Quinn offers plan to add slots for gifted in city schools
View(s):Seeking to address pervasive racial disparities at the top echelons of New York City schools, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, plans on Tuesday to propose a significant overhaul of gifted and talented programs that would provide space for more children and loosen admissions requirements.
Ms. Quinn, a Democratic candidate for mayor, will call on city officials to double the number of schools for high-performing children and add slots to existing programs, creating 8,700 new seats over nine years. She will also suggest allowing some students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to gain admission with a teacher’s recommendation in lieu of test scores.
Ms. Quinn said the city’s elite academic programs had become havens of privilege that for too long have shut out such students. She said she hopes to persuade the Department of Education to make the changes by September
“Our gifted and talented programs in no way, shape or form reflect the diversity of our city,” Ms. Quinn said in an interview. While the proposal would focus on increasing the number of poor students in gifted programs, it would also provide more seats for children from middle- and upper-class families, who have long complained about the lack of rigorous options at neighborhood schools.
Ms. Quinn does not have authority as Council speaker to put the changes into effect, only the power to twist arms. In that light, some saw her plan as a shrewd political move that could help solidify support among middle-class families and attract the attention of minority voters.
The city’s Department of Education said relaxing the requirements for admission would lead to jockeying among well-connected parents.
“This administration has shifted the gifted and talented admissions process from one dependent on personal relationships to one rooted in basic fairness,” said Erin Hughes, a spokeswoman for the department.
At Public School 11 in Chelsea, parents greeted the City Council speaker’s proposed overhaul warmly on Monday.
She added that the city had an extensive outreach operation in low-income areas and had created 4,000 prekindergarten seats this year in the hope of helping more students qualify.
The issue of attracting low-income children and minorities into rigorous academic programs has vexed city officials for years. While Hispanic and black children make up 67 percent of the student population, they represent only 27 percent of children in gifted and talented programs.
Hoping to make access more equitable, Joel I. Klein, then the schools chancellor, imposed cutoff scores citywide on two standardized exams in 2007 to replace a hodgepodge of admissions requirements that varied by district. But the changes achieved the opposite of what the chancellor had intended as white and Asian students took an even greater proportion of the seats.
In Chelsea, one of the most competitive districts in the city, Ms. Quinn’s proposals were greeted warmly on Monday.
Juan Brea, a president of the PTA at Public School 11, said test scores should not be the only consideration. His fourth-grade daughter is enrolled in a gifted program, but his first-grade daughter did not score high enough to be admitted.
“The test is so random,” he said. “Teachers are the ones who know what kids are capable of.”
Dara Gottfried said that her daughter, who is in kindergarten at P.S. 11, had scored in the 90th percentile on the admissions test, qualifying her for a seat in a gifted program, but was not admitted to one because of the high demand. She said she was hopeful that the changes Ms. Quinn proposed would give her daughter a chance to work in a more challenging environment.
“I think she could really benefit from being in a gifted and talented class,” Ms. Gottfried said.
Under Ms. Quinn’s plan, the city would double the number of so-called citywide gifted programs, schools that admit only gifted children scoring at or above the 97th percentile, to 10 from five, resulting in 2,700 new seats. One school would open in Staten Island and two would open in the Bronx, the first such schools in those boroughs. Brooklyn and Queens, which already have gifted schools, would receive one more each.
The number of seats for gifted and talented programs within existing schools would also increase at a rate of about 1,000 seats per year, with at least two gifted kindergarten classes offered in each district.
The cost of opening new schools would be about $312,000 per school, Ms. Quinn said. The additional seats within existing schools are not expected to cost anything; schools will simply repurpose existing resources. Most of the city’s 14,000 elementary school gifted students gained entry via the exam given before their kindergarten year. Ms. Quinn would not do away with the exams, but under her plan, the city could rely on teacher recommendations at schools with low demand, and in cases of attrition. In higher grades, seats would be filled through a combination of factors, including a student’s class work, test scores and teacher observations.
The city’s Department of Education, however, has said that admitting students who do not score in the highest percentiles could dilute the quality of gifted programs and frustrate ill-prepared students.
As part of her proposal, Ms. Quinn suggested allowing community leaders to nominate students for testing. Ms. Quinn said she hoped to attract an additional 800 to 1,200 students, primarily from low-income neighborhoods, to take the test each year.
She also suggested notifying parents earlier in the year whether their children had been accepted to gifted programs, so that they did not have to forfeit deposits on private schools.
Catherine T. Nolan, a Democrat from Queens and the chairwoman of the State Assembly’s education committee, said Monday she would seek to enact some of Ms. Quinn’s proposals through state legislation.
Making the school system more equitable has been a running theme in this year’s mayoral election, with candidates attacking Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for the lack of diversity in gifted programs as well as at the city’s elite public high schools.
Bill de Blasio, the public advocate, said he also favored moving away from weighing test scores so heavily in admissions decisions. He suggested providing a portfolio of student work as an alternative.
“Our goal needs to be reducing disparities in education, not entrenching them,” Mr. de Blasio said in a statement. “Like a lot of public school parents, I believe staking so much on a single test is no way to run a school system.” –nytimes.com
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