Adams Commits to Keeping Gifted and Talented, But Leaves Details Unclear

Eric Adams said on Friday that he would keep New York City’s elementary school gifted and talented program if, as expected, he wins the general election for mayor next month — a clear rebuke to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who recently announced plans to eliminate the program.

“There’s a new mayor next year, that mayor must evaluate how he’s going to deal with the gifted and talented program,” Mr. Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor, said in an interview with CNN. “He can’t get rid of it until next year,” he added of Mr. de Blasio.

Asked directly whether he would eliminate the gifted program, Mr. Adams replied, “no I would not, I would expand the opportunities for accelerated learning.”

In another break with Mr. de Blasio, Mr. Adams said in a radio interview on Friday that he supported requiring students to receive a coronavirus vaccine to attend class — an action the mayor has steadfastly resisted over concerns it could motivate some parents to keep their children home.

“I say yes, if it’s F.D.A.-approved, we should also mandate it as we mandate with other vaccinations,” Mr. Adams said in the interview, with WCBS.

As to the gifted program, Mr. de Blasio said last week that he wanted to scrap the current system, including an admissions exam for 4-year-olds that has been heavily criticized, and start over with a new one that offers an accelerated education to every elementary school student.

Mr. Adams has yet to release his own plan for the city’s schools, and he has reversed course previously on at least one contentious education issue. But he made it clear on Friday that he was not going to let the outgoing mayor dictate a policy that has major implications for the nation’s largest school system.

And although Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and an ally of Mr. de Blasio’s, avoided directly criticizing the mayor during the CNN interview, his comments appeared to betray some irritation that the plan had been announced barely a month before the election. Mr. de Blasio did not consult with Mr. Adams before releasing it.

“There’s nothing to put back in place, because the next mayor must make the determination,” Mr. Adams said in the interview.

Mr. de Blasio’s plan has elicited outrage among some parents who see the gifted program as a way of keeping their children enrolled in the public school system and as an alternative to struggling neighborhood schools.

Many other families, as well as activists pushing to integrate the system, have strongly endorsed ending or overhauling the program, saying that it excludes too many Black and Latino students while weakening instruction for children in regular classes by removing strong performers.

Mr. de Blasio is considering running for governor next year. Having won election in 2013 on a pledge to broadly reduce inequality in the city, he has been criticized for not doing more to reduce segregation in the schools and, more specifically, for not addressing inequities in the gifted program until the end of his tenure.

About 75 percent of the 16,000 students enrolled in gifted classes are white or Asian American while 70 percent of the students in the overall system are Black and Latino, according to Department of Education data. The gifted program, which puts students on a separate academic track even before they enter the public schools, has exacerbated segregation in the city’s schools.

Mr. Adams acknowledged the problem on Friday.

“The gifted and talented program was isolated only to certain communities,” he said. “That created segregation in our classrooms.”

Mr. Adams also said on CNN that all children should be assessed to determine whether accelerated classes were right for them. But he said such assessments would be a part of a broader plan to evaluate all students frequently, not just for academic strengths but also for challenges that might cause them to struggle in school.

“We’re focusing on the gifted students,” he said. “They are going to be all right. How come we’re not focusing on those children with dyslexia, learning disabilities? We should be testing them periodically. That feeds our prison population. Fifty-five percent of Rikers inmates have learning disabilities.”

Mr. Adams’s aides said he was considering delaying or altering next year’s test for screening 4-year-olds for the gifted program, and then seeking broader changes to the program the following year. His transition team will announce more details after the election, according to a person with direct knowledge of the work who was authorized to discuss it publicly.

At the moment, there is no contract for administering a gifted exam in 2022 because an advisory board rejected the last one in a surprise decision. If Mr. Adams wanted to restore the test, he would need approval from the panel, which could again reject the contract.

He would also have to move very quickly: If elected, he would take office on Jan. 1. His Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa, has said that he would keep the gifted program.

Under Mr. de Blasio’s plan, New York City would no longer admit rising kindergarten students into separate gifted classes or schools starting next fall. Instead, the city would train all of its roughly 4,000 kindergarten teachers to accommodate students who need accelerated instruction within their general education classrooms. Students who are already enrolled in the program would be allowed to finish, and the program would be phased out over five years.

The National Association for Gifted Children criticized Mr. de Blasio’s plan in a recent statement, but praised his action on the test. The association said it was “supportive of the mayor’s plan to eliminate the one-size-fits-all standardized test to identify gifted students, as it often fails to recognize a significant number of Black, Brown and impoverished gifted students.”

Many parents, including those whose children are enrolled in gifted classes or who support the program, have said the test causes unnecessary anxiety for young children, and has benefited some wealthy parents who can pay for test preparation for their 4-year-olds.

Mr. Adams has been clear throughout the campaign that he did not plan to eliminate the gifted program. But he has appeared to take clear positions on education issues before, only to change his mind.

As Brooklyn borough president, he was among the strongest supporters of a plan to eliminate the high-stakes admissions exam for the city’s so-called specialized high schools. The schools enroll tiny numbers of Black and Latino students, something that Mr. Adams has said infuriates him.

A few weeks after standing alongside Mr. de Blasio to call for an end to the test, Mr. Adams reversed his position amid an outcry from some parents. He now says he wants to keep the exam in place.

Researchers who study gifted education, including those who support the city’s current program, have said Mr. Adams’s call to expanding gifted classes would do little to diversify the program unless fundamental changes are made to the admissions process.

Gifted programs in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods all but disappeared in many parts of the city after former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg introduced a citywide test-based threshold for admission into gifted classes.

Today, there are nearly twice as many gifted programs in Manhattan’s District 2, one of the city’s whitest and wealthiest districts, as there are in all of the Bronx, the city’s poorest borough. In order to change that dynamic, Mr. Adams would almost certainly have to make big changes to the admissions system.

Mr. de Blasio defended his plan during a radio appearance on Friday, although he was not asked about Mr. Adams’s comments. The current system, he said, is “incredibly exclusive and unhelpful.”

Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting.