Starting next school year, the city will stop giving 4-year-olds a screening test to identify gifted and gifted students, according to the plan’s outline released Friday by the city’s education department.
The program currently admits only 2,500 students a year out of 65,000 kindergartners across the city.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the change would allow tens of thousands to receive advanced instruction, rather than a select few.
“The era of judging four-year-olds on the basis of a single test is over,” he said in a statement. “Every child in New York City deserves to reach their full potential, and this new, equitable model gives them that opportunity.”
Instead the city will train all kindergarten teachers to provide accelerated learning in which students use advanced skills such as robotics, computer coding, community organizing or advocacy on projects while in their regular classrooms. The city will also screen students going into third grade to determine whether they would benefit from accelerated learning in a variety of subjects while in their classes.
Despite being one of the most diverse cities in the United States, New York City’s public schools have long been ridiculed as the most isolated. Its brilliant and talented program has highlighted the many inequalities of the education system.
About three-quarters of the roughly 16,000 students are of white or Asian descent, while Black and Latino students account for nearly two-thirds of the city’s 1 million public school children.
Tony Smith-Thompson, who has three children in public schools and who has joined other parents in calls to end the city’s gifted and gifted program, said the mayor’s move was long overdue.
“In a city that has so much inequality – which has a history of so much inequality – setting up an exclusion system and then pretending that people are able to compete equally is really hard. Public education really doesn’t have to be implicit. There should be competition because it’s a right that everyone should have,” Smith-Thompson said.
The program has sparked legal challenges over the years, with opponents alleging that it enforced a caste system in public schools.
“After years of fighting, the mayor has finally taken a step to end, or end, this institutional racism in our schools,” said Kaliris Salas, another parent.
A report released in June by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project was particularly damning.
Project director Gary Orfield wrote at the forefront of the report, “New York is a national epicenter of racial segregation in unequal schools after the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools are ‘inherently unequal’ in two-thirds of a century.”
Some Asian American activists have opposed ending the program, arguing that it gave their children educational opportunities to go to better schools and lift themselves out of poverty.
Donghui Zhang said, “It will especially hurt families who don’t have much and don’t have access to private schools or charter schools – or who move out of New York City for better education opportunities for their children.” Can’t take the risk.” , who campaigned unsuccessfully for a seat on the city council on a platform built partly on educational opportunities for low-income immigrants.
PLACE NYC, a group advocating for the expansion of the gifted and gifted program, said it was outraged that the mayor announced his plans without any advance notice. The group is planning a rally next week to protest the mayor’s move, which it predicts will lead to chaos in thousands of families.
Due to term limits, de Blasio will step down at the end of the year and most of the work to implement the changes may fall on his successor.
“They threw a grenade in the room and left,” said Kaushik Das, a leader of the group and now a member of one of the city’s education councils.
City education officials will hold community meetings with parents and teachers in the coming months to discuss changes and offer full details just before de Blasio’s term ends.
The next mayor may change the schedule again.
Adams spokesman Evan Theis said Democratic nominee Eric Adams, who is expected to become the next mayor in November’s election, “will assess the plan and reserve its right to implement policies based on the needs of students and parents.” ” .
“Clearly the Department of Education should improve outcomes for children from low-income areas,” Thijs said.
Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliva called de Blasio’s announcement “shameful” and said he would implement the program “immediately” if he becomes mayor.
There are currently 80 elementary schools in New York City that offer some quick instruction. City officials did not elaborate on how much it would cost to expand to all 800 primary schools.
The plan, called Brilliant NYC, would require hiring additional teachers who are trained to provide that instruction.
School Chancellor Misha Porter said, “As a lifelong teacher, I know that every child in New York City has talents that go beyond a test and that the Brilliant NYC plan will highlight their strengths so that they succeed. can.”
The plan was first reported by the New York Times on Friday.
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