‘Gifted’ push for poor kids

THE BOROUGH presidents of the Bronx and Brooklyn are teaming up for a fresh effort to boost gifted and talented programs and access to elite schools in underserved neighborhoods.

Brooklyn’s Eric Adams and Ruben Diaz Jr. of the Bronx will unveil a new task force Monday to tackle unequal access in the city’s gifted programs and specialized high schools.

Adams and Diaz said they are fed up with a system that keeps needy kids from their neighborhoods cut out of the city’s best schools.

“Our children lack gifted programs and adequate test prep resources, among other things, and the results are crystal clear,” Diaz said. “Through this task force, we will work to change that.”

Both borough presidents have sounded the alarm for years on the unequal distribution of gifted and talented programs and elite schools in disadvantaged areas.

Four local school districts in the Bronx and in Brooklyn have no gifted kindergarten programs, and the Bronx has no citywide gifted program and no middle school gifted program.

The four districts with no gifted kindergarten programs, which include the South Bronx and Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville in Brooklyn, had no gifted programs at all from 2011 until last September, when the city added gifted classes for third-graders in those areas.

Studies have shown that students from wealthier neighborhoods are more likely to attend specialized high schools, with lower numbers of students coming from poorer areas of the Bronx and Brooklyn.

The borough presidents’ new task force will include city officials, community leaders and parents. The group will host public hearings in March and will issue a set of policy recommendations for the city Education Department sometime before the start of the next school year in September.

Adams said that too often, gifted kids from hardscrabble neighborhoods are shut out of suitable classes.

“Our students’ home addresses are playing too heavy a role in their access to high-quality specialized education,” Adams said. “This task force will uproot the causes of these challenges.”