NYC eliminating gifted and talented program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax County will go that way soon. They are doing everything they can to dismantle their AAP program.

I have almost finished my third decade working in an ES for FCPS. I think it was much better when the program was GT and students who truly “thought outside the box” got into the program. Now many of the students who are in the program are in it solely because of test scores or because parents were squeaky wheels. Many of the students aren’t flexible in their thinking at all and are actually quite rigid with their mindset.

Your last sentience is a dog whistle for anti-Asian racism, bigot.

Not sure about any of that but more often than not many kids get in because their parents paid off some psychologist to proclaim their DC as gifted. It's kind of a joke these days since it's just another way people with means can game the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always hear good things about Ember charter school, a predominantly black school in Brooklyn.

Why does it matter if schools are public or charter as long as there is equitable access?

Why does it matter if school employees have health insurance and job protections?

I mean matters to the kids, the objective that should be priority.

My home town went hard core into charter schools to solve their declining and underfunded public schools. It was such a mess. They had charter schools in strip malls. They had charter schools teaching whatever crazy curriculum they wanted — one of my nephews went to a “Montessori” one and turned out to be illiterate because no one had taught him to read. Many had super high teacher turnover and just had teachers. The theory behind charters is that they can be more creative and less regulated. But unless they are closely monitored with guard rails in place, it’s just a money making machine for companies that serve customers (kids) who aren’t well situated to police the product being served to them.
I know of some great charter schools—but it seems like when a system goes heavily into charter schools, it attracts the bad apples and is just much harder to monitor the quality of the product.

Hey Union member - how about reading some research in the subject instead of Union talking points. Here, if you care to educate yourself - charter schools raise all boats.

https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/research/robbers-or-victims-charter-schools-and-district-finances


Charter schools are a well known scam. Their boards spend their funds on private jets and ski getaways while the quality of education goes out the window. Maybe some places figure out how to avoid troubled students to pad their test scores but that is also not good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think they should eliminate g&t - they should ensure it is demographically balanced.

I live in NYC. I'm born and raised here and have lived here my entire life.

They're are only 5 schools with the programs. It's literally in only certain areas.

MANY, MANY parents don't even know the program exist. I didn't even know this program existed until 2 years ago! HA!

I live in NYC too. You are thinking about schools like Anderson and NEST. But there are also G&T programs in many local elementary schools operating like a separate track.

Honestly, I had no idea this even existed. i just went to my local public school.

With that said, I truly believe there is something deeper going on than just wanting to integrate the schools. I think low income black and hispanic childre are being scapegoating and being used as a mask to privatize NYC public school system.

For example, this happened in new orleans that has become the first city with no more public schools. https://thelensnola.org/2019/07/01/new-orleans-becomes-first-major-american-city-without-traditional-schools/

There is a lot more that meets the eye and it's unfortunate the black families are being used as a mask. I think NYC is on its way to only having charter schools.

As the saying goes... follow the money.

100% agree. This is part of a long planned decimation of public education in the US. Follow the money is absolutely right. If you water down curriculum for long enough, people will leave and demand other options. And the money comes rolling in to the charter industry.

The people who have advocated for watered down curriculum (while not admitting that's what it is) are the same ones who violently oppose any school choice. I don't think your argument holds water.

Charter schools are not required to educate any children. They are absolutely used as a weapon in certain places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks Democrats

If you can't see the Republican policies behind this, you aren't using your critical thinking skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think they should eliminate g&t - they should ensure it is demographically balanced.

I live in NYC. I'm born and raised here and have lived here my entire life.

They're are only 5 schools with the programs. It's literally in only certain areas.

MANY, MANY parents don't even know the program exist. I didn't even know this program existed until 2 years ago! HA!

I live in NYC too. You are thinking about schools like Anderson and NEST. But there are also G&T programs in many local elementary schools operating like a separate track.

Honestly, I had no idea this even existed. i just went to my local public school.

With that said, I truly believe there is something deeper going on than just wanting to integrate the schools. I think low income black and hispanic childre are being scapegoating and being used as a mask to privatize NYC public school system.

For example, this happened in new orleans that has become the first city with no more public schools. https://thelensnola.org/2019/07/01/new-orleans-becomes-first-major-american-city-without-traditional-schools/

There is a lot more that meets the eye and it's unfortunate the black families are being used as a mask. I think NYC is on its way to only having charter schools.

As the saying goes... follow the money.

100% agree. This is part of a long planned decimation of public education in the US. Follow the money is absolutely right. If you water down curriculum for long enough, people will leave and demand other options. And the money comes rolling in to the charter industry.

The people who have advocated for watered down curriculum (while not admitting that's what it is) are the same ones who violently oppose any school choice. I don't think your argument holds water.

Charter schools are not required to educate any children. They are absolutely used as a weapon in certain places.

And yet they have better outcomes than traditional public schools. While costing less money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks Democrats

If you can't see the Republican policies behind this, you aren't using your critical thinking skills.

Umm no. Republicans want gifted programs. Democrats don’t.

And last time I checked, NYC is run by democrats, and has been for quite a while. It’s literally insane to try to blame this on republicans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax County will go that way soon. They are doing everything they can to dismantle their AAP program.

I have almost finished my third decade working in an ES for FCPS. I think it was much better when the program was GT and students who truly “thought outside the box” got into the program. Now many of the students who are in the program are in it solely because of test scores or because parents were squeaky wheels. Many of the students aren’t flexible in their thinking at all and are actually quite rigid with their mindset.

