Don’t Eliminate Gifted Programs
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Version 0 of 1. To the Editor: Re “New York City Panel Advises Eliminating Gifted Programs” (news article, Aug. 27): I was incredulous after reading about the recommendation of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s panel: eliminate all gifted and talented programs in elementary and middle schools throughout the city. This is probably the worst of the many horrible ideas to come from the mayor and his cronies. Our goal as a city should be improving our schools so that every student is educated to his or her maximum potential. Instead, our mediocre mayor and do-nothing chancellor want to ignore the needs of hundreds of thousands of bright kids of all races and backgrounds, and embrace mediocrity in the name of integration and politics. Maybe the schools chancellor and the mayor should focus on improving the education provided in our schools citywide and stop pandering to their political constituencies. Alan N. QueenFlushing, QueensThe writer is the father of two children in New York City public schools. To the Editor: Instead of developing effective programs to help lower-income parents help their children succeed in school, and perhaps become eligible for enriched or gifted programs, the mayor’s panel of ideologues advises the elimination of these programs. Sounds like the city shooting itself in its proverbial foot. If this advice takes root, the whooshing you hear will be the sound of parental funding of supplemental programs being withdrawn. And yes, there will be a stampede to the suburbs. It has happened before. Bob OhlerkingBrooklyn To the Editor: In making the case that the New York City public school system is “racially segregated” because some of the top programs — such as Stuyvesant and Bronx Science High School — have relatively few black and Hispanic students compared with the school system at large, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s panel and some news reports have ignored some basic realities that have existed for several decades in New York City: Parents of high-achieving “minority” children now have lots of alternative options, and they are using them. For example: According to an Independent Budget Office report, in 2013 there were more than 240,000 children in city “nonpublic schools” — parochial and private — and 25 percent of them, about 60,000 children, were black or Hispanic. Charter schools educated another approximately 60,000 schoolchildren at that time, and students were overwhelmingly black (60 percent) and Hispanic (35 percent), according to that same report, and charter schools have seen a rapid increase in growth since that time. It may well be that parents who have equal or better options for their children than the intensely competitive “specialized” high schools — including scholarships to independent schools like Horace Mann and Fieldston that seek out talented diversity candidates — are choosing those alternatives. Adrian BenepeNew YorkThe writer is a former New York City parks commissioner. To the Editor: It seems that the New York City public schools, which have failed in so many ways for so many years, are about to take another plunge. In an effort to promote racial integration, there are plans to eliminate programs for gifted and talented students. Talent and intellect can be found in all races and ethnicities. Instead of eliminating these programs, how about keeping them and developing tests that really work to uncover the talents and abilities of all of our students? Michael GoudketSeaford, N.Y.The writer is a retired elementary school art teacher. |