Mamdani Says He Would Phase Out N.Y.C. Gifted Program for Early Grades

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic front-runner for mayor of New York City, plans to end the gifted and talented program for kindergarten students at public schools if he is elected, calling for a major overhaul of a program that has deeply divided parents.

Mr. Mamdani’s campaign said in a statement that he would embrace former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan, announced in 2021, to phase out the gifted program for elementary schools, which has been widely criticized for exacerbating segregation.

Students who are in gifted classes would remain in the program, but there would be no gifted program for kindergartners next fall, the campaign said on Wednesday.

Mr. Mamdani’s plan would reshape education for some of the youngest children in the nation’s largest school system and could reignite a fraught citywide debate over how — and whether — New York should address inequality in the enrollment of its selective academic programs.

“I will return to the previous policy,” Mr. Mamdani said in the statement. “Ultimately, my administration would aim to make sure that every child receives a high-quality early education that nurtures their curiosity and learning.”

Mr. Mamdani has proposed an ambitious plan to provide free child care for every child under the age of 5, which he said would provide a “groundbreaking opportunity to ensure all children can access the early care and education they need to succeed in future grades.”

His statement about the gifted program came in response to a questionnaire that The New York Times sent to the leading candidates in the race about major issues the city is facing. His two opponents, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, said they would keep the gifted program and expand it if elected mayor.

Mr. Mamdani’s position received criticism on Thursday, including from Yiatin Chu, co-founder of Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, a group that pushes for accelerated academic options, who called him “de Blasio 2.0.”

Mr. Mamdani also said that he would keep a controversial admissions test at a group of eight elite public high schools, backing away from his previous comments expressing concerns about the exam’s fairness.

New York is unusual among large U.S. school districts in enrolling kindergartners in a separate gifted and talented program. It offers spots to fewer than 5 percent of children in kindergarten and has been criticized for admitting few Black and Latino students into the classes, which can serve as a pipeline to the city’s most desired public middle schools.

In 2021, under the de Blasio administration, the city abandoned an admissions test for 4-year-olds that had long been in use. Mr. de Blasio announced in his final months in office that the students who were enrolled in gifted classes at the time would be the last in the existing program.

Mayor Eric Adams broke with Mr. de Blasio when he took office in 2022, choosing to keep the gifted program and to expand it. His administration switched to a process that relies on preschool teachers to nominate students for the program, and has not prioritized school desegregation efforts.

Students are also admitted into gifted classes through a separate third-grade track, and Mr. Mamdani’s campaign declined to say whether he would end that option. Mr. de Blasio had proposed an alternative when he was in office: evaluating all rising third graders to determine whether they needed higher-level instruction in specific subject areas, for one or two periods a day.

The gifted program — which generally offers the same curriculum as general education classes but with accelerated instruction — offers spots to only about 2,500 children, out of roughly 55,000 total kindergartners. (About 1,800 additional students are offered seats in third grade.)

But it has been a subject of heated debate for years.

Supporters argue that the gifted and talented program is a haven for bright students and that it keeps middle-class families in public schools who might otherwise leave for charter or private schools.

Critics say it has worsened racial segregation, creating exclusive classrooms occupied mainly by white and Asian students. In the fall of 2022, Black and Latino children accounted for roughly two-thirds of the public school system’s enrollment, but only a third of the kindergartners who were offered spots in gifted classes. Their enrollment was notably higher in the third-grade track.

“It’s a flashpoint,” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education leadership, law and policy at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Professor Bloomfield said that New York had struggled to create an admissions system for the gifted program that seems suitable for 4-year-olds, an age at which experts say measuring a child’s ability and potential can be thorny.

He said that Mr. Mamdani’s stance on the kindergarten classes seemed to represent “the first step in an actual policy to promote desegregation.”

“In my opinion,” he said, “it’s a good move.”

Justin Brannan, a City Council member from Brooklyn who chairs the finance committee and who endorsed Mr. Mamdani, said the current teacher nomination system was flawed.

“The teachers and parents I speak with agree we need to give kids some time to be kids, and then we can offer access to accelerated learning programs in the later years of elementary school,” he said.

In the mayor’s race, schools have received less attention than other issues, such as public safety and affordability. Mr. Mamdani, 33, has not yet articulated a clear vision for schools. Instead, he has emphasized his plan to establish free universal child care for children from 6 weeks to 5 years old.

Mr. Mamdani grew up in Manhattan and received a mix of public and private education. He attended the Bank Street School for Children, a progressive private school for students in kindergarten through eighth grade on the Upper West Side, and the Bronx High School of Science, a highly selective public high school.

He has said that he wants to ease mayoral control of the school system and instead give teachers and parents a greater say.

He said in the questionnaire that he wants to keep the specialized exam used to determine admission to the elite high schools and that he supports recommendations by a major school diversity panel in 2019 for changes to elementary and middle schools. The panel proposed eliminating all gifted programs in the city.

“As a Bronx Science alum, I’ve seen both the promise and problems of specialized high schools’ students,” he said.

The city’s eight specialized high schools admit few Black and Latino students. This school year, Black students received 3 percent of acceptance letters and Latino students just under 7 percent, the city announced this summer.

Mr. Mamdani has been considering whom he would hire as schools chancellor, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The candidates who were floated this summer include Meisha Ross Porter, who was briefly chancellor under Mayor de Blasio; Kamar Samuels, the superintendent of a school district in Manhattan; and Rita Joseph, a Brooklyn City Council member and the chair of the Council’s education committee.

Mr. Cuomo, who is second in the polls, lost to Mr. Mamdani in June’s Democratic primary and is running as an independent in the November election. He said in a statement that he would expand the gifted and talented program with more seats in each borough.

“Limiting opportunity to less than 5 percent of students is unfair,” he said. “The real inequity is access — too many Black and Latino students aren’t identified or supported early enough.”

Mr. Sliwa, the Republican candidate, who is third in the polls, said he would expand the gifted program and that he was worried about poor test scores in English and math.

“The focus should be on raising standards for everyone so more kids can qualify, not eliminating opportunities for the few who do,” he said.

Maya Wiley, a co-chairwoman of the diversity panel that recommended ending gifted programs and who endorsed Mr. Mamdani, said that he had the right approach and that the existing system prioritized families with more resources.

“Every child deserves to be challenged in a classroom at every age,” she said. “We have to stop settling for what’s broken.”