New York City officials are phasing out the controversial “Gifted and Talented” program for elementary school students, a massive change aimed at addressing racial disparities in the biggest school system in the country.
The entry exam identifying students as “gifted” will be eliminated, officials said Friday. Under the old status quo, about 2,500 incoming kindergarteners per year passed the optional exam, going on to spend their elementary school years in separate classrooms and schools.
That test was temporarily scrapped last year amid the pandemic. The last group of students in the program will still take G&T classes in their current form over the next five years.
Under the new system, all students will receive “accelerated instruction” featuring real-world projects about topics like robotics and community organizing starting in kindergarten, according to officials.
Then, in third grade, students will be screened in each subject area to see if they would benefit from continuing with the accelerated projects. Officials didn’t specify how the third graders will be screened.
All 4,000 of the city’s kindergarten teachers will be trained in accelerated learning, according to officials. The city will also funnel extra resources to neighborhoods that historically had few gifted programs. Seven borough-wide teams will help schools with some of the challenges of implementing the new system — including accommodating students with significantly different academic needs in the same classes.
The overhaul of the gifted program comes after years of debate and criticism — much of it focused on the fact that white and Asian students made up around 80% of gifted classes despite representing about a third of kindergarteners. Critics argued that the old system did not measure academic promise, but the ability of parents to prepare young kids for a standardized test. That contributed to the racial segregation of city schools, critics said.
Defenders have argued that the program is a lifeline for kids with unique academic talents who are not adequately served in traditional classrooms.
Since the start of his administration, Mayor de Blasio has vowed to reform the gifted program. Friday’s announcement comes with less than three months left in his term.
Officials said more changes could come before the end of the year as they gather parent feedback. A final plan will be rolled out in November.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor, campaigned on promises to keep the gifted exam for 4-year-olds and expand the number of separate gifted classes across the city. Adams, the overwhelming favorite to win November’s general election, won the endorsement of PLACE NYC, a parent group that has vocally supported the gifted admissions test and separate fast-track classes.
©2021 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
Diversity and inclusiveness creates the dumbing down of America. So the gifted children should be shamed for being gifted and discriminated against for being gifted by the communist Democrats!
Do not be deceived. The traditional programs that recognized exceptional ability to learn, think, perform and create for the benefit of others, will just be replaced by their socialist awards for exceptional ability to indoctrinate or be indoctrinated, turned into clapping Democrat trained seals, ability to redistribute wealth with government tax guns in Washington D.C. or real guns on the streets of your own home town, with special recognition for the ability to by-pass and obfuscate traditional American laws and especially elections,,,,,,and never get prosecuted for the crimes committed. They still have not figured out how to give out the award for being the most mediocre and average because with Democrats in charge, nobody excels at anything except deception and crime.
Vee are Da Borg.. All vill be assimilated.
This appear that not many Black students are as bright as White and Asian students.
Oh, the Democrat Party has to stop this, they have to put Back students with the IQ of a crayon through medical school.
Under the guise of “anti-discrimination.”
To fully advance the Demonic, Dishonorable Socialist Democrat Party’s destructive agendas of socialism, dividing our citizens with hate, open borders, gun control, radical feminism, abortion-on-demand, the LGBTQ lifestyle, unfettered sexual identity, transgender “gay marriage” and the like, the pagan Liberal left Democrats must do away with our Constitution, GOD, common sense, morality, Christian values and free religious exercise altogether.
Under the guise of “anti-discrimination.”
The American black communities were the Democrat Party Socialist intellectual designed canary in the social coal mine of social experimentation of how to conquer a nation from within, by destroying the basic human family structure. Not only were their men and women drugged into mental states of social dependency, bribed with free entitlements to lock them in, but their emotions libidos were enhanced and controlled with the offers of unlimited irresponsible sexual stimulation through music, media and the assurance that any inconvenient baby conceived could be easily eliminated at your local Planned Parenthood abortion location, the majority of which are located near African American Communities. The experiment that began with FDR and accelerated in the 60’s proved so successful, it was exported from the inner cities into the American suburbs to destroy that which stood in the way of their social American conquest, that being a strong traditional family consisting of one man, one woman that protected their children from the party of progressive poaching. Drive out the man and the deal is sealed. If buying the election with wasted black lives in bribed votes does not work, just get the computers or corrupted mail-in ballots to steal it.
When i went to high school in 90/91, of the 19 valedictorians we had, ONLY TWO were black, four latino, six asian, and the rest were white.. SO YES, blacks are not as smart as everyone else…
A school in Georgia just Celebrated 50 years of integration. 50 years of going to the same schools as whites and we still must lower Expectations. How many more years do they need ?? A state of North is getting rid of F’s.
Well they are at least now openly admitting they are going to start training their Soros / BLM / antifa style “community organizers” in kindergarten.
Left wing radicals are like pedophiles with an “eight is too late” mindset.
Seems its time for conservative freedom fighters to start our own community organizing & do some “good trouble” style protesting before USA becomes a totally bankrupt balkanized 3rd rate nation & babel becomes the common language.
HOME school al your kids. IMO that’s the only way to break the leftist indoctrination.
This is America. What has happened to be the best you can be? Why isn’t the Black Community fighting back? Yet, they stand up, go to the polls, and vote Democratic and all the while programs are being put in place by the Democrats to “Dumb Down” their children’s education. The Democrats have always seen the Blacks as a vote!! As long as the Black Community does not do some real in-depth study, get past the hand-outs and social programs then nothing will change. It merely comes back to educate yourself so you can inform your children. Each of us has the capacity to learn but not everyone has the same IQ.
They have to WANT to educate themselves.. AND tha is the problem.. ALL too often it seems they don’t!
The Democrat party is made up of abnormal underachievers who have cheated and lied their way to where they are today. Normal intelligent hard working people see them for what they are. They need uneducated people [like the millions they are allowing to pour over our southern border}to vote for them. Educated religious people are their enemy. Why is the Northern border closed ?
Our vice president is the best example. We all know she was the best candidate and most Qualified. We all can see how well she is doing. ???? We need truly gifted and talented people to run our country.
I laughed at one campus reform vid, where they were asking women from colleges “what about Kamala do you like” and MOST seemed to only able to answer “She is a female and POC”… NOT ONE could name one single policy decision or act she has done..