| Top Stories The PLACE is Right Court tosses suit claiming NYC’s Gifted and Talented programs are racially biased: ‘Win for parents’ NY Post, 10/24/2025 The state’s top court tossed out a lawsuit Thursday that claimed New York City’s gifted and talented programs — which mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani wants to phase out — are racially biased against black and Latino students… “This ruling reaffirms the integrity of merit-driven selection processes that ensure every child, regardless of background, has a fair shot at excellence in our public schools,” PLACE NYC (Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education) said Thursday night… “As a parent defendant, I’m relieved the court has debunked the misconception that gifted programs are racist and recognized gifted students’ valid needs,” Hahn told The Post Thursday night. G&T Program Dysfunction Mamdani’s opponents want to grow NYC’s gifted programs. Attracting students isn’t easy. Chalkbeat, 10/17/2025 When mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani reiterated his intention in Thursday night’s debate to eliminate gifted programs for the city’s youngest students, his opponents quickly shot back with promises to move in the opposite direction. …Experts and educators point to several factors that have made it difficult to grow the program through the formal admissions process. Many families don’t know gifted tracks are available. Another major reason: The third grade entry point adds logistical hurdles for families. The Slow Down New NY math guidelines tell teachers to stop testing kids on problem-solving speed to curb ‘anxiety’ NY Post, 10/18/2025 The New York State Education Department is pushing new math guidelines, including a recommendation that teachers stop giving timed quizzes — because it stresses students out. The new guidelines also argue that repeated practice of math facts is not useful, and that “explicit instruction” doesn’t work as well as letting students figure out their own ways to do math. Critics bash the state’s latest math guidance, developed by University of Michigan researchers who promote equity and social justice, warning the changes will backfire spectacularly. Advocacy Corner PLACE NYC parent volunteers are back for SHSAT Office Hour |
| Register here: https://tinyurl.com/2025-SHSAT Open Letter Template to NYC Mayoral Candidates Click here for an email template organized by parents to Protect and Strengthen NYC’s Gifted & Talented Programs Petition to Retract the NY Math Briefs Read and sign the petition here WATCH the PLACE NYC Townhall with NYC Mayoral Candidate Andrew Cuomo Watch the recording: https://youtu.be/NaljWmuWldg Voter Info Find Your Poll Site and View Sample Ballot: findmypollsite.vote.nyc/ Elections Coverage Ballot Proposals: Here’s what NYC voters need to know as they head to the polls Gothamist, 10/24/2025 Management of Guardian Angels Raises Questions About Sliwa’s Leadership NY Times, 10/22/2025 NYC Debate For Mayor | Full NY1 Coverage NY1 Spectrum News, 10/22/2025 Swallow the bitter pill, Curtis Sliwa — quit the race to stop Zohran Mamdani NY Post Editorial, 10/20/2025 If Sliwa cares about NYC and not just himself, it’s time to drop out of the mayoral race NY Daily News Editorial, 10/20/2025 Two candidates face off in debate for Brooklyn council seat Spectrum News, 10/17/2025 Board’s ballot bungle: Board of Elections messed up with both Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo NY Daily News Editorial, 10/12/2025 Other Headlines Legacy Backlash A Backlash Is Growing Against Another Elite College Practice: ‘Legacy’ Admissions Wall Street Journal, 10/23/2025 The conservative advocate who dismantled affirmative action is joining forces with a center-left Democrat and a Duke University economist to challenge another sacred cow in elite college admissions: preferential treatment for the offspring of alumni. “Legacy applicants have done nothing meritorious to earn this advantage,” wrote Edward Blum, education analyst Richard Kahlenberg and economist Peter Arcidiacono, a political independent, to the Education Department recently, urging officials to track legacy in admissions and analyze the impact. Blum, a conservative, spearheaded the lawsuit against Harvard College that helped lead the Supreme Court to strike down affirmative action in 2023, while the other two men testified against the practice. As Feds Step Back, States Step Up Sharing Ways to Boost Student Achievement The 74 Million, 10/23/2025 Reversing Trends Asian American Students Increase at Harvard, as Black Students Decline NY TImes, 10/23/2025 The percent of Black and Hispanic students in Harvard’s first-year class dropped this fall while that of Asian American students increased, according to figures released on Thursday. It was more