Zohran Mamdani’s Plan to Gut Gifted Education in New York City

Zohran Mamdani has once again shown New Yorkers what his vision of “equality” really means—lowering the bar for everyone. His latest proposal to phase out the city’s Gifted and Talented programs in elementary schools is framed as reform, but in reality, it’s an attack on excellence itself. The language sounds good—“fairness,” “equal opportunity”—but the impact will be devastating, especially for the very communities Mamdani claims to fight for.

For decades, Gifted and Talented programs have been one of the few pathways for children in under-resourced Black and Brown neighborhoods to access an enriched education. These programs don’t just challenge young minds; they give kids a chance to compete at the highest levels, to unlock potential that might otherwise be smothered by a system that too often fails them. Phasing them out at the earliest stages—before second grade—robs those students of opportunity at the exact moment when it matters most.
And while Mamdani may be sincere in his belief that dismantling these programs serves the cause of equality, sincerity does not make it any less destructive. His brand of Democratic Socialism consistently produces policies that flatten opportunity rather than expand it. The rhetoric of fairness becomes the pretext for suppressing achievement. And if this plan moves forward, it will be Black and Brown children who pay the highest price.

What Mamdani is Proposing

Mamdani’s plan is straightforward but deeply misguided. Beginning in 2026, New York City would eliminate Gifted and Talented admissions for kindergartners. Over the following years, the phase-out would continue through grades one and two, with gifted education only becoming available starting in third grade. In other words, by design, there would be no advanced learning pathway during the most formative years of a child’s education.
The justification is familiar: Mamdani argues that assessing children at age four or five—often through testing or early screening—is unfair, unequal, and exclusionary. He insists that all students should share the same classrooms until they are older, framing this as a way to prevent “segregation” within the public school system. He points to the racial disparities in gifted enrollment—where Asian and White students are overrepresented and Black and Latino students make up a disproportionately small share—as proof that the entire system is flawed.
But notice what’s missing from this proposal. There is no plan to expand access, no strategy to improve early identification of talented children from underrepresented communities, and no investment to ensure that every classroom can provide the level of rigor that high-performing students require. Instead, the answer is simply to shut down early gifted programs altogether. Instead of raising standards or expanding access, Mamdani is lowering the bar for nearly one million children in New York City’s public schools—ensuring that excellence is stifled rather than encouraged.
It’s also worth noting that Mamdani himself benefited from exclusivity and advanced learning opportunities. He attended Bronx Science, one of the city’s most competitive specialized high schools, and was educated in elite private schools that offered every advantage. Yet now, he advances a vision that strips away similar opportunities for others—as if excellence was good enough for him, but not for the next generation of children.
As Tony Lindsay, President of New York Homeowners Alliance Corp., and a vocal advocate for Black and Brown New Yorkers—particularly in the fight to preserve homeownership and ensure equal access to local resources and fair policies—has warned: “Zoran Mamdani’s policies are the perfect example of the soft bigotry of low expectations, policies that pretend to uplift the disadvantaged while in practice keeping them beneath the bar.”

The Disproportionate Impact on Black and Brown Students

The truth is, no community will feel the sting of this policy more than Black and Brown families. Gifted and Talented programs have historically been one of the few levers available to children in under-resourced neighborhoods—programs that provided rigor, structure, and challenge in a system that otherwise too often failed them. Removing that pathway during the earliest, most critical years of learning doesn’t create equality; it cements inequality.

Even in their flawed state, reforms to the Gifted and Talented admissions process have started to open doors. When the city replaced the single high-stakes exam for four-year-olds with a nomination-and-lottery system, the share of Black kindergartners in gifted seats rose from about 4% to 14%—a jump of 250%. Latino representation climbed from roughly 8% to 16%—a full doubling. Those are dramatic gains, real evidence that fairer admissions can expand opportunity. Mamdani’s plan would halt that progress and roll it backwards, taking away the very programs that have begun to give underrepresented students a fairer shot.
But the damage doesn’t stop there. Early access to accelerated learning sets the foundation for future success. Gifted placement in kindergarten through second grade often determines which students are on track for advanced coursework in middle school, competitive specialized high schools, and ultimately, top colleges. In other words, these programs aren’t just about challenging a five-year-old—they’re about building a pipeline of opportunity that carries a child through their entire academic journey. Strip away the foundation, and you don’t just delay opportunity—you derail it.
Many parents devote enormous time and effort to their children’s cognitive development long before the first day of school. From the toddler years through nursery and pre-K, they are reading to their kids, teaching early math concepts, and nurturing curiosity. By the time these children enter kindergarten, they are often well ahead of their peers—not because of privilege, but because of active parental involvement and a commitment to early learning. That advantage should be rewarded, not punished. Instead of providing these students with a curriculum that builds on their early achievements and propels them further, Mamdani’s plan would force them to stagnate, making them wait while the system slows them down. That isn’t equality—it’s penalizing merit and parental investment.

