Though Mayor Bill de Blasio seemed to put the final nail in the coffin for the Department of Education’s Gifted & Talented (G&T) program last week, the man likely to replace him as mayor next year has given some indication he might not be willing to bury the initiative at all.
Brooklyn Borough President and Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams has given previous indications that he would continue the program designed for high-achieving New York City students, but with necessary reform, should he become the city’s 110th mayor in November. But on Oct. 8, de Blasio announced his administration would end the kindergarten tests for the G&T program and replace the initiative altogether with “Brilliant NYC,” which would expand accelerated learning programs tenfold across the city’s public school system while simultaneously eliminating the screening process that critics say has skewed G&T toward white, Asian and more affluent students.
