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New York City's Department of Education recently decided to change admission into its Gifted and Talented program from a single test for students in kindergarten through third grade to a questionnaire for the pre-K teachers of applicants and a lottery system. This change — widely criticized by parents — is a perfect example of the pitfalls of the current push for equity in education.
I have no issue debating the merits of the previous admissions process. My problem is that the entire justification for replacing the previous process was that black and Hispanic students make up about one-quarter of students in the program despite being 70 percent of students citywide.
City leaders don't claim minority students are being kept out of gifted programs because of their race. If they did, I would support steps to address the discrimination, because the success of the program is personal for me.
Almost all of the students in my elementary school's gifted program were black. We had teachers who cared about us, pushed us to strive for excellence, and helped each of us maximize our potential. This is the type of equity I believe in.
Vice President Kamala Harris's definition of equity reflects the dominant position on the left: in a truly equitable world, all people would have the resources they need to succeed and we would all end up in the same place. The left claims to believe distributing resources according to need is the means to equity, but in reality, they see the uniformity of outcomes as the measure of equity.
Comment: A facebook post described the incident: