Below is my column in The Hill on the pledge of Zohran Mamdani to end some of the early Gifted and Talented programs in the New York educational system. The move is part of a national campaign against such programs as racist or privileged due to the higher percentage of White and Asian students who qualify. The fear is that the Mamdani administration will return to the disastrous policies of the de Blasio administration in rolling back on the programs.
Here is the column:
Zohran Mamdani appears to have a plan for leveling the playing fields in education. Faced with a huge number of students with comparably dismal scores in math, English, and science, Mamdani is going to bulldoze higher-achieving programs. It is a pledge that only a Soviet central planner would relish.
By eliminating gifted and talented programs in lower grades, Mamdani will increase equity through mediocrity. With some on the left demanding the closure of all such programs, the concern is that New York is following the trend in other blue cities. (His opponent, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, has said that he would actually expand these programs).
Even the Washington Post’s editors have objected to his plan as “damaging education in the name of equity.”
Although Mamdani is currently focusing on lower grades, these programs are under fire as racist or privileged since less than a quarter of students come from Black or Latino populations. Activists have long objected that roughly 70 percent of students in gifted classrooms were white or Asian American, even though these groups comprise only about 35 percent of the student body.
The result is that politicians like Mamdani are virtually pushing high-achieving families and students out of public education. Once they are gone, the glaring contrasts in proficiency among programs will also be gone.
Gifted and talented programs are a source of pride for many families as students work with advanced technology and theories. Mamdani himself attended one such high school, Bronx High School of Science in Kingsbridge Heights. Students must work extraordinarily hard to gain admission to these programs. But what is merit to some is privilege or racism to others.
These students also can present a glaring and unwelcome contrast with the rest of the school system, particularly among different racial or economic groups. New York spends more than any other city on education at $41 billion a year — $36,293 per pupil. Much of this money is devoured by a bloated educational bureaucracy, which has been failing our children for decades. More than 40 percent of grammar school students in the city failed the state’s standardized math and reading tests last year. There were some gains recently, but these may just be a result of schools lowering the bar for passing the tests.
Across the country, some districts are lowering proficiency requirements and eliminating standardized tests to create an artificial appearance of success. These schools spend massively while cranking out kids with little hope to compete in the new economy or escape a cycle of poverty. This new ideal of “grading for equity” is designed to manipulate test standards to create the appearance of success.
Other districts are dumping standardized tests in favor of plans to prioritize “educational enjoyment” over performance measurements.
Some schools have entirely eliminated proficiency standards to erase any objective measurements of success.
Within these under-achieving systems, high-achieving students are not always welcomed. It is obvious that, faced with the elimination of gifted and talented programs, many of these families will simply leave public education if they can find the means to do so.
Many school districts are already experiencing a drain of families who are turning to religious or private schools with a greater emphasis on basic educational skills and subjects. They are tired of districts paying millions for transcendental meditation programs or other woke programs as proficiency levels stagnate or fail.
The response of many politicians has been to fight school voucher programs and other alternatives to their failing public schools. While Mamdani wants to introduce socialist programs like state-run stores as an alternative to private businesses, he is less keen in offering alternatives to government programs like public schools. School officials and unions oppose school choice because they know that many families would just leave public schools in search of better educational opportunities — few, if given a true choice, would buy the public schools’ subpar product. Many are already leaving.
Mamdani now threatens to turn that stream into a tsunami. Rather than fight to keep the most motivated and successful students in the public school system, he is effectively going to chop off the top ten percent. He is following in the footsteps of a disastrous plan under former Mayor Bill de Blasio that later had to be rescinded.
If expanded from these lower grades, Mamdani’s plan would eliminate the prospect of students being able to work at the highest possible levels in the New York school system. New York offers all students the opportunity to undertake advanced work if they work hard enough to gain admission. That includes non-white students who can find opportunities for elite colleges and jobs through such programs. The early grades are a critical period for such students who show extraordinary talents to develop those skills.