Flight and Stratification

There is another consequence Mamdani refuses to acknowledge: when you remove rigor and opportunity from public schools, families don’t just sit back and accept it—they leave. Parents who want their children challenged will look elsewhere, whether that means charters, private schools, or moving to different districts altogether. And contrary to the stereotypes, this isn’t just about wealthy White or Asian families. It includes countless middle-class Black and Latino parents who, given fewer options in their own neighborhoods, will take whatever steps they can to ensure their children aren’t left behind.
That flight comes at a cost. When higher-achieving students exit the system, schools are left with diminished diversity, fewer resources, and reputations that spiral downward. The end result is a two-tiered system: one where motivated families escape to find rigor, and another where those left behind are locked in watered-down classrooms with lowered expectations. In trying to engineer equity by force, Mamdani would accelerate inequality in practice.

Equality vs. Equity: The Critical Difference

So much of Mamdani’s agenda is wrapped in the phraseology of equity, but that word doesn’t mean what many people think it does. Equality means equal access to opportunity—every child having the same chance to rise, based on merit, effort, and support. Equity, on the other hand, is about engineering equal outcomes, even if it means holding some students back so others can catch up.
Mamdani’s proposal isn’t about expanding opportunity; it’s about forcing sameness. And sameness is the enemy of both excellence and justice.

The Data That Can’t Be Ignored

• Nearly one million students are enrolled in New York City’s public schools. Eliminating early gifted tracks isn’t a tweak—it’s a seismic shift that will touch almost every family in the city.
• Black and Latino students make up 62% of the public school population, yet historically accounted for fewer than 25% of Gifted and Talented enrollment, compared to roughly 70% of seats held by White and Asian students. But recent reforms were significantly closing that gap, proving that greater access and diversity were possible without dismantling the program.
• After reforms removed the single high-stakes exam, the progress was undeniable:
  • Black kindergartners in gifted programs rose from 4% to 14%—a 250% increase.
  • Latino representation climbed from 8% to 16%—a full doubling.
• The pipeline effect is real. Early gifted placement builds the foundation for advanced middle school programs, elite high schools like Stuyvesant or Bronx Science, and admission to selective colleges. Cutting off K–2 enrichment severs that pipeline before it starts.
• Flight is inevitable. When rigor disappears, families leave. And not just affluent White or Asian families—many middle-class Black and Latino parents will turn to charters, private schools, or leave the system altogether. That exodus drains resources, diversity, and morale, accelerating inequality instead of reducing it.

The Ideological Thread

None of this happens by accident. The consistent pattern in Mamdani’s policies is clear: wrap a destructive idea in the language of compassion, then push it forward under the banner of Democratic Socialism. The words sound noble—“fairness,” “equity,” “inclusion”—but the outcomes are anything but.
History tells us what happens when governments confuse equality of access with equity of outcome. Socialist and communist regimes across the 20th century made the same mistake: in the name of leveling the playing field, they leveled opportunity itself. Excellence was treated as a threat to fairness, and so achievement was either punished or suppressed. The result was not justice but mediocrity—and in the worst cases, authoritarianism and mass dependency on government systems that stripped people of both autonomy and aspiration. That is the road Mamdani’s policies would put New York on—a city that has always stood as one of the world’s greatest symbols of success, wealth, and opportunity. To drag it down into managed mediocrity would be not only a betrayal of its people, but a betrayal of what New York represents to the world.

Conclusion: The Answer Has Always Been Merit

On a broader societal level, the answer has always been clear: we rise when we reward merit. That principle built the greatest innovations, industries, and opportunities this country has ever known. Yet over the last few decades, we’ve drifted steadily downward, wrapped in the language of “equity.” Policies that promise fairness have instead delivered mediocrity, eroding standards and punishing achievement in the name of engineered sameness. Mamdani’s plan to dismantle early gifted programs is just the latest and most dangerous example of this trend.
We see the results all around us: a culture that celebrates participation trophies, hands out 10th place ribbons, and teaches young people that simply showing up is the same as excelling. This constant pursuit of sameness has yielded a society where striving is discouraged, creativity is stifled, and merit is dismissed. In line with much of socialist and communist ideology, the destination is a so-called “classless” state—where no one is allowed to stand out. But that vision is dangerous because it removes the very incentives that drive human progress: the drive to achieve, to excel, to create, to innovate. We have to get back to rewarding success instead of penalizing it.
There is a better path. The city doesn’t need fewer opportunities for advanced learning—it needs more. Instead of phasing out gifted programs, we should expand them. Instead of stunting children who show promise, we should nurture them. Instead of lowering the bar, we should raise access to it. That means broadening admissions fairly, investing in underrepresented communities, and giving every child a chance to prove what they can do.
New York City has long been a beacon of success and possibility—not because it guaranteed equal outcomes, but because it offered equal access to opportunity. That is what must be preserved. Because if we let Mamdani and others flatten excellence in the name of ideology, we won’t just fail our children; we will fail the very spirit of New York itself.