced courses,” Sliwa said.
Great schools for me, but not for thee.