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Home Front: Politix

Killing Gifted & Talented programs is de Blasio’s next step in war on excellence in education

2019-08-30

[NYPOST] There are two ways to close the school achievement gap: lift up struggling students or push down those who are succeeding. Having failed at the former, Mayor Bill de Blasio
...cryptocommie mayor of New York and for some reason a Dem candidate for president in 2020. Corrupt and incompetent, his qualifications for office seem to consist of being married to a black woman, with whom he honeymooned in Cuba. He has a preppy-looking son named Dante, whose Divine Comedy involved getting his back hair up when a police car drove past him slowly...
seems intent on pursuing the latter.

This week, de Blasio’s "School Diversity Advisory Group" recommended that the New York City Department of Education scrap Gifted & Talented programming. This idea is both jaw-dropping and entirely unsurprising.

At a basic level, it’s the logical next step in de Blasio’s escalating war against excellence: Oppose the most successful charter schools. Oppose all charter schools. Oppose a test for advanced opportunities. Oppose all advanced opportunities.

But at a deeper level, this is an inexorable extension of de Blasio’s ideology. De Blasio, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza and their privileged fellow travelers define their politics as in opposition to "white supremacy."

But they do not define "white supremacy" as a belief in inherent racial superiority. As their recent staff training made clear, they define it as a belief in "objectivity," an aspiration toward "perfectionism," a "sense of urgency" and "worship of the written word."

If you sincerely believe that habits and traits that lead to success constitute "white supremacy," and you oppose "white supremacy," then you simply must inhibit opportunities for children to develop those qualities by dismantling advanced coursework.

That’s not, of course, the stated rationale behind the recommendation. Rather, the motivation presented is integration.

But even de Blasio’s advisers appear to understand that their proposal will not advance that cause. In the face of an education system that implicitly defines excellence as a racist social construct, middle-class parents will decamp in droves for the suburbs or stretch their pocketbooks to pay for private school.

Posted by:Fred

#4 Another milestone on the road of Decline & Fall.

Ruin the Humanities & Social Sciences with identity politics idiocy and BS ideologies: check.

Ruin STEM with identity politics idiocy and low standards: check.

Ruin primary & secondary education with identity politics idiocy and hostility toward any standards at all: check.

This is how great nations are brought low.

Posted by: Lex 2019-08-30 13:49

#3 Idiot. Gifted & Talented programs tend to be fairly inexpensive, and also result in lots of outside awards won independently by students, leading to kudos for the school system. While ideally it takes a teacher with advanced training to challenge the 1-5% of students who demonstrate both higher intelligence and creative/lateral thinking at an early age, and a dedicated classroom in the school building, the program itself can be done using inexpensive found materials and access to the internet or the school library. If a specialized teacher is not provided, any teacher can pull aside the occasional intellectually gifted child for independent study while the rest of the class learns in the usual way, once they know what to look for. Wikipedia has a pretty good overview of the thing.

The trailing daughters’ school district has an outstanding G&T program in addition to a full array of advanced (from first grade) and AP (college credit in high school) courses, one of the advantages of being a city-sized district out in the suburbs — the web page is here for those interested.

Posted by: trailing wife 2019-08-30 12:37

#2 If you educate the slave class they get uppity.

Posted by: Silentbrick 2019-08-30 11:59

#1 I'm sure rich people won't be discommoded.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2019-08-30 04:59

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