https://reason.com/2021/10/08/nyc-scrapping-gifted-and-talented-program-is-a-triumph-of-redefining-language/
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Bill de Blasio
NYC Scrapping Gifted and Talented Program Is a Triumph of Redefining
Language
Branding disparate racial outcomes as "segregation" is an effective
way in Democratic polities to tear down programs some progressives
don't like.
Matt Welch | 10.8.2021 3:29 PM
Media Contact & Reprint Requests
DeBlazKidsDeBlazKids
(Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire/Newscom)
As has been telegraphed for years now, New York City Mayor Bill de
Blasio on his way out of office has announced the wind-down of his
school system's Gifted and Talented program.
The move is more symbolic than seismic--in a K-12 system with an
estimated (though obfuscated) 900,000 or so students, only around
2,000 kindergartners will be materially affected by the change next
fall, and the likely incoming mayor, Eric Adams, has said that he
prefers expanding, not euthanizing, the G&T program. Basing any large
educational fork in the road on a 4-year-old taking a test has always
struck me as bizarre, so if Adams revives gifted tracks, I hope he
changes the qualifications.
But at a time when public-school gifted programs across the continent
are being dismantled in the name of "equity," the decision
accelerates the progressive policy trend of working backward from
concentrations of educational status--whether gifted programs,
specialized high schools, or even just institutions with a positive
reputation--then measuring the racial composition of students and
declaring the results evidence of "segregation" if there are too few
black and Latino participants.
"The highly selective program, which has become a glaring symbol of
segregation in New York City public schools, will be replaced for
incoming students," ran the subhed in today's New York Times article
by activist education reporter Eliza Shapiro. And don't blame the
headline writer--the piece is shot through with such loaded,
contestable language, from the opening words: "Mayor Bill de Blasio
will overhaul New York City's highly selective, racially segregated
gifted and talented education classes." More:
The gradual elimination of the existing program will remove a
major component of what many consider to be the city's two-tiered
education system, in which one relatively small, largely white
and Asian American group of students gain access to the
highest-performing schools, while many Black and Latino children
remain in schools that are struggling....
Some parents and researchers argue that the programs worsen
segregation and weaken instruction for children who are not in
the gifted track.
New York, which is more reliant on selective admissions than any
other large system in America, is home to one of the most
racially segregated school systems in the country....
Though the mayor has long promised to tackle inequality in city
schools, he has faced criticism for not taking more forceful
action on desegregation until the end of his mayoralty.
And so forth.
I've been swimming in this language for so long that it mostly rolls
off my back, but today's move and the journalistic coverage thereof
mark a noteworthy triumph for the persistent, intentional
redefinition of language to serve activist ends.
For years, much to my naive bafflement, it was front-page news that
the mayor refused to characterize his own school system as
"segregationist." No, really: "De Blasio Won't Call New York Schools
'Segregated,'" ran one New York Times headline. The mayor "has spent
the last 5 years avoiding use of the word 'segregation,'" Shapiro
complained on Twitter in February 2019. How could the utterance of a
single word by a single person matter so much?
Well, the activists were onto something. When de Blasio finally
cracked in March 2019--"this old system...has perpetuated massive
segregation--not just segregation, massive segregation," he told
WNYC's Brian Lehrer--it heralded a sharp turn in the mayor's support
for the far-left educational approach to racial equity.
In the ensuing months, de Blasio, amid an ill-fated presidential run,
declared his "hate" for charter schools and "high stakes testing,"
accused (through a spokeswoman) critics of his controversial
then-Chancellor Richard Carranza for leading a "racially charged
smear campaign," and removed all selective entrance requirements for
schools, defending the latter move thusly: "I like to say very
bluntly: Our mission is to redistribute wealth."
By finally endorsing the activists' deliberate conflation of the two
importantly different meanings of the word segregation, so that
disproportionate clusters of racial compositions within various
institutions could be seen as interchangeable with the
government-enforced, race-based denial of access to said
institutions, de Blasio not only added legitimacy to the disreputable
political tactic of branding policy skeptics as racist, he developed
noticeable enthusiasm for their agenda as well.
Will that agenda succeed on its own terms of integrating schools, let
alone on the hopefully broader goal of improving educational outcomes
for individual children? One initially worrying sign from the point
of view of professed school-desegregationists is that the early
adopters of de Blasio's equity agenda were bleeding enrollment even
before the COVID-19 pandemic. Districts that rapidly shed population
do not tend to become more integrated; they also lose funding and
public support. It also doesn't help that the people pushing hardest
for "equity"-based policies are frequently the loudest about trying
to shut down the charter school option for families trapped in the
residential zones of bad schools.
But perhaps the greatest long-term threat to those who equate racism
with disproportionate racial outcomes is that the rest of us will
begin to take them seriously. Which is to say, the greatest single
racial-disparity story in public education over the past year and a
half has been the devastating effects of school closures on poor and
minority communities. Those closures were supported most materially
by some of the same groups preaching loudest about school
desegregation and anti-charter animus: teachers unions.