We need to elect more democrats in Fairfax and state wide, to finally end the so-called “AAP” program once and for all.

[Anonymous]

On a slightly different point - I’m more amazed by the power/influence of NYC. I live in Maryland and everything (may be simply timing) seemed to flow about this subject once NYC announced this decision. Just checked my hometown paper (in Northeast) and they are doing same thing (changing entrance requirements to get to the Benetton ad standard). When did NYC get to decide for all of us what our school standard should be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think they should eliminate g&t - they should ensure it is demographically balanced.

I live in NYC. I'm born and raised here and have lived here my entire life.

They're are only 5 schools with the programs. It's literally in only certain areas.

MANY, MANY parents don't even know the program exist. I didn't even know this program existed until 2 years ago! HA!

I live in NYC too. You are thinking about schools like Anderson and NEST. But there are also G&T programs in many local elementary schools operating like a separate track.

Honestly, I had no idea this even existed. i just went to my local public school.

With that said, I truly believe there is something deeper going on than just wanting to integrate the schools. I think low income black and hispanic childre are being scapegoating and being used as a mask to privatize NYC public school system.

For example, this happened in new orleans that has become the first city with no more public schools. https://thelensnola.org/2019/07/01/new-orleans-becomes-first-major-american-city-without-traditional-schools/

There is a lot more that meets the eye and it's unfortunate the black families are being used as a mask. I think NYC is on its way to only having charter schools.

As the saying goes... follow the money.

100% agree. This is part of a long planned decimation of public education in the US. Follow the money is absolutely right. If you water down curriculum for long enough, people will leave and demand other options. And the money comes rolling in to the charter industry.

The people who have advocated for watered down curriculum (while not admitting that's what it is) are the same ones who violently oppose any school choice. I don't think your argument holds water.

Charter schools are not required to educate any children. They are absolutely used as a weapon in certain places.

And yet they have better outcomes than traditional public schools. While costing less money.

You can always have better outcomes when you cherrypick data and cherry pick which children get to stay.

[Anonymous]

The only way to eliminate all of these gifted and talented programs is to elect more Democrats this November.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s some nuance here. DiBlasio is a straight-up communist, no doubt, and watering down the standards for the test-in high schools to achieve racial balance is the worst sort of leveling-down equity. That’s destructive and coming to a school district near you.

But the NYC G&T stuff for elementary is beyond absurd. The tests are eminently prepable at that age, and the standards are insufficient to identify actually gifted children. It merely created a parallel school system that allowed UMC parents to remain in public in the City, and resulted in a dog-eat-dog knife fight where if your kid didn’t make the cut, you were either out 50k a year for private or became a part of the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. The discussions on youbemom.com circa 2008 were fascinating, and IMO illustrated the pathology of that system.

In my (admittedly unsavory) opinion, all the G&T program in NYC did was allow the rich to maintain left-wing luxury beliefs while being insulated from the consequences, which were left for other people’s kids.

G&T is ~2% of the total NYC school population. By no means is that a parallel school system.

[Anonymous]

The discussion on G&T in the Metropolitan NY forum was closed, so I'm copying my comment here.

I'm an NYC G&T parent. The kids could take the test at 4, but they could also take the test at 5, 6, 7. There are screened academic middle schools and high schools. It's nowhere near as rigid as it has been portrayed. Unfortunately people like Nikole Hannah-Jones promoted this false narrative that the kids can only take the test at 4 and it determines who gets a good education and who doesn't. That's not true. The extent to which she consistently pushes this false narrative is irresponsible and self-serving.

Also, as a G&T parent I can attest that my children and their peers are smart, even the ones who tested in at 4. It's incredible how many people think it's acceptable to make ignorant, condescending remarks about the kids.

Also, be aware that in NYC there are many other programs which separate students starting in K. Those are dual-language programs, standalone progressive education schools, and charter schools. There is a group of crazy far-left wackos (hence that other person's comments about all wokeness, all the time) who are fixated on G&T and it's just weird, especially when there are many other DOE or publicly-funded programs where kids are placed in separate classrooms or schools from K. I don't understand why these programs aren't a problem as well, if G&T is such a problem.

[Anonymous]

Waste of time and money. Your kid smart? Great they will get a bunch of 5s on AP tests in high school and roll those standardized tests.

The district my kids grew up in is a well to do area with lots of smart kids. The district long ago (decades) got rid of the gifted and talented program. Smart kids are easy to challenge and get differentiated simple enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Waste of time and money. Your kid smart? Great they will get a bunch of 5s on AP tests in high school and roll those standardized tests.

The district my kids grew up in is a well to do area with lots of smart kids. The district long ago (decades) got rid of the gifted and talented program. Smart kids are easy to challenge and get differentiated simple enough.

In a well to do area, kids are coming in with similar levels of prepareation for school. In a diverse area like NYC and MCPS, you have kids that have never heard English regularly, kids that have never had enough to eat, kids that have attended academic pre schools, kids who have a stay at home parents focused solely on their child etc. I have a realtive who lives in a small wealthy school district. Equity? Not even an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks Democrats

If you can't see the Republican policies behind this, you aren't using your critical thinking skills.

Umm no.

Republicans want gifted programs. Democrats don’t.

And last time I checked, NYC is run by democrats, and has been for quite a while. It’s literally insane to try to blame this on republicans.

Then why aren't there more G&T programs and selective high schools in heavily conservative areas? Why are heavily conservative school districts not pouring more money into these types of programs.