{"id":515348,"date":"2026-01-14T11:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T11:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/515348\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T11:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T11:10:07","slug":"opinion-mamdani-should-focus-on-diversity-and-enrichment-over-gifted-and-talented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/515348\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Mamdani should focus on diversity and enrichment over \u2018gifted and talented\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

With all eyes on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, we\u2019d like to propose a resolution for his first year. The city\u2019s gifted and talented (G&T) program has long been trumpeted as a way to retain middle-class<\/a> students in the city\u2019s public schools. But the program enrolls only 18,000 students, or a mere 2% of the city\u2019s children. The program is also\u00a0highly segregated<\/a> \u2013 with its disproportionately white, Asian, and affluent population \u2013 and doesn\u2019t reflect the diversity of the city\u2019s many communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As two academics who have spent over a decade studying <\/a>school choice and educational policies including in NYC, interviewing hundreds of parents about their school choices, we know that there are more effective and equitable ways for Mamdani\u2019s newly-appointed schools chancellor to serve the city\u2019s schoolchildren.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For years, the city\u2019s G&T programs have selected students at age 4. That process led to a highly inequitable program. Issues such as the test-prepping of preschoolers exacerbated inequality at the expense of lower-income students and families of color. And while under the Adams administration, preschool teacher recommendations have also been used to select students for the program, that process has still been\u00a0criticized for potential bias<\/a>. Although there is some evidence<\/a> that racial representation for Black and Latino students in G&T programs has improved, they still do not represent the rich diversity of the city\u2019s students. They also create within-school segregation in conflict with the NYC Mamdani represents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, and as our research<\/a> with \u201chappiness-oriented\u201d parents in NYC has shown, the G&T programs do not meet all families\u2019 priorities. We have found that NYC parents, even those from privileged backgrounds, often choose schools that promote their children\u2019s social-emotional well-being, rather than ones that solely promote academic rigor based on test scores.\u00a0 As one NYC mother we interviewed put it, \u201cWhen most people think about top schools, they think of them in terms of test scores \u2026 yet we know test scores don\u2019t really tell the whole story. I\u2019m definitely more interested in social interactions in the school \u2026 diversity of the school, in terms of race makeup, in terms of how they deal with social issues in the school.\u201d<\/p>\n

These \u201chappiness-oriented\u201d parents in NYC that we identified in our research are financially privileged, live in different neighborhoods across the city and come from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. They have a more expanded view of what constitutes a good school than the media and politicians would have us believe. To keep their families happy, they look beyond prestige, demographics and test scores and choose schools that offer other benefits. These benefits might include elements such as specialized curricula in the arts, experiential education, wellness or dual language enrichment programs. Such parents also frequently prioritize school diversity to affirm their child\u2019s racial identities or to expose them to diverse peers in NYC and choose schools close to home that will be convenient for family life.<\/p>\n

In Mamdani\u2019s acceptance speech, he said, \u201cWe have stepped out from the old into the new.\u201d This should hold true in his agenda for education. Rather than maintaining and simply tweaking the G&T program, the city should instead phase out the separate G&T program model and\u00a0expand schoolwide enrichment<\/a> offerings that highlight creativity, language, movement and diversity.<\/p>\n

The Mamdani administration should also build upon the\u00a0School Diversity Advisory Group<\/a>\u2019s recommendations to mandate that districts phase out G&T programs to improve schoolwide diversity, and the\u00a0Brilliant NYC model<\/a>\u00a0that would replace G&T with project-based learning and \u201cenrichment for all\u201d that builds upon and cultivates each student\u2019s strengths. Community school models<\/a>, which have shown success, should be supported, and expanded and provide avenues for enrichment for all.<\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani\u2019s administration should listen to all parents \u2013 not only the most vocal ones. Politicians and educational leaders should consider the views of parents outside the heated debate about the G&T program, like the NYC parents in our happiness study, whose voices could aid policy efforts to promote school equity and improve school offerings for\u00a0all\u00a0students and families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With all eyes on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, we\u2019d like to propose a resolution for his…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":515349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,407,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,1269,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-515348","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-opinion","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115893149746396898","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}