For teachers, the result can be equally dysfunctional. They will now be faced with students who require a far more intense level of instruction to progress. With a few gifted and talented students in a class, it is more likely that they will teach to the majority and leave the advanced students stagnating.
That can be devastating for advanced students. The gifted and talented programs allow students to achieve their full intellectual potential. If these students are not challenged, they can become disgruntled and unmotivated, potentially tossing away promising careers.
The dumbing down of our public schools is already manifesting itself in higher education. Recently, Harvard had to offer courses on basic high-school math for its students, who were found unable to do college-level work.
For many, the solution is not to eliminate programs for advanced students, but to elevate the rest of the school system to proficiency levels. Of course, that is easier said than done, and a far more challenging prospect for public educators who have been failing inner-city kids for decades.
As for Mamdani, there seems a certain visceral appeal to pushing everyone toward the lowest common denominator. Mamdani is in his element in railing against the privileges of the children of largely white and Asian families. He can now do for education what the Soviets did for fashion: reducing choices to a few bland options.
Journalist H.L. Mencken once denounced public education as an effort “simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level … to put down dissent and originality.” Mamdani seems intent on realizing Mencken’s worst fears.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Oh, good grief. Not this again. After seeing so many people misunderstand the issue yesterday, it’s no wonder this topic keeps coming up.
First, let’s clarify what Mamdani is really suggesting: he wants to phase out gifted programs for students up to the 3rd grade. Many people seem to have a misunderstanding of what being “gifted” really means in these educational contexts. This confusion only adds to the frustration of those unhappy with Mamdani’s idea.
Being gifted doesn’t just mean being smarter or better than others. Some parents think that having a child in a gifted program gives them an elite status, as if giftedness automatically means exceptional intelligence. However, according to Dr. Sam Goldstein, an editor for Psychology Today, the term “gifted” actually refers to a kind of special education. It’s aimed at children who may learn in different ways. For some, this means they might struggle to learn at the same pace as their peers.
Dr. Goldstein explains, “At the heart of this discussion is a misunderstanding of gifted education. It’s often seen as something for privileged kids, but that’s not how it’s meant to be. Gifted education is just like other forms of special education; it’s about helping students who learn differently.”
Mamdani raises an important point about fairness in New York schools. However, some people wrongly label any talk of equity as something negative. They don’t realize that discussions around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are not racist at all. This misunderstanding can partly be traced back to figures like Christopher Rufo, who turned DEI into something it was never meant to be. Sadly, this also resonates with some conservative individuals who struggle with basic reading comprehension and often dismiss more complex discussions.
Dr. Goldstein further supports Mamdani’s view on the fairness issue in gifted programs by stating that there’s a real problem. For example, in New York City, Black and Hispanic children account for about 63 percent of kindergarteners but only 16 percent of those in gifted programs. This clearly shows that the system isn’t identifying talent fairly.
The answer isn’t to get rid of these programs altogether. Instead, we need to change how we identify gifted students. Research shows that when schools test all students, instead of relying solely on teacher or parent recommendations, more low-income and minority students are recognized as gifted. Also, biases and inconsistent criteria often prevent capable students of color from being acknowledged.
Equity isn’t about making things easier for everyone; it’s about ensuring every child gets the support they need to reach their highest potential. Well-structured gifted programs can help students who might otherwise go unnoticed.
That’s a reasonable point, but I worry that many people won’t grasp it. Once they latch onto a certain narrative, often born from a lack of knowledge or self-awareness, they find it hard to see any other perspective as valid. This could be a reflection of our educational system’s shortcomings—issues that have existed for a long time, not just today.
Mayor-run school districts are characterized by racial, partisan, and regional ANTAGONISMS.
New York City is enough of a MESS that MOM-SCAMIE has no business stretching his Marxist-propaganda into a field of education in which he has no training or experience, but merely alien and low-brow opinions. Sick.
George, you state, “NYC Black and Hispanic children account for about 63 percent of kindergarteners but only 16 percent of those in gifted programs. This clearly shows that the system isn’t identifying talent fairly.”
Please explain that premise.
