Zohran Mamdani Wants to End Gifted and Talented Programs in NYC Elementary Schools
“Ultimately, my administration would aim to make sure that every child receives a high-quality early education that nurtures their curiosity and learning.”
Zohran Mamdani, the ‘Democratic Socialist’ who is likely to become the next mayor of New York City, wants to end elementary school programs for gifted students in the city.
This is DEI policy in action. It’s all about equity. If we can’t make everyone equally smart, we’ll just hold back the smarter students.
It’s especially galling because Mamdani went to an elite private school, which likely functioned as a gifted program in practice.
The New York Post reports:
Zohran Mamdani plans to phase out Gifted and Talented program in NYC elementary schools
Mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani wants to phase out New York City’s Gifted and Talented program — the democratic socialist’s latest move to revert to ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s era.
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.
But backers argue getting rid of the classes would eliminate opportunities for thousands of bright students from low-and-middle income families.
Mamdani’s proposal would be the first step in undoing the program across all elementary schools — a controversial change inside the Department of Education made by de Blasio on his way out the door in 2021, and reverted by Mayor Eric Adams when he took office.
“I will return to the previous policy,” Mamdani told the New York Times in a statement. “Ultimately, my administration would aim to make sure that every child receives a high-quality early education that nurtures their curiosity and learning.”
Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University wrote about this in a recent op-ed at The Hill:
Mamdani’s plan to ruin public education in New York
Zohran Mamdani appears to have a plan for leveling the playing fields in education. Faced with a huge number of students with comparably dismal scores in math, English, and science, Mamdani is going to bulldoze higher-achieving programs. It is a pledge that only Soviet central planner would relish.
By eliminating gifted and talented program in lower grades, Mamdani will increase equity through mediocrity. With some on the left demanding the closure of all such programs, the concern is that New York is following the trend in other blue cities. (His opponent, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, has said that he would actually expand these programs).
Even the Washington Post’s editors have objected to his plan as “damaging education in the name of equity.”
Although Mamdani is currently focusing on lower grades, these programs are under fire as racist or privileged since less than a quarter of students come from Black or Latino populations. Activists have long objected that roughly 70 percent of students in gifted classrooms were white or Asian American, even though these groups comprise only about 35 percent of the student body.
The result is that politicians like Mamdani are virtually pushing high-achieving families and students out of public education. Once they are gone, the glaring contrasts in proficiency among programs will also be gone.
The concept of equity is pretty simple.
It makes everyone equally miserable.
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“The result is that politicians like Mamdani are virtually pushing high-achieving families and students out of public education.”
I’m in favor of pushing all families and students out of “public education” – America’s best example of totalitarian socialism.
Socialists want every child to be under their control. Not the parents. The “Educators.”
They will decide what job you have, what education you get, what career you have, what food you will eat, what you will drink, where you live,
No one will get to make their own decisions. Especially the parent.
Then equality of outcome will be equitable.
Considering Arab fairly low average intelligence, very few of their children could qualify for gifted programs.
If you can preempt the bourgeoisie, it saves you from having to kill them later.
It prevents us from killing them later.
Socialists always want equality of outcomes as in equally poor and equally dumb. Mamdami will accelerate NYC’s death spiral. Why urban dwellers continue to vote for such nonsense is beyond comprehension.
Of course, because if they allow their peasants to become intelligent, it threatens the socialist ruling class’ power.
Ummmmmm, poor education in the urban NY school districts?
Why urban dwellers continue to vote for such nonsense is beyond comprehension.”
40% of New York City’s population were NOT BORN in America. Look it up.
Neither their children nor grandchildren will be traditional Americans.
Hurry up,TEXIT ! Get us OUT of this sewer.
One of the defining characteristics of voters who support Communist candidates is they make ZERO connection between what they vote for and what they get. Anything bad that happens is really the fault of (pick one or more of the following) white nationalists, systemic racism,
global warmingclimate chance, Israel, Christians, greedy oil companies, Trump, Jews, voter suppression, Zionists, gun owners.“Da man.”
“The result is that politicians like Mamdani are virtually pushing high-achieving families and students out of public education.”
He also will likely be pushing high achieving families out of New York City tax base as they seek better atmosphere for both themselves and for their children.
Then the Mudslime will get what they want. Control of the largest Metropolitan city in America. A place where they can launch their takeover and subjugation of the US.
Not Islamophobia.
Islamofact.
Come on down to Texas, ragheads !
Please !
Would his new education policy involve memorizing Das Kapital, the Koran, Mao’s Little Red Book, or Mein Kampf?
Shut up and send your kids to the reeducation camps like good little Socialists do.
Little Red Book, Little Golden Book, what’s the big deal?
We’re on the way to the Outer Limits episode where children that exceed the IQ limit are euthanized.
I am certified in two states, Pennsylvania and Florida, as a Gifted Education teacher (K-12).
To fail gifted students is to fail society.
However, isn’t education support determined by the state? What actual power does the mayor have over education programs and funding?
Gifted and other special education programs ARE equitable because the provide the services the students need. “EQual” programs give all students the same thing.
