Keeping smart kids down

Photo: Anastasia Shuraeva/Pexels

We know what happens when urban schools cut gifted education, writes Alina Adams, whose three children attended New York City public schools. Affluent parents move to a district with more challenging schools, pay for private school or supplement with after-school classes and computer camp. Their children excel. Parents who can't afford alternatives see their children lose motivation and learning in unchallenging classes.

If Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor of New York City as expected, he says he'll adopt a 2019 proposal to replace advanced classes for "gifted" students with enrichment for all.

"For younger children, that could mean setting up small groups of students who are pulled out of their classrooms to learn the basics of photography," writes Adams. Middle and high schools might survey students' interests and offer electives in topics ranging from robotics to journalism.

But advanced students would have to sit through general-education classes in academic subjects with classmates who need to move at a much slower pace, she writes.

How does being able to take photos, direct videos, and make robots keep boredom at bay during traditional subjects for kids who are reading chapter books in kindergarten and experimenting with math algorithms in second grade?

It's not just the super-high-IQ kids who need more challenge, writes Adams. What's considered "gifted and talented" in New York City public schools "would be considered standard in Europe and Asia for students two grades younger," she writes. That's why the city's teachers think 85 percent of their students could handle gifted programming.

Low academic expectations and fun electives are supposed to benefit low-income and minority children, she writes. But, "we know it won't."

Like many other cities, New York tried to shrink the achievement gap by getting rid of tracking, she writes. Placing all students in the same class -- no acceleration or honors -- was supposed to equalize achievement.

The rich left. The poor, often also nonwhite, got a poorer education. With fewer opportunities to read complex, difficult books and no middle-school algebra, they weren't prepared to succeed in advanced high school classes or qualify for the city's selective high schools.

Replacing "gifted" with "advanced education" could depolarize the issue, writes Fordham's Michael Petrilli.  Progressives want to expand access to advances courses in high school, but they're cool on ramping up the challenge in elementary school, he writes. "Gifted" sounds like we're sorting young kids into winners and losers.

"Rather than relying on parental nominations or teacher recommendations, which can introduce racial and class bias," he writes, tests that everyone takes should identify students who'd benefit from more challenge.

Finally, offer advanced classes to at least the top 10 percent of students at each campus. "In some schools — typically high-poverty ones — some of those students won’t be all that high performing compared to district, state, or national 'norms,',” Petrilli writes. That's OK. Give them a chance to aim higher.