Are you saying that Black and Hispanic students should account for 63% in gifted programs because that is their actual “talented” representation in NY public schooling?
Alternatively, are you saying that Black and Hispanic students (in grades kindergarten through third grade) learn in different ways, in your understanding of Dr, Goldstein’s hypothesis? (“The term ‘gifted’ actually refers to a kind of special education. It’s aimed at children who may learn in different ways.”)
What is the “different way” that Black students in grades 1 to 3 learn, than do their fellow White students in grades 1 to 3?
Please explain. thanks (I’ll give you lots of time to research your answer from your Internet sources.)
Lin, first of all I didn’t state that Dr. Goldstein did.
He explains in great detail what you want to know. Here’s his article if you are interested.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/raising-resilient-children/202510/the-case-for-gifted-education
this is what you said, clown georgie
“However, according to Dr. Sam Goldstein, an editor for Psychology Today, the term “gifted” actually refers to a kind of special education. It’s aimed at children who may learn in different ways.”
So? What is it that is wrong about the statement?
“gifted” actually refers to a kind of special education. It’s aimed at children who may learn in different ways.”
This is a typical Leftists tactic of destruction.
Don’t banish a concept, e.g., “gifted,” “rights.” Instead, inject that concept with a virus, and reengineer it to mean the opposite of what it actually means.
George: “Lin, first of all I didn’t state that Dr. Goldstein did.”
(If you intended to place a comma or semi-colon after the word “that,” I hope I understood your sentence, “Lin, first of all I didn’t state that Dr. Goldstein did.”
Even so, your response makes no sense, since in my comment to you, I clearly credited you with quoting and using Goldstein to back up your own conclusions.
So I addressed my questions to you.
I read the article, and “asynchronous development’ and learning is not explored as to how this accounts for young Black students at 63% of school representation but only 16 of “gifted children.” Due to what? Lower income? working or non-working parents? homework?
Importantly, wouldn’t young white students with same or similar backgrounds ALSO be excluded? Wouldn’t they also have asynchronous learning development? Why would asynchronous development only affect Black students? Is that a discriminatory conclusion?
I laughed at the “reading comprehension and context” comment above. ’tis true.
You looked hard for someone who might help you in your daily adverse and negative posts.
YOu also failed to answer my other questions to you.
thanks, George.
LIn,
“I read the article, and “asynchronous development’ and learning is not explored as to how this accounts for young Black students at 63% of school representation but only 16 of “gifted children.” Due to what?”
Did you miss what Dr. Goldstein said?
“There’s no denying that gifted programs have an equity problem. In New York City, for instance, Black and Hispanic children make up about 63 percent of kindergartners but only about 16 percent of students in gifted and talented programs (New York City Independent Budget Office, 2022). That’s a sign of a system that isn’t identifying talent evenly.
…The problem is how we decide who gets identified. Card and Giuliano (2016) found that when schools test all students instead of relying on teacher referrals or parent nominations, the number of low-income and minority students identified as gifted goes up dramatically. Grissom and Redding (2016) also showed that inconsistent criteria and unconscious bias often keep capable students of color from being recognized.
Equity doesn’t mean lowering the ceiling so everyone can touch it. It means giving every child the support they need to reach as high as they can. Well-designed gifted programs can be ladders for students who might otherwise be overlooked.”
What part of that did you not understand?
Your question is answered above. It’s due to how those gifted students are identified. Not because of their backgrounds. But because of a bias from Teachers and Parents. The current system relies on personal bias rather than a universal method of identifying gifted students. They are not testing every student for the program. Not just those who have the means to be tested and come from affluent families or those assumed to be smarter because of their ethnicity.
The equity question is valid. But because conservatives view anything with the word “equity” as racist or discriminatory it is dismissed out of hand without a second thought. That is the problem. Dr. Goldstein points out that the issue is more complicated than that and complicated issues are not clearly understood by MAGA or some conservatives who distrust the experts and the elite who do understand the issue on a much deeper and detailed level. There is a level of resentment towards those who know more than others do and that is what creates the animosity towards academics. Knowing more than others is not a put-down on those who don’t. But conservatives or MAGAs seem to take offense at being told “you don’t know everything about this subject” when it’s literally true.
