Source: Angie Wong
Private forces have stepped up their efforts to save NYC public schools after Mayor-elect Eric Adams has vowed to continue the legacy of outgoing Mayor De Blasio’s plan to end the gifted and talented programs.
Ronald Lauder of the Lauder Foundation and former Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons has joined forces to form a seven-figured gift to keep the established NYC public school program alive. The fund plans media buys and supports activist parent groups to turn up the heat.
“De Blasio could not have been a worse mayor for education and we fought him and we won on specialized schools but it wasn’t easy,” Lauder told the New York Post. Critics have called both the SHSAT and the gifted and talented programs racist, citing poor minority enrollment numbers.
One of the most heated campaign issues this past election was about the future of public schools and equality within its walls. Quietly, the city got rid of gifted and talented programs along with school zoning by zip codes disappeared from public school applications for 2022, which were recently released.
