"As someone who benefited from the gifted and talented program in its original, pre-Bloomberg construction, I know the value of accelerated and enriched education. Adding more seats, more access, more opportunity is an improvement that will extend these benefits to more students. At the same time, it is also an expansion of a program that is inherently inequitable. Even when I was enrolled, the gifted and talented program had deep inequities, which have only become more pronounced in the decades since.”
“The most effective path forward is through a schoolwide enrichment model, integrating subject-specific accelerated programming, and the students receiving it, into mixed level classrooms rather than separating children onto different tracks as toddlers. The best way to ensure each of our children has the best education is to remove harmful barriers in the classroom and the social, racial, and economic inequities they represent and perpetuate."