You’re a lawyer. You should clearly understand what Dr. Goldstein was going on about. He’s not supportive of removing the programs alltogether. He also agrees there is an equity problem that needs to be addressed.
THe reality is that MORE RECENT studies (you can google them george) show that even after removing perceived “biases from teachers and parents,” and reverting to plain standardized testing (GRP-there is questionable improvement in outcomes for particularly Black students, although Hispanics realized a modest gain.
Here’s to you and your mentor Dr. GOldstein,
“Black and low-income students do not see the academic gains that their peers experience when receiving gifted services.” https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/01623737211008919
“Gifted” does mean unusually high and exceptional intelligence, as any IQ test will show….and we need these young people to grow up motivated (now, more than ever) in the face of leftist dumbing-down of everything that could give this country its edge and entrepreneurial future, rather than milking handouts.
We worry that many of your ilk won’t grasp this….
Wong, “gifted” does not always mean “smart”.
A professional who deals with the issue explains it better,
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/raising-resilient-children/202510/the-case-for-gifted-education
*wrong
Your new definition, comes from a pseudo-science branch of mainstream govt./prof.-disinformation. OF COURSE they have changed the meaning and purpose of “gifted” !!! Children can be, and are, resilient, but this is true of most children, without any necessary relation to intelligence quotient.
What would you all do without your lying media-sources feeding you the self-destruction diet for America.
That is not my definition. It comes from those who study this for a living. You know people with PhDs. People who were part of a gifted program at some point.
They didn’t change the meaning. You didn’t know there was more to the meaning than what is generally known. The common understanding of what “gifted” means is not what you think it means. That is why those who are upset are complaining, because it’s based on a common assumption.
It’s amusing how the moment you are faced with expert opinion you immediately dismiss it as pseudo science when you hace zero scientific expertise in the field and you are clearly making an argument from ignorance. One thing is for sure, you were never a candidate gifted programs.
People with PhD’s are no longer respectable nor smart, neither do they follow the scientific method; they follow the money and the leftist paradigm.
We no longer have an intelligentsia—we have a Marxist brainwashing core of DEI dummys who fancy the pomp and circumstance of academic titles, who are ruining the skills of critical thinking, who are akin to street thugs. These new-fangled degreed street-people are NOT EXPERTS. Wake up.
“People with PhDs are no longer respectable nor smart, neither do they follow the scientific method; they follow the money and the leftist paradigm.”
So why bother with having gifted programs? You won’t respect a kid who goes through the program and goes on to get a PhD and say they are not smart. So you have more respect for the ignorant and stupid?
Why bother having Universities and Colleges then? We don’t need any stinkin’ degrees for credibility. You should just claim you’re an expert in a field and take it at its word, right?
“You should just claim you’re an expert in a field and take it at its word, right?”—This is called irony. You have just spelled out exactly what is so very wrong with the educational system [from top to bottom] having been taken over by poorly-educated purple-haired leftist/Marxists.
Indeed.
We can no longer trust “gifted programs” any better than we can trust college-degrees, and this is the doing of your political wing with the unwitting help of those who paid no attention, but make no mistake, we’ve got a serous social/educational problem on our hands, and more tampering by socialist like Zorro-Ham Mom-Scamies will make it worse!
PhD = “Piled high and Deep”.
The supposed definition of “gifted” “comes from those who study this for a living. You know people with PhDs.” “It’s amusing how the moment you are faced with expert opinion . . .”
Well, let’s see. I have a Ph.D. and did study the gifted for a living. And I created and directed two gifted (honors) programs at a T1 university. I headed the admissions committees for those programs. Pretty sure that qualifies me as an expert.
The fundamental trait of “gifted” is *intelligence*. It’s not “other ways of learning” (whatever the hell that means). And it’s certainly not a vehicle for racial equality (which is racist).
