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Based on my inbox and social media feeds, the big education news over the past few weeks was Zohran Mamdani’s proposal to scrap New York City’s gifted education program in grades K–2—and the fierce backlash it sparked. I suspect that might surprise some of my left-leaning friends, for whom this discussion is likely largely invisible. I think that’s telling. And why I’m writing this.
It’s not that Mamdani’s proposal is actually all that terrible. The Big Apple is a real outlier in starting its gifted program so early, and in making tiny tikes leave their neighborhood schools and trek across town to other campuses. As former New York Daily News editor Josh Greenman (the father of a gifted-program participant himself) wrote the other day, all of us should have mixed feelings about New York’s program design.
A much better approach—one endorsed by the (ideologically diverse) National Working Group on Advanced Education that I chaired back in 2023—is to provide advanced education at every elementary school for their top students. Under Mayor Eric Adams, New York has been moving in that direction, and with it, has been diversifying its gifted education population. But it still starts in kindergarten and now relies on teacher recommendations, which can introduce all kinds of bias.
Still, I suspect that most of the folks on the right and center who responded angrily to Mandani’s proposal didn’t get past the headlines. “Socialist wants to kill gifted education” surely triggered some PTSD among these folks, as it harkens back to the darkest days of the Great Awokening when any effort to promote “merit” or “excellence” was branded as racist. As AEI’s James Pethokoukis put it, “true equality shouldn’t mean slowing the swift. How is this not obvious?” Or cue the Wall Street Journal editorial page: “Socialism in a nutshell: A persistent fear that somebody, somewhere, might be getting ahead and ought to be yanked back.”
As a booster of advanced education, though, it bothers me that this issue is so polarized. A recurring theme of my writing—and this newsletter—is that reform advocates should always want our preferred policies to gain bipartisan support. That’s not always possible (see: private school choice) but when it is, it makes for a stronger and more durable coalition.
But eliminating gifted education isn’t something that should only rile up conservatives or “neoliberals.” The left should worry about academically talented kids, too, especially those from marginalized backgrounds. Once such students get older, progressive groups have been strong in their support of efforts to challenge them. Organizations such as Education Trust have long promoted initiatives to expand access to advanced courses in high school. And increasingly, these groups are getting behind acceleration at the middle school level, too, with widening support for “automatic enrollment into advanced courses” policies, as we’re seeing in North Carolina, Texas, and Washington. An initiative to promote such policies even won a big award last week at the PIE Network’s Eddies ceremony—a sign that ed reformers across the ideological spectrum think this is a good idea.
But gifted education in elementary school? That’s a much harder sell. Fordham did some fact finding last year to determine the level of support for such initiatives among reform groups and education philanthropists, and the results were disheartening. Almost nobody wanted to touch it.
Maybe it’s the term “gifted,” which is burdened with a suspect, progressive-era history. It smacks of determinism, of early sorting. But I also think it’s something about the identifying, and separating, kids when they are so young that rubs many folks on the left the wrong way.
So here’s my suggestion for depolarizing “gifted education,” including in elementary school (much of which is in line with what the Working Group recommended two years ago):
Drop the “gifted” label and talk about “advanced education” instead.
Take equity concerns seriously by embracing “universal screening” to identify kids with academic talent, such as through tests that everybody takes, rather than relying on parental nominations or teacher recommendations, which can introduce racial and class bias.
Build advanced education initiatives into every elementary school in the country, serving at least the top 10 percent of students in each campus. In some schools—typically high-poverty ones—some of those students won’t be all that high performing compared to district, state, or national “norms.” But with support and challenge, lots more will turn out to show great potential and can catch up to their high-achieving peers. Such students will be disproportionately Black, Hispanic, and from low-income families. This is how to close the “excellence gap” and build a diverse pipeline into higher education (including selective colleges) and beyond.
That’s my recipe. Will it work? What else might help to gain support for such efforts at the elementary level, in order to make “advanced education” a bipartisan issue? Please weigh in!
