Mamdani’s plan to cut gifted programs in NYC schools driving parents to competitive private education: report

Parents in New York City are reportedly worried about Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to cut gifted programs in public schools, and it’s boosting interest in private schools, according to a new report.

New York Magazine reported that the private-school application process causes parents to network and put their children through “intensive” tutoring.

“Parents have complained for decades that getting into an elite independent school in Manhattan is harder than getting into Harvard; for the wealthy parents who are competing to spend about $70,000 a year, it’s an infamously complicated and time-intensive game of tutoring and networking that involves preschoolers sitting for assessments and ‘interviews’ just before nap time,” the magazine reported.

This gave rise to Facebook groups being formed, like “Moms of the Upper Eastside” and “UES Mommas,” where NYC parents vented about their children getting wait-listed and rejected at the school they believed their children would enroll in. One parent wrote, “It’s a bloodbath this year.”

During Mamdani’s campaign, he planned to end the gifted and talented program for kindergarten students at public schools — a proposal that “divided parents,” according to The New York Times.

Mamdani’s campaign told the Times that he would follow through with former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan, announced in 2021, to phase out the gifted program for elementary schools. Students currently enrolled in the program will continue, but the program will not be available for kindergartners next fall.

Mamdani has argued that early testing for gifted students contributes to inequities in the school system.

The plan to end the program prompted some education experts to warn that it could deprive high-achieving students — particularly those from low-income families — of critical academic opportunities.

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Brooke Parker, a Manhattan admissions consultant who focuses exclusively on kindergarten and nursery schools, confirmed to New York Magazine that the city’s private kindergartens were unusually competitive this cycle.

“Applications across the board were up 25 percent,” Parker said. 

She also cited a baby boom during the coronavirus pandemic that led to the growth in applications.

“People who were considering public school were very nervous about Mamdani winning,” Parker said. “The only area in Manhattan, really, that voted for Cuomo was the Upper East Side.”

The Mayor’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

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Another NYC admissions consultant, Alina Adams, said public school policies “added to the application glut” as the governor mandated class sizes to be reduced to 25 students per teacher by 2028. She said the mandate could cause the city to assign children in a wealthy neighborhood to schools outside their home districts.

“You used to be able to buy your way into a good school by buying a home in a good school zone,” Adams said. “Now people are really concerned that they will be zoned out even of their zoned schools,” Adams added.

Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

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