Don’t hold down the bright children
Rockledge, Fla.: As a product of gifted and talented programs, a Black one at that, I just don’t get it. Why are advanced learners being penalized for the failure of the Department of Education to educate the majority of children in New York City, especially the Black and Hispanic ones? The test scores don’t lie — last I looked, less than half of the Black and Latino children in NYC can read or perform math at grade level. How is this going to help the test scores go up? The people who are screaming about equity are the same people who think the very nature of testing is racist. Newsflash: It doesn’t matter if the reading passage on a test is about Becky and Brad or Kareem and Lakesha if a child can’t read.
Admittedly, I am a product of the old system of tracking. Some would say that it worked for me. I agree. I also concede that the system failed the children at the lower end of the spectrum, many of who had to deal with the racism of low expectations. Children who started at the lower ranks were rarely elevated because too many teachers didn’t expect them to improve. Why didn’t we fix that? Instead, we got the ridiculous idea of testing 4-year-olds, and the opportunities that many once had available in their own school were limited to a few in programs scattered throughout the city.
All this will do is force more parents into the charter school racket or they’ll leave the city entirely. Leave gifted and talented programs intact. Have them in every school. Let admissions be based on performance on standardized tests coupled with teachers’ recommendations.