"Meanwhile, the city is moving ahead with other changes in gifted instruction. More schools will get self-contained gifted classes. And in mid-February, Carmen Fariña, the Department of Education’s head of instruction, outlined a noncontroversial, admirable reform: She’s establishing “schoolwide enrichment programs” in every public-school region. Instead of separating the gifted kids from the rest of the school population, this model creates accelerated instructional units—in, say, math or music or science—that advanced students attend for part of the day.
Still, the schoolwide enrichment program is a slow launch whose benefits to students are long-term. And Bloomberg has only seven months to make his case. Perhaps the gifted-and-talented think tank overestimated its power to set policy. But when the Department of Education stopped short of bold, immediate changes, it left Bloomberg open to accusations of pandering to the white middle class. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t good politics."
Speaking of which, why are white middle class parents still allowed to vote?
