New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who received a pricey, private school education, is now looking to restrict a program for gifted and talented students that helps low income children from kindergarten onwards break the cycle of mediocre public education.
Commie Mamdani plans to eliminate the program at the kindergarten level and move the lowest grade entry for it up to third grade, the UK Daily Mail reported. This will prevent more than 2,000 students from accessing the special program at the earliest educational level. Parental advocacy group Defending Education, which previously helped win a legal case to keep the gifted and talented program in place, is condemning the move.
The Daily Mail noted that a number of critics are calling out Mamdani’s hypocrisy, since he attended the “ultra-progressive” private Bank Street School for Children in Manhattan, which at the present time charges $66,000 per year. It is the typical attitude of a socialist elitist who claims to be all for the people, but in reality wants to keep most people down so long as he gets his.
The UK outlet also stated that the program is often a chance for racial minorities "to excel" beyond what their parents might afford to pay for their education, making it even more ironic that woke Mamdani is restricting it. Naturally, Mamdani tried to pretend that his contraction of the gifted and talented program is inspired by the noble desire for equality, as he asserted he wants quality education for everyone. As leftists often do, he is hiding a downgrade of standards and elimination of a meritocratic program as "equality" when he really just means "all public school students should receive the same lousy education."
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Defending Education Vice President Sarah Parshall Perry explained in a statement shared with PJ Media that her group previously intervened successfully in Integrate NYC v. State of New York, siding with the state on behalf of the gifted and talented program. A group of students demanded that race be considered explicitly when choosing students for the program, instead of basing it on merit alone. In 2025, Defending Education carried its point and the Court of Appeals sided with the parental advocates and New York to keep the program intact as is.
Perry continued, “But as we suspected he might, newly minted democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani — himself, a product of expensive private schools — has pledged to shut down the gifted and talented program, despite the fact that it has helped countless students from humble backgrounds achieve their full academic potential.”
She slammed the woke mayor, “Depriving kids of much-needed advanced learning opportunities is not only foolhardy, but it's also the height of hypocrisy coming from someone who was born into affluence and attended costly private schools. Apparently, Mamdani believes only the privileged should have access to various educational opportunities.”
Defending Education's Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives Paul Runko agreed, saying: "Students, particularly those from lower-income families who benefit from NYC’s gifted and talented programs, deserve opportunities for academic excellence, not a one-size-fits-all approach that could weaken learning for all students."
Unfortunately, socialism usually means an awful one-size-fits-all approach for the "proletariat," with quality reserved for the privileged elite.
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