About testing for gifted programs:
Those who actually do this for a living (as opposed to those who just make stuff up), know that there are scores of tests used nationwide. There are general and subject-specific tests used to measure gifted (vs. not). As just one example: the “Test of Mathematical Abilities for Gifted Students or Screening Assessment for Gifted Elementary Students (SAGES).”
You’re twisting both Goldstein’s and Mamdani’s words to fit your own argument, and in doing so, you’re misrepresenting what’s actually being debated in New York’s schools and what Goldstein said.
Let me correct some of what Goldstein believes because your reading abilities are horrid.
He says gifted children make connections quickly, desire complexity, and become restless when lessons move too slowly. Gifted education for advanced learners meets their needs. Without the motivation gifted programs provide, advanced learners can lose motivation and withdraw.
There is no doubt that absolute fairness can never be achieved, but Goldstein doesn’t believe that programs for advanced learners should be gotten rid of.
Everything said later by George Svelaz is riddled with untruths and his lame interpretations of the facts. If one wishes to learn, it is best to skip George Svelaz unless one wants to read poorly written fiction.
Wow. An equity person – lolol. What a f’ing moron. seriously, just stfu and gtfo, you are a pawn in a game you do not understand. “Well-structured gifted programs….” again, stfu, you have no idea what you’re talking about, the people that tell you what to think are using you and laughing at you, and they are evil.
Schoolhouse Crock
Good one, thanks for the smile.
Mamdani will probably win. History also tends to repeat itself.
The man is evil. Period. He is a Marxist who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and attended private schools his entire life. He hates America and would gladly pursue any policy that destroys it now and in the future. Depriving gifted public school kids from maximizing their potential is just one of those policies. Only an idiot and a malign person could vote for such a candidate
To Marxists and their ilk, an individual is of little to no importance.
For the record, Mao and Paul Pot, who killed millions of their own citizens for not “getting with the program”, were not peasants and both were educated in the West.
Marxists with silver spoons in their mouths are the worst kind.
The useful idiots will only understand this AFTER they are feeling the pain of destruction and loss of rights.
Oh why not. It’s merely a natural response after developing generations with the psychological condition of Learned Helplessness. The original Seligman & Maier Experiment (1967) demonstrated this phenomenon. When replicated in a classroom setting, test subjects that repeatedly received unsolvable tests learned that it didn’t matter if they tried, they were always going to fail. Even when receiving an easily solvable test, most failed or didn’t bother trying.
Learned Helplessness could easily explain the Democratic party’s 60 year strategy. Why else would their base continue voting for their failed policies? Clearly they cannot imagine any way out.
Well educated students and ultimately the population is the enemy of socialism or any other ism.
So a question. Would it be worth it for a parent to stop working and homeschool their children?
We struggled with my wife staying home and doing educational day care for 5 children and home schooling. Then when the local school district found out that about 50 parents had formed a group and were joint educating, they started a home school program. I believe they realized how much $ they were losing. Certified teachers worked with the parents and students to set the plans and evaluate the progress. Our daughter graduated at 16 and went on to get into an honors program at a community college. Hard work and sacrifice yes but our child and your children are worth it.
What I do not understand is if you want to be progressive why not in education? That brings us back to my original comment.
“Progressive” education is central to the problem. Discussion of sexual deviations and made-up pronouns is substituted detracts from time spent teaching traditional subjects like reading, writing, math, history, and science. And history as taught bears little resemblance to reality, with 1619 replacing 1776 in the progressive lexicon. Current events? Hamas is valued over Israel, and many, even some members of the US Congress, call for reparations. They seem to believe that folks who never owned slaves should pay reparations to folks who never were slaves. The real tragedy is that students can be functionally illiterate and still receive a high school diploma.
Suze, If you were not replying to me, I apologize. It is difficult to tell sometimes. That being said,
I think I used the wrong word or it’s interpretation. Progress is the one I meant to use although you would think that progressive would mean progress. According to the American Heritage Dictionary they imply the same, forward movement. Today it is associated with a social movement which is definitely not moving forward in enhancing ones education or economic status except for the ones in control.
