Like many school systems, New York City public schools offer their aspiring students a chance to enter their gifted and talented program. In order to identify the students who should be placed in these classes, yearly performance tests are offered. If the student qualifies, they are given the chance to enter into an advanced placement program.
The curriculum is more demanding in these courses, which is supposed to position these children for future success. Colleges will obviously look more favorably upon students who are in these programs.
Best of all, they are open to everyone, so parents do not have to worry about jockeying for position with other children.
Unfortunately for the parents of New York City, the results have not met the expectations of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza.
According to them, the programs do not accurately reflect the diversity of the city as a whole. Since there are not enough black or Hispanic children in these programs, they have their own idea to fix that problem.
So how do these two plan on adjusting the process and achieving their desired results?
These geniuses are going to be doing away with entrance tests.
“A big change is coming for New York City’s “gifted and talented” programs for students. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza say the city will start phasing out the entry exam. Critics have said the composition of the programs do not reflect the city’s diversity,” CBS News reports.
Chancellor Carranza even decided to fire off a tweet that was designed to put a stop to the speculation.
Gifted & Talented programs serve a small percentage of children—but we know many more @NYCSchools students are exceptional. We must move away from the test & develop a system that reimagines academic and enrichment programming for our most exceptional students.
— Chancellor Richard A. Carranza (@DOEChancellor) January 13, 2021
“Gifted & Talented programs serve a small percentage of children—but we know many more @NYCSchools students are exceptional. We must move away from the test & develop a system that reimagines academic and enrichment programming for our most exceptional students,” he said.
This is a load of gibberish and we are hard-pressed to figure out what he even means by any of this. How can a school system establish a program like this when they are unable to identify the students who need to be in it?
Placement testing is the only way to go about this task, near as we can tell. Unless one of these woke geniuses has a better idea that they have yet to share with, of course.
While the Mayor has been speaking out against these programs for a long time now, it’s a tough issue for him to tackle. He’d love to make these programs more diverse but there is just one problem with this mindset. He can’t just stomp on the programs and move on.
There are too many Asian students who are currently benefiting from them for such a decision to be made. The issue is placed in even starker terms when the numbers are evaluated. Asian students are a mere 14.1% of the city population but they make up a much larger percentage of students in the gifted program.
Mayor de Blasio cannot play the race card as easily as he would in these instances because he would be trampling all over another group of non-white people.
In his mind, the term ‘minority’ only applies to the populations that he needs to pander to.
If this program turns into a lottery of sorts, this is unfair to all of the children who are going to be deprived of opportunities going forward. The virtue-signaling that is going on here is off the charts. No one is going to be fooled, though.
This is the sort of empty-headed nonsense that makes everyone wonder why they even bother listening to their local leaders. The mayor may think that he is making some sort of point here but all he is doing is showing people that he’s got nothing but air in between his ears.
This is what happens when you are far more interested in performative behaviors than anything else.
