Mamdani Says He Would Phase Out NYC Gifted Program for Early Grades

IQ is pretty stable from preschool onward: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.16925. Especially in identifying low and mid-IQ kids (i.e. people who won't benefit from gifted education).

> Having witnessed my own children

==

"Having witnessed my own friends, I simply do not believe that people who can juggle exist."

.

Gifted kids exist. I see friends' kids who read at 4 and they absolutely do not need to be stuck in a class with kids who still chew on their toys. The fact that you have not seen those does not mean they do not exist.

As a second example, I was able to read before I was 4 and multiply 2-digit numbers before I was 5. Luckily schools did have programs that challenged me. I would have been much less lucky, had I been a kid in Mamdani's NYC...

My kids could read and do math in K, unlike many of their classmates.

At that point it doesn't really matter, because K is really about play and learning the conventions.

By the end of 2nd grade it was clear that they were bored out of their minds. So to private school they went.

For parents with kids that aren't motivated it's hard to understand what the fuss is.

But, the Left's problem is that instead of trying to raise everyone up they're bringing people down. It was that way in the USSR, and it's that way here. Where I used to live the Talented and Gifted program (which was state mandated) had a $1000 budget systemwide. The "equity" fund was almost a third of the budget. At that point why bother with public schools? It's taxation without representation.

Why does it matter if it's innate talent or not? The point is to identify which kids will benefit from accelerated education.

I wouldn't based any policy based on people's opinion IMO. There has to be a cost/benefit study to base your decision on. Anyway kids can be pretty smart. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that this program is beneficial even that early in life.

The kids who aren't falling behind but are bored often eventually fall behind, because they did not have enough opportunities to grow and explore.

It's not only those who are failing that need help. (And I agree they shouldn't be treated as defects)

But gifted kids do exist, and they have all sorts of existential questions and concerns that other kids don't tend to worry themselves about. Unaddressed, these kids end up miserable, depressed, and anxious... which is why it's important to pay attention to them too.

Whether Kindergarten is the right age is a different question, but to imply that only those failing need help is simply untrue.

Individualized education would be ideal, but close to impossible, for obvious reasons.

Not every student could absorb it at that level. And that’s okay.

Agree, but usually the gifted kid can solve the problems one or two years earlier than the average one.

I don't know about gifted programs, but anything that separates kids who don't want to learn from those who do is a good thing; far to much time is wasted in America's schools catering to bad behavior.

People absolutely will vote against someone because who's running on a platform of anti-intellectualism.

Whether Democrats will vote for someone because of anti-intellectualism is an open question, but it worked for Republicans, so it's feasible.

Who is claiming that? This sounds totally reasonable - for younger kids I believe socialization and play is way important than academics.

No 20 month old “teaches themselves to read”. I’m sure youre gifted and it’s obviously insane to join this discussion period (who am I to change your self identity) but today has been a day full of allowing too many delusional people to be delusional.

The hard part is making bureaucrats identify gifted kids, not to identify them yourself. To a bureaucrat a kid that learned a lot on his own and a kid that had a lot of personal mentors to help them learn are the same thing, so both get put in gifted class, but out of those the kid that already is getting help doesn't need more that kid is already getting what he needs.

But it probably isn't bad to put smart kids together with mentored kids, matching smart with rich is a good way to help both sides.

It’s this exactly. Gifted programs help many kids who wouldn’t have been able to access other options. If you close them rich people will simply go private, and the rest of the people who can’t afford 45k/year will be back where they started.

It was a lifesaver. I went through it. I remember, distinctly, going from 'why am I here with all these other kids who just want to stare at the wall or play with G.I. Joes or stack rings' to an immense sense of relief when there was a bit more structure, a bit more freedom to choose what to do, etc.

But more importantly, when I wanted to understand or ask about some existential question, my teacher didn't say "oh that's cute kid, don't worry about it, just go be a kid and play with your friends." They took me seriously, chatted with me through my questions, and treated me like I wasn't a complete idiot, even though I was a child. That made all the difference.

And even more importantly, asking those questions didn't make me a pariah; instead, the other kids had those questions too, and we all learned from each other and grew.

If this sounds a bit absurd, I assure you I knew it then; I literally wrote about it in my journal in second grade.

My experience both personally and via my children is it's little more than a few more worksheets during the week. There is very little actual teaching going on. Just segregation from peers and more busywork. I was personally distracted by new busywork for a while because it was at least different than what I was experiencing in class. But I didn't learn more because of it. The only real difference was in high school where you can take actual accredited college classes in place of class with the normies. Everything before that was just to distract us so we didn't interrupt "normal" classes with our boredom.

After witnessing my wife work as a para-professional with special needs kids on a volunteer basis, the biggest thing anyone could do to improve overall educational achievements is to get them the fuck out of "normal" classrooms. There is very little reason for a non-verbal fourth grader to be taking classes with fourth grade "peers". While their presence may engender some empathy in fellow students, it is often the biggest distraction in the classroom and schools don't have the desire or resources to actually address special needs children in a way to not be disruptive. And I'd extend this further. It would be far better for everyone in this country if the bottom of the bottom was left behind (from an education, not a safety net standpoint) and the average could advance in pace with the more advanced students. And I say this as a flaming leftist.

I have zero issues with additional funding being applied to help special needs children learn and adapt to the world as we have to experience it. But I have a major problem with the slowest of society dictating the educational attainment of the average (or above average) member of society. No Child Left Behind means we have to run at the pace of the biggest fucking moron in our class. It shouldn't just be exceptional children with engaged parents who are able to escape that.

>I never saw anything material from CA's GATE in the 80's-90's.

N = 1, CA's GATE program in the 2000's changed my life. "Being special" was a powerful motivator for a younger version of myself.

>shouldn't we offer investment in the top ~1-3% of kids with alternative schools that don't hold back their potential that will likely ultimately benefit us?

N = 1, what I needed as a child was a more G&T version of CA's GATE. I responded best to competitive sports and long hours of math and science problems.

I won't comment on NYC politics or the article.