MadMani’s idea on education are inline with democrats DEI, nothing new here. All the years and money dedicated to educating the masses and the same group keeps falling short. We blame racism and every other cockamamie word du jour for the problem but is there something else going on that needs to be addressed? Was/is James Watson correct with his study? Instead of furthering his studies he was beat up for suggesting his findings. Passing students who are not performing and preventing those more academically talented from excelling should place our nation right where our enemies want us. Good luck NYC with Mr MadMani, good parents will ultimately find good education.
Gotta ask: Who are our enemies?
Anonymous says:
Gotta ask: Who are our enemies?
If you gotta ask, maybe you?
Gotta ask.
“Cutting down the tall poppies”
Under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, the educated and the intelligent, the thinkers were the first to be eliminated.
Under Mamdani, you have the same noxious ideas — collectivism, egalitarianism, communism. And the same destructive consequences: Eliminate intelligence.
Maybe Zohran was a central planner in his prior life. It would explain a great deal.
Often times, I think that the regressives know that the electorate has to be uneducated, as that is the only way they can attain and retain power.
”If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” (Thomas Jefferson letter to Colonel Charles Yancey January 6, 1816″
Here is a reality check that all of the egalitarian wokeness in the world cannot change.
Average iQ by groups:
East Asian. 108
Caucasian 100
Ameriindian 93
Black American 85
African 70
Australian aboriginal 62
https://international-iq-test.com/en/test/IQ_by_country
Eliminating all gifted programs will not change any of the above.
And calling me a ‘nazi’ won’t change any of the above.
Egalitarianism is creationism for liberals.
antonio
When student performance fails to meet your expectations, the easiest solution is to change your expectations.
Title should be “Mamdani’s Plan to Complete the Ruination of the NY Educational System”. FIFY, Professor…
I was involved in early and elementary education for many years and have seen this cycle of TAG being canceled and then reinvented more than once. The primary key to child academic progress/success is parent involvement. In the mid 1980’s there was federal and state support community school and parent involvement programs. Parents were in the schools, helping in the classrooms, there were take-home reading kits, math games, and other learning activities introduced at community meetings so parents had the supports they needed to use them at home. Don’t assume parents won’t participate. The HeadStart program proved that many if not most will. If teachers were properly trained they would be able to create small groups of children who are at the same level and have parent or instructional assistants who work with those groups to bring them up to speed. Universities have not been turning out graduates who can manage the behavior any better than they can assess the students needs. They’re too busy with all the diversity aspects and political indoctrination. ALL students can benefit from what is considered Talented And Gifted education if it’s properly guided, and the results are often surprising, with hidden talents emerging as confidence builds. There’s no time for politics if education is done right.
I’ve always resented these arrogant politicians for using our children as lab rats to test their latest pedagogies or social engineering. Those poor kids stuck in that system can never get those years back.
The answer? Parents, if you love your children, do whatever it takes to get them out of public schools!!!!!!
I suppose Mr Mamdani never really looked to see why schools are failing in so many large cities. Surely he looked for a cause and effect. Others have done the same thing and had dismal effects. Some states have dismal records because they are poor and have no resources. Alabama and Mississippi come to mind and were pitied in much of the rest of the south when I was growing up there but even they are focusing now on reading as the basic place to start to reform their state systems.
You have to read well first and then everything else falls into place after that for the general population. I have always been an advocate for advanced placement in public schools. Those students can be stimulated to achieve incredible heights of accomplishment and benefit our entire society. It is such a simple concept that you have to literally be blind to not see it.
It was indeed an aberration of the USSR that for all their collectivism, they did look for and nurture merit in their students and they accomplished many firsts as a result of that. We got complacent but the slap in the face of Sputnik woke us up and our science and education took off. The soviets looked for superior students in an otherwise poor nation. If Mamdani is so much of a socialist, he should know that. And we already know but ignore the history of our complacency in education in the post WW2 era.
