Pols rally against nixing Gifted and Talented programs
BY MARK HALLUM
Don’t lower the standards,
raise them.
That was the message from
City Council members who rallied
Wednesday at City Hall
urging the de Blasio administration
to reject a recommendation
by the School Diversity
Advisory Group to scrap the
city’s Gifted and Talented
(G&T) Program.
A group of elected officials
from across held a rally calling
on Mayor Bill de Blasio and
Schools Chancellor Richard
Carranza to not only stand by
the program, but to also expand
it and add more children
from all walks of life.
In a Sept. 3 interview with
WNYC radio, Carranza indicated
that no one should expect
any changes to the Gifted &
Talented Program this school
year, which begins Sept. 5.
Even so, lawmakers at the Sept.
4 City Hall rally were adamant
about preserving the program
and helping more New York
City students qualify for it.
“There was a shift in the
Bloomberg era around gifted
and talented programs where
they were localized and then
they began centralizing them
solely on testing,” Councilman
Robert Cornegy said. “We believe
that instituting the program,
localizing it again and
having other criteria will give
all students the opportunity to
be high-achieving students.”
The panel on diversity was
appointed by de Blasio; in August,
the group released a study
which claimed that eliminating
the G&T program altogether
would put more students at a
disadvantage than leveling the
playing field.
“The fact of the matter is
that if 90 percent of our children
were doing well in the
New York City public school
system, we would still be failing
over 100,000 children each
year. Let those numbers sink
in: we are nowhere near 90 percent,”
Councilman Barry Grodenchik
said. “This is not broken
and it should not be fixed.”
But Cornegy and Councilman
Ben Kallos were resolute
that if the issue behind fewer
children being admitted into
the program is capacity, the
Gifted and Talented program
should be expanded with
“multiple on-ramps.”
Cornegy, in a letter to Carranza
Photo: Mark Hallum/QNS
argued that if the program
was not working, there
would not be a number of students
commuting an hour to
attend the school that will give
them a leg up.
This is not the first attempt
by the de Blasio administration
to diversify schools through
eliminating programs or testing
seen by some experts as being
discriminatory.
In 2018, legislators across
the city pushed back against
the mayor’s call to eliminate
Specialized High School
Admissions Test, citing an
overwhelming lack of black
and Hispanic students being
admitted. They made a similar
argument that the city
should instead increase access
to programs helping all
students score high on the
test, rather than eliminate the
test entirely.
“Gifted and Talented programs
provide students with
rigorous and challenging curriculums
that help them reach
their full potential in the classroom,”
Congresswoman Grace
Meng said. “We should not
do away with them. Instead,
we should be expanding G&T
seats in all areas of the city and
improve the testing process,
so that children in every community
can benefit from all
that these important programs
have to offer.”
Councilman Robert Holden
said that, in his experience
as an educator, different
students require different
workloads and curriculum
in different subjects making
the program valuable to
childhood development.
“I saw it firsthand at CUNY
where 80 percent of the students
graduated from public
high schools … what you eliminate
in Gifted and Talented
borderlines on criminal – it
really does – because we’re at
a point where the system has
been failing and failing for decades.
It needs bold initiatives
and Gifted and Talented gives
that initiative,” Holden said.
The de Blasio administration
has yet to respond to
a request for comment for
this story.
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