14 THE QUEENS COURIER • SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Queens council members push back on eliminating Gifted and Talented programs
BY MARK HALLUM
mhallum@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Don’t lower the standards, raise them.
Th at 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 Gift ed and Talented (G&T)
Program.
A group of elected offi cials 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 Gift ed &
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.
“Th ere was a shift in the Bloomberg
era around gift ed 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.”
Th e 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 fi eld.
“Th e 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. “Th is is not broken and it should
not be fi xed.”
But Cornegy and Councilman Ben
Kallos were resolute that if the issue
behind fewer children being admitted
into the program is capacity, the Gift ed
and Talented program should be expanded
with “multiple on-ramps.”
Cornegy, in a letter to Carranza 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.
Th is is not the fi rst 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. Th ey 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.
“Gift ed 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 benefi t from all that these
important programs have to off er.”
Councilman Robert Holden said that,
in his experience as an educator, diff erent
students require diff erent workloads and
curriculum in diff erent subjects making
the program valuable to childhood
development.
“I saw it fi rsthand at CUNY where 80
percent of the students graduated from
public high schools … what you eliminate
in Gift ed 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 Gift ed and
Talented gives that initiative,” Holden
said.
Among those serving on the School
Diversity Advisory Group are Amy Hsin
from Queens College, who serves on the
executive committee. While a number of
the members are high ranking in higher
education, others have divergent backgrounds.
Yousof Abdelreheem is a student at
John Bowne High School and Ryan J. S.
Baxter associated with the Real Estate
Board of New York. Others come from
organizations such as NAACP and ACLU.
Th e de Blasio administration has yet
to respond to a request for comment for
this story.
Borough-based jail plan to go before Council
BY MARK HALLUM
mhallum@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
With the City Planning Commission’s
decision on Tuesday to approve the
ULURP application for four new jails
across the city — including a new facility
in Kew Gardens — reactions are ranging
from hope to dismay.
Th e Tuesday hearing in Manhattan
saw the agency vote in favor the proposal
by the Mayor’s Offi ce of Criminal Justice
with recommendations by the Lippman
Commission to close Rikers Island, but the
proceedings were punctuated by the chants
of activists calling for no new jails altogether.
Now the City Council will decide on
Photo: Mark Hallum/QNS
the fate of the plan, which aims to institute
The Queens House of Detention is one step closer
to getting razed thanks to the City Planning
Commissions vote in favor of closing Rikers and
building borough-based jails.
a culture change with Department of
Corrections while also keeping detainees
closer to families and courts.
A hearing with the Land Use Committee
in the City Council chamber will take
place between 10 and 5 p.m. on Th ursday,
Sept. 5, and is expected to be the only
hearing before a vote.
Former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman
was given the task of evaluating how criminal
justice reforms in the city could be
implemented by former Council Speaker
Melissa Mark-Viverito in 2017 and looked
at the decision as progress.
“With today’s approval by the City
Planning Commission of the city’s plan to
establish smaller, borough-based jails, we
are one step closer to shuttering the jails
on Rikers once and for all. Just three years
ago, the prospect of closing Rikers seemed
nearly impossible. With the momentum
generated by advocates and those who
have experienced fi rsthand the horrors on
Rikers, and the blueprint we developed
in “A More Just NYC,” we are closer than
ever before,” Lippman said. “We have a
once-in-generations opportunity to shut
the door on a dark chapter in our city’s
history and open a new one in which our
justice system can serve not only as a beacon
of fairness for New York, but for our
whole country.”
Th e proposal is currently on track to
impose these changes by 2026, which is
estimated to cost taxpayers about $11 billion
over the course of all that.
Th e facility in Queens will be built on
the current site of the shuttered Queens
House of Detention, behind the Queens
County Criminal Court House, and the
adjacent municipal parking lot.
Th e de Blasio administration has
reduced the capacity of the Kew Gardens
jail from 1,500 to about 1,100, but will
also include the facility where all the
women in detention across the city will
be housed.
Borough President Melinda Katz has
supported the plan to close Rikers but has
adjusted her view regarding the opening
of new jails.
Earlier this year, Katz voiced opposition
to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s eff ort to
move forward with the borough-based
jails unless he began again with more
community input. De Blasio said the project
would push forward as scheduled.
But in June, as a candidate for Queens
District Attorney, Katz adopted the stance of
rival for the seat Tiff any Cabán when she
vowed to not support any new jails whatsoever.
“I think with all the diversion programs
we’re about to use and services we’re about
to use, you could lower that population
easily to 3,000,” Katz said. “So if we’re
doing all of that, why are we in a rush to
approve a 1,500-bed facility anywhere
… I will not approve a 1,500-bed anywhere
in the borough of Queens, because
if you build the beds, the city’s going to
feel like they have to fi ll them up and that’s
not criminal justice reform to me.”
As for the Land Use Committee,
Queens Council members dominate
the roster, fi lling seven of the 17 positions.
Th is includes Peter Koo, Francisco
Moya, Barry Grodenchik, Rory Lancman,
I. Daneek Miller, Adrienne Adams and
Donovan Richards.
Lancman, during his run for DA, voiced
full support for the city’s plan to close
Rikers.
Photos: Mark Hallum/QNS
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