“Surely he looked for a cause and effect.” Ideologues aren’t necessarily prone to look for cause and effect relationships. Mamdani’s goal is likely to be more about personal power than about what’s best for the people he would govern. A functionally illiterate population is so much easier to control than an educated population. Could it be that the good people of NYC are more interested in “free stuff” than their own and their children’s wellbeing? Or are the more productive citizens already planning to leave the city if Mamdani wins? It takes a special kind of selfishness to purposely deny others the opportunities that he himself had – and has.
You call yourself an advocate. What have you publicly advocated for? Or are you secretly part of the silent majority?
BTW, it wasn’t only the USSR who “nurtured”. The entire European continent have programs to publicly support students. BTW, you forgot to include the USA.
I rate you comment: C minus. Next time use facts, not allegory.
The Soviet comparison is a bit cynical. The Soviet education system was the only quarter where intellectuals could feel valued. Leaving school for “real life” was being thrown out of meritocracy into a corrupt, mendacity-filled, fear-driven dystopia. How do you explain Sputnik? Soviet science and engineering were a curious blend of meritocracy and authoritarianism. The schools and universities were the freest places in that world.
To those the governing elite allowed to go.
“The Soviet education system was the only quarter where intellectuals could feel valued.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and countless other dissident intellectuals, could not be reached for comment.
Jewish dissidents couldn’t be reached for comment.
George W Bush said it best: “The soft bigotry of lowered expectations”. If you challenge kids with high expectations and follow through with support, most will meet expectations. Education leaders who’ve given up need to be fired.
The giving up comes with psuedo-scientific rationalizations, mostly allowing racially-categorized learning achievement statistics to fester in their minds as racial stereotypes. Those stereotypes then feed into lowered expectations, which the students will pick up on.
By eliminating gifted and talented programs, what is the generalized outcome? Who benefits? Who loses? Typical risk analysis.
A. The outcome is a dumber America, less capable and less competitive.
B. Who benefits is not the black and brown students, but the competitors (i.e. countries) of the USA in the ultimate race for survivability.
C. The losers are all the students, of all colors, with excellence and competitiveness ceasing to exist, and with new graduates having shelves full of participation trophies though barely able to read and write.
There’s a sickness in poverty pockets. After chaos sets in the population tears down anything and anyone that’s good and whole. Trying to get out of a poverty pocket is like trying to get out of quicksand, literally.
At what point do we openly recognize that this has nothing to do with equity or whatever made up word they’re using, and everything to do with a deliberate attempt to weaken and destroy our country?
I was in gifted programs until my mom remarried and moved us to a cornfield in another state. I had to go back and redo 2 years of reading. When my mom tried to find a solution, the response was “She can suck it up.”
I was a severe introvert/bookworm. Being smart was my thing. I was not athletic or pretty. When they took that away from me, it was devastating. I still aced my college entrance tests, was recruited by literally every Ivy League school, and excelled academically, but I stopped caring in the 5th grade. What might have I achieved if I hadn’t been discouraged from academic achievement?
Being smart is not just a number on a test, it’s an identity, like being a cheerleader. It encourages achievement and competition. When you tell kids that being smart isn’t ok, and reward being dumb, what happens to society? Aren’t we seeing the answer now?
I hope New Yorkers reject this charlatan but New York voters themselves are the product of this form-over-substance mind virus. I can’t say I’m overly hopeful.
Unless the polling changes, looks like he will win.
What a mess.
Mamdani is a credit card grifter, buy now pay later. The greatest danger to the Mamdani scam is not Washington, but Albany. No Republican president will bail out New York City, but neither will a Republican governor of New York. Unfortunately for rational New York City residents, once Wall Street departs it is not coming back, ever.
All good points, Mr. Lifton! Sometimes a historical perspective helps. It was 50 years ago that the Municipal Assistance Program (MAC) was put in place to provide financial assistance and fiscal oversight of New York City during the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis. The creation of MAC resulted in the sale of almost $10B in bonds to keep the city solvent through this fiscal crisis. I wonder whether today’s young ideologues are familiar with MAC.