Nice column in the New York Post this week by Michael Benjamin, about the idiocy of New York City political and educational leaders crusading against gifted-and-talented programs. The establishment reasoning is that such programs tend to have too many Asian and white children, and too few black and Hispanic ones, which makes them racist -- a hard case to make against Benjamin, who is the black guy in the middle of the doorway in that never-gets-old New York Times photo from 2008, when the Eliot Spitzer scandal was breaking in New York City as we watched on Betty Flood's TV, on the third floor of the state Capitol.
He was then then a Democratic assemblyman from the Bronx, and unlike a great many state legislators, was willing and able to think for himself. The party apparently "tired of Benjamin's go-it-alone ways".
Now he is a member of the Post's editorial board, and writes:
"I had a miserable middle school experience because there weren’t enough seats in the one special-progress program in the one junior high school in District 8 that offered it. I persevered, fought the bullies and passed the Bronx Science exam.
"Back then, you were accused of acting white if you were “bookish” or spoke standard English. Today, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza and his fellow travelers scold us for allegedly internalizing white supremacist values, such as using good grammar, proper spelling and wanting to outdo others academically.
"Carranza is already on the record saying that he considers G&T classes another example of segregation. This, even though the classes are virtually non-existent in minority school districts. ...
"There isn’t an African American or Latino who is happy about the large decline in the number of kids from our communities attending specialized high schools. But the response shouldn’t be to dig out the pipeline but to restore it.
"We can create better outcomes for minority kids by identifying and nurturing their academic and creative talents early. And if that means bringing them together for special attention, then so be it."
Meanwhile, at the state level, the Board of Regents is moving toward abolishing the Regents exams.
Schools cut art and music programs, and embrace PC politics as pedagogy, grinding the life out of the humanities. Standards have been falling for many decades.
