Education experts warn Mamdani plan could gut NYC gifted programs, hurt low-income students
Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has outlined plans to scale back the city’s Gifted and Talented program, prompting some education experts to warn that doing so could deprive...
By Fox News · Fox News
Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has outlined plans to scale back the city’s Gifted and Talented program, prompting some education experts to warn that doing so could deprive high-achieving students — particularly those from low-income families — of critical academic opportunities. Recent media reports indicate that Mamdani, who took office in January, intends to end the city’s Gifted and Talented program for kindergarten students and delay entry until third grade, a move critics argue would amount to a major weakening of accelerated learning options in the nation’s largest school district. The plan is drawing sharp criticism from Defending Education, a national education watchdog group that previously fought, and won, a years-long legal battle to preserve New York’s gifted programs after it was argued that the admissions system had discriminatory effects and reinforced racial inequities in education. "The Court of Appeals rightly concluded that the role of the judiciary is not to make education policy," Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and legal fellow at Defending Education, told Fox News Digital, adding that the program complied with state education law and equal protection requirements. GOT A SCOOP ON CAMPUS? SEND US A TIP HERE But Perry warned that Mamdani’s policy agenda could undo what the courts upheld. "As we suspected he might, newly minted democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani — himself, a product of expensive private schools — has pledged to shut down the gifted and talented program, despite the fact that it has helped countless students from humble backgrounds achieve their full academic potential," Perry told Fox News Digital. "Depriving kids of much-needed advanced learning opportunities is not only foolhardy, but it's also the height of hypocrisy coming from someone who was born into affluence and attended costly private schools. Apparently, Mamdani believes only the privileged should have access to various educational opportunit…