If there is a master plan behind the school reform agenda of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his chancellor, Joel Klein, we have yet to divine it. On some issues, their instincts are good - charter schools, for example (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=121#1520). On others - such as hiring curriculum chief Diana Lam to engulf the nation's largest school system in progressivist nonsense - they show appalling judgment. The confusion continues this week, when Lam told an N.Y.U. audience that the city planned to "expand the definition of what it means to be gifted and talented," essentially cutting the legs out from under a G&T program that has kept many middle class families from fleeing Gotham's public schools. The aim, of course, is diversity, as minority youngsters are said to be "underrepresented" in the program as presently constituted. After an ensuing uproar, Klein contradicted his deputy and allowed as how the city has a "strong commitment to the gifted-and-talented programs." Now nobody is sure just what the city will do, so rumors fly and, once again, a reformist team is sending confused and vexing signals.
"Talent for reaching out," by Joe Williams, New York Daily News, December 6, 2003
"School reform: RIP? " New York Post, December 9, 2003
"Mixed signals over fate of gifted-and-talented programs," by David Herszenhorn, New York Times, December 10, 2003, (registration required)