ANOTHER BLOW AGAINST EXCELLENCE – OVERNIGHT:  The Democratic Party, and especially its left-wing fringe, is doing its best to inflict the greatest possible damage to American children before the elections of 2022.  Maybe they figure that they won't get this chance again.  But many parents are fighting back, perhaps dismayed that the left shows no concern for excellence in American education.  The latest blow is being struck in New York City, once an educational magnet.  From the New York Post: 

New York City parents ripped Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “extremely disappointing” and “abominable“ plan to ax the public school system’s Gifted and Talented program in his final months in office.

Public school parents in the five boroughs told The Post that the lame-duck mayor’s proposal, announced Friday, to phase out the coveted exclusive education model by next fall — after he leaves Gracie Mansion at the end of 2021– is the wrong call for students in the Department of Education system.

Charleen Ang, mother of a student at a third-grade Gifted and Talented program on the Upper West Side, has been attempting to get her first-grade son into one without success and lamented that he may not have the opportunity.

“Now, there is no path for our son to ever join his sister,” she fumed. “It is abominable that de Blasio is, in his final months in office, dismantling one of the few successful education programs in New York City, adversely impacting a swath of children.”

Parents called de Blasio’s plan “extremely disappointing” and “abominable.”

“I am really angry that the mayor who has been in charge of our education for the last eight years uses his last days as mayor to make this very radical change to our public education,” said Yiatin Chu, cofounder of education advocacy group PLACE NYC, whose oldest child attended a gifted and talented program.

“I think it’s ridiculous that the mayor is making such a change at the eleventh hour.”

The current Gifted and Talented program for New York City’s elementary schools was instituted under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It offers accelerated classes and specialized advanced curriculum for students who qualify.

The program controversially required that children be tested at 4-years-old for admission — and those who made it in were disproportionately white and Asian and from well off parts of the city. But some black and Latino local politicians backed the program, too, as it offered many families who they represent an alternative to frequently struggling district schools.

Under de Blasio’s plan, released Friday morning, current students in the G & T accelerated-learning classes will be able to remain in them until completion. But new cohorts will be completely eliminated by fall 2022, putting an end to the current system wherein 4-year-old city kids are tested.
Lisa Marks, a parent and public school teacher from Manhattan, told The Post she has one older child in an accelerated program in District 2 and was planning on having a younger sibling apply there, as well.

“It’s extremely disappointing,” said Marks, who teaches at a Bronx high school. “We were planning to apply, but now I have to tell my daughter that she won’t get the same opportunity. It’s not right.”
Max Dickstein, a Forest Hills resident, is the father of one kid in the Gifted and Talented program, and was readying for his sibling to apply for the same school next year.

The fate of the G&T program will ultimately be in the hands of the next mayor.

COMMENT:  I remember when the New York City school system was one of the gems of the city, and famous throughout the world.  It was considered an honor to be a New York City teacher.  But no longer.  The striving for excellence has given way to a striving for a socialist-oriented attempt at ethnic balance, even if it means stiflying the best students and automatically promoting the worst.

The world isn't buying what New York schools are selling.  And the real New York is fading into memory.

October 8, 2021