Well, sadly the education programs and funding are under the thumb of proven leftists in NYC and elsewhere. You can see it in numerous YouTube videos of school committee meetings. And remember how the Biden autopen regime went after outspoken conservative families at these meetings, with FBI harassment? Never touched the freakshow indoctrinating the students in the class though.
Invite 10’s of thousands of illegal aliens that can’t speak the language into your city, force them into your schools and when they immediately fall behind destroy all the other kids education in the name of equity. Sounds right
Sounds left, to be exact!
“No child left behind” really means “no child gets ahead.”
But keep in mind that idea came from the Republican wing of the Democrat Party.
Harrison Bergeron was not meant to be a how to manual.
I came here to say that.
Here it is.
https://www.tnellen.com/westside/harrison.pdf
“Nurture their curiosity and learning.” What feminized horse manure! These little ignoramuses ain’t got none. They must be disciplined to sit still and force fed the basics. It takes an advanced degree in education to be stupid enough to think a blank, undeveloped child has some vital, cooperative agency in developing his own intellect.
However, it is certainly possible to kill off any innate curiosity in children by boring them to death.
Yep. The education model we imported from Germany was designed to turn out lots of well disciplined cogs to fit into the industrial age ‘machine’. Not much room for non conforming idealists or individualism on the factory floor. For all it’s faults it still allowed creativity and personal growth if the Students were willing to put in extra effort. Now even that has been removed in public school districts apart from gifted/AP/Charter environments which is what Mamdani is seeking to eliminate.
It takes a communist village to maleducate, maim and make children malleable to communist propaganda. Kill off critical thinking, and you are left with assuming the teachers are competent and unbiased, something leftist control of the schools has proven to be false.
This, and fighting school vouchers, which underprivileged families LOVE, is another part of the long term Democrat communist destruction of the foundations of American and western civilization as a whole.
As Charlie Kirk would have said, prove me wrong.
Islam also kills critical thinking.
Would Mamdani have agreed to this process if he had been forced out of his exclusive school and to work with average students everywhere? Does he really believe that his intelligence will pull others up without them having to work for it?
GIFT give chances to students who want to work to get into accelerated classes. But there have to be qualifications. BTDT
Read “Harrison Bergeron” written by Kurt Vonnegut. It’s like the left is stealing the plot from dystopian novels
Its great to see NY voters achieving the Utopia they seek.
One problem with eliminating programs for the gifted is that you end up with bored, smart kids.
Think about the pranks they can/will pull.
I was once an active member of Mensa. In Algebra class, I did the homework by writing down the answers. I did not show the work.
My older son was accused of cheating by a college math professor. My son proved he was smart enough to provide the solution by working it out in his head. He was also the school’s computer expert. My wife noticed that he had keys to rooms at his high school that few teachers had access to.
Think about the pranks they can/will pull.
Why imagine?
My freshman year in hs I was put into the regular math class in spite of being in an accelerated math classes in jhs. The accelerated classes were small and would often exclude those of us from the near by air force base, also that teacher didn’t want any girls in his classes. He thought we would distract the boys.
The first week in the regular class I would do the problems in my head while writing them down. The teacher marked me down for this. So I would write the problem, put the answer down, THEN write the steps taken. He thought I was being a smartass until I did it on a test. Within a month I had finished the 9th grade text. So my teacher gave me the 10th grade math text book to work through.
Why is this hack always shown at an angle with his head cocked like some communist puppy? Is there some theory they this is the best dramatic pose for video?
Maybe he doesn’t have the muscles to hold his head upright.
It’s because it’s the photo that best fits the phrase, “Yeah, that’s the ticket!”
A key benefit of gifted programs is that are not trouble making students in the classroom.
Do-gooders insist that everyone should be in the same room.
While the teacher is distracted by the troublemakers, all learning stops.
Oh, do I remember the agony of having to sit idle for four minutes while each of the worst readers in the class got called on to read two simple sentences out loud.
Know what? I hope the SOB wins. It will bring the effects of his ideas into such sharp focus that it will be impossible for anyone with eyes to spin. NYC in particular and likely NY state will lose even more people—especially the smart ones.
That would be good. People will finally vote with their feet.
unity is their front
segregation is their goal
murder is their calling card
It fits, communist always want the lowest common denominator. They don’t want people to be exceptional or to stand out because those people tend to be problematic for them. They want interchangeable cogs in a machine, not people who can think for themselves.
Simple Jealousy since he is neither gifted nor talented.
I am a product of the NYC public school system in the 60’s. The “gifted” classes at that time served many at different levels. Not all students were true high achievers that did college work at the middle school level. Classes were divided by ability. We students knew which kids were “smart” and which were “slow”. The current mainstreaming of kids all together to protect their self-esteem, harms everyone except the inferior teachers. Slow students struggle to keep up while bright students are bored and wasted talent. No one is well served.
Mamdani proposes to destroy the last vestige of a system that worked to develop talent in favor of mediocrity for all.
The last two sentences are too ignorant for words.
Some people are much better off.
Does the author seriously believe that Mamdani’s kids, if he had any, wouldn’t be given opportunities not offered even to fellow comrades?
C’mon.
The fewer educated people, the more democrats and government dependents. Which, of course, is the goal. Educated people don’t vote for Democrats. (Don’t confuse a degree with an education…)