Margaret Spellings recently appeared on The David Frum Show to talk about the declines in student achievement over the past decade or so. Not surprisingly, as the godmother of No Child Left Behind, she blamed federal policymakers for repealing that law and taking our foot off the gas of “paying attention to the fine print of accountability.” That’s one plausible hypothesis, but there are others, especially the role of the Great Recession and its impact on families and school funding and the rise of smartphones and social media.
Speaking of declining achievement, David Brooks continues his critique of Democrats Against Education Reform in his most recent New York Times column. Channeling Nat Malkus, Tim Daly, Jim Wyckoff, Michael Hartney and Paul Peterson, he walks his readers through the various hypotheses for declining test scores in the 2010s (see the item above), before pointing to the Southern Surge in Republican-led states as evidence that we can recover from our academic malaise. Indeed, he writes, “When it comes to education policy, Republicans are now kicking Democrats in the butt.” He wishes more Dems would follow the example of Rahm Emanuel, who has been writing and speaking about returning to the reform policies of the Clinton and Obama Administration. “The Democrats lost part of their soul when they lost touch with the working class,” Brooks writes. “They’ll lose whatever is left of it if they can’t be a party that champions equal opportunity.”
One-time English teacher Dan Buck digs into the question of why high school students aren’t reading books. The contemporary answer is that the leading English curricula don’t ask teachers to assign full novels, according to a report by Karen Vaites’s Curriculum Insight Project. The deeper answer is the field’s 60-year war on the Western canon. Buck proposes an alternative mission for English class: “We teach literature not to teach students the current approved set of views but to expose them to the best which has been thought and said.” Yes!
Meanwhile, on his new Substack, Dan’s new boss, Rick Hess, reposts an essay about Ryan Walters’s proposal to make New York and California teachers take a test to weed out “woke indoctrinators” from teaching in Oklahoma’s schools. Rick acknowledges that “woke indoctrination” can be a real problem, especially in social studies class, but that a test like this is the wrong solution. Um, no kidding? Thankfully, with Walters skedaddling to greener pastures, none of us has to take this bonkers idea seriously anymore.
Another week, another review of Vlad Kogan’s new book, No Adult Left Behind: How Politics Hijacks Education Policy and Hurts Kids. This time it’s from Neeraja Deshpande of Independent Women, writing for the City Journal blog. She does a nice job summarizing his arguments before questioning his preference for charter schools over private school choice as the best alternative to democratic governance of public schools. She also thinks the feds, not local school boards, are the real villains, especially in light of federal pressure to keep schools shuttered during the Covid pandemic. I’m with Vlad.
Finally, Steubenville is still doing great, reports Chad Aldeman.
California’s schools embrace phonics reading instruction with the passage of AB 1454, as the model gains proliferation across the U.S. and represents a shift away from “whole language” systems and teaching methods. —The Washington Post
The following two things are true: Most Trump administration appointees support school choice, and some of those appointees would be happy to see the public schools go away. But to insinuate that they have any chance of fulfilling that desire via federal policy is ridiculous hyperbole. —Megan O’Matz and Jennifer Smith Richards, ProPublica
As hospitals in Tennessee and the rest of the U.S. face worker shortages, vocational education programs that connect local schools and hospitals with one another aim to prepare aspiring healthcare professionals to meet the demands of the job. —Wall Street Journal
Gifted children often feel like outliers. They know they are different. Even when they are popular and seen as leaders - which is quite often - they know they are not like the other kids.
Getting IQ tested and learning why they feel so different let's them finally let out that breath they've been holding since they walked into first day of school. This is why waiting til high school is not helpful.
IQ is not about academic performance, though it is common for gifted children to perform very well. IQ is about aptitude. It measures ability. The real answer is for those of average-ish IQ to stop letting their envy rule them. Just because someone is gifted doesn't mean she thinks she's superior or that others aren't valuable. Nope, not even if she is also beautiful and funny and kind. Not even then.
Just end the Prussian model/classroom learning. It's stupid and it stunts the natural learn drive. If we can do that, and if the average person can get the hell over themselves and see things for what they are, then the high IQ will finally be free to create and innovate and do what they love to do. Everyone will benefit.
Where did the assumption come from that the top 10 percent of the class in a given year will remain the top 10 percent of the class through their entire education?