The best way to improve educational outcomes for all individuals is
not to close down avenues enjoyed by a select few, but to give
everyone potential access to the maximum number of quality options.
Easier said than done, but never accomplished by a system of
one-size-fits-all.
Related: Bureaucrats Are Trying to 'Control' School Choice.
NEXT: Legends of the Hidden Temple: the Reboot Nobody Asked for or
Wanted
Matt Welch is an editor at large at Reason.
Bill de Blasio New York City Public schools Racism
Media Contact & Reprint Requests
Show Comments (24)
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1. Chumby
October.8.2021 at 3:41 pm
#StopAsianHate
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1. PatriciaAlley
October.8.2021 at 3:51 pm
Great stance
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October.8.2021 at 3:54 pm
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3. PatriciaAlley
October.8.2021 at 3:55 pm
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4. Gaear Grimsrud
October.8.2021 at 4:43 pm
Also #Fuck Joe Biden.
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1. Don't look at me!
October.8.2021 at 6:07 pm
Fuck Joe Biden
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2. Sarah Palin's Buttplug 2
October.8.2021 at 3:49 pm
Shit.
Jon Gruden about to get cancelled.
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3. Stuck in California
October.8.2021 at 3:53 pm
It was MGM before it was GATES then Gifted and Talented -- the
Mentally Gifted was change because it would hurt the feelings of
the not mentally gifted or something. In my day the same trends
happened, holding back the achievers in public schools. Running
to the lowest common denominator, but then it was because they
didn't want to hurt anyone's "self esteem".
MGM was the only place some kids learned ANYTHING in school. At
least elementary. Once they started making the ones who achieved
slow down school became a horrible slog for them. MGM/GATES/G&T
was the one and only outlet where they could work at their own
pace, outside of the curriculum. Self Esteem based education
destroyed it.
It came back in my Niece's day, after the '80s PC trend subsided.
She's as smart a girl as anyone, did high school in 3 years and
was bored, smart. If it wasn't for GATES and a magnet school,
she'd have been miserable the whole time.
Now they have to kill it again, I guess. This makes me really
sad.
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1. sarcasmic
October.8.2021 at 4:50 pm
I've seen really smart kids drop out because the slow pace
bored them so much that they didn't care, their grades
suffered so much that the admins put them into special-ed, so
the kids were like fuck you and dropped out.
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4. Longtobefree
October.8.2021 at 4:00 pm
If the parents are gifted or talented, they already left New
York, city and state.
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1. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)
October.8.2021 at 4:14 pm
Reason needs a like button.
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5. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)
October.8.2021 at 4:12 pm
Matt, accept your CRT. Just accept it.
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1. Gaear Grimsrud
October.8.2021 at 4:51 pm
Disparate impact always lurking the the shadows.
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1. Gaear Grimsrud
October.8.2021 at 4:51 pm
in the shadows.
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6. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)
October.8.2021 at 4:16 pm
Per the picture on the article, I remember I mentioned some time
ago in a thread something about white politicians using black
people as props in their photo ops, and I was told I was
suffering from fever dreams.
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7. Carl Cameron
October.8.2021 at 4:16 pm
Is Matt Welch running for president of the Park Slope White
Citizens Council?
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8. Dillinger
October.8.2021 at 4:17 pm
>>white and Asian American group of students gain access to the
highest-performing schools
like, out of PS119 and over to Bishop Eustace?
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9. Sometimes a Great Notion
October.8.2021 at 4:43 pm
Harrison Bergeron linked below if any youth of today are not
familiar with the work.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=
ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxtc3JlZG1hbmVuZ2xpc2h8Z3g6MjdlZjYzZmNmMjFjMjgxZA
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10. Gaear Grimsrud
October.8.2021 at 4:49 pm
I don't live in NYC and I don't want to speak out of turn here
but, is it possible that Bill Deblasio is not just a big loveable
dummy but actually a cynical piece of shit? Just throwing that
out there.
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11. sarcasmic
October.8.2021 at 4:52 pm
When I was in school they called it TAG. Talented and Gifted.
Never heard of GAT. Seems more like a way Europeans make stuff
more expensive.
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12. Entelechy
October.8.2021 at 5:08 pm
Sixth Nuclear Power?
Boston Globe
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13. GKHoffman
October.8.2021 at 5:38 pm
If educational segregation is such a bad thing, then surely the
lefties will want to dismantle universities' minorities-only
commencement and graduation ceremonies, dorms and student unions.
Or maybe not.
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1. Sevo
October.8.2021 at 6:11 pm
Or perhaps forbid schools from keeping Asian students out.
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14. Kungpowderfinger
October.8.2021 at 6:11 pm
Mayor Bill de Blasio on his way out of office has announced the
wind-down of his school system's Gifted and Talented program
Hard to "Both Sides!" this one.
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