Gifted and Talented Admissions Revised

At an emergency 8:00 AM meeting Thursday morning, the Panel for Educational Policy voted to expand G&T admissions to all kids meeting the 90th percentile on the two standardized tests required for entrance. The Panel had previously approved the 95th percentile as the standard in the fall.

Contrary to some reports that notifications will be mailed on April 18th, the DOE explained that parents will be told how their children score starting at the end of the month. Originally, notifications were to be mailed at the end of March. The G&T admissions process has become notorious for confusion and delay under the current administration.

For Manhattan districts, here are the number of children who passed the 90th percentile cutoff and will be guaranteed a seat: D1: 51, D2: 371, D3: 370, D4: 8, D5: 37, D6: 50. In D6 the current number of children enrolled in the entry Kindergarten class is 80 compared with 50 who qualify for next year suggesting the number of seats may shrink there. Otherwise, all Manhattan districts had more children who qualify than seats filled this year.

The low number of children qualifying in lower income districts suggests the DOE has not met its goal of expanding the reach of G&T programs. While the expansion of the cutoff is welcome, all of the criticisms leveled when Manhattan Borough President Stringer and I voted to oppose the new policy remain. This is the fourth or fifth year the Bloomberg administration has changed the admission process. Its efforts would clearly be better spent working on building programs and outreach in historically underserved communities.

See news reports from NY1 here , the NY Times here, NY Post here and Daily News here.

Update: Admissions stats by district here in Excel.