evidence that a 2023 Supreme Court ban on affirmative action is having a significant effect on racial diversity at the nation’s elite schools. Harvard College said that 11.5 percent of its first-year students identify as Black this fall, down from 14 percent last year and 18 percent in 2023, before the Supreme Court ban took effect. While the decline is not as sharp as some experts had predicted, it reverses a trend toward increased racial diversity that had begun in the 1960s. Zohran Mamdani Pushes to Defund the Gifted Wall Street Journal, Op-ed by Jorge Elorza, 10/22/2025 And The Survey Says… 2025 PLACE NYC Back-to-School Survey: NYC Parents on Mayoral Election, Cell Phone Ban, and Academic Rigor PLACE NYC, 10/22/2025 Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education (PLACE NYC) conducted its 2025 Back-to-School survey to take the pulse of NYC public school families on a broad range topics including academic rigor, the new cell phone ban, upcoming changes to the SHSAT and November’s mayoral election. “While parents are largely content with academic rigor and accelerated offerings in schools, nearly half cited education as their top issue in voting for the next mayor,” said Deborah Kross, co-secretary of PLACE NYC. The 300 respondents represent a balanced sample of parents with students across the grade bands; approximately one-third in 3K/PreK/elementary schools (33%), middle schools (36%) and in high schools (31%). The majority of the participants are from Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn Colleges Face a Reckoning: Is a Degree Really Necessary? The NY Times, 10/22/2025 The Future of School Accountability Isn’t More Testing The 74 Million, 10/22/2025 Hitting a Nerve How Brilliant Toddlers Became the Center of Attention in New York’s Mayoral Race: Mamdani’s proposal to scale back gifted-and-talented program sparks controversy in America’s largest school district Wall Street Journal, 10/22/2025 Patiwat Panurach was busy plotting his three-year-old’s future this month when New York’s smartest toddlers were thrust into the political spotlight. …The mayoral hopeful had hit a nerve. Panurach, unlike Harlan, likes Mamdani. He’s a fan of the candidate’s proposal to expand no-cost, universal child care through the city’s “3-K” program. But the latest news is a hard sell for him. Panurach, who works as a market researcher, is weighing his options: Should he move his family to another nook of the city, in search of a well-regarded public school? Stay put and hope for the best? Shell out $60,000 yearly for private school and plan on a late retirement? “He’s taking opportunities for a better education away from New York’s kids,” Panurach said. “I would find it very frustrating to vote for Mamdani when one of his policies is going to reduce opportunities for my child.” They Paid Off Their Student Debt in Under a Decade. Here’s How. Wall Street Journal, 10/22/2025 Busing Contract Woes Some 150,000 NYC students may lose school bus service amid contract battle, chronic complaints NY Daily News, 10/21/2025 Close to 150,000 New York City students could lose school bus service next month if operators follow through on a threat to yank drivers off the job over a bitter contract impasse, according to a formal warning filed Monday. The private school bus companies notified the state Labor Department that, if a citywide education panel does not approve their contract extension, they would be forced to lay off 12,000 unionized drivers and attendants at the end of the business day on Oct. 31. Chicago’s Union Boss Gets a Promotion Wall Street Journal Editorial, 10/20/2025 154,000 NYC students were homeless last school year, another record high Chalkbeat, 10/20/2025 Mums the Word Chalkbeat asked: Mamdani pledges to boost special education, focus on vulnerable kids Chalkbeat, 10/20/2025 But his campaign’s responses indicate that his education agenda may focus on some of the system’s most vulnerable children, who are often far behind their peers in reading and math, experience elevated rates of chronic absenteeism, and are much less likely to graduate on time. …Still, Podvesker said she wished the responses fleshed out what concrete steps Mamdani would take to improve the special education system and how he would approach making schools more inclusive for students with disabilities. In response to the questionnaire, Mamdani also did not outline any new strategies for improving the city’s lowest performing schools. Instead, he vowed to support a group of more than 400 community schools that provide wraparound services including mental health clinics and may offer additional learning time. 紐約市長選戰 華裔關注資優教育政策 World Journal, 10/20/2025 In Arguing Over the Right Age for Gifted Testing, G&T Gatekeepers Miss the Point The 74 Million, 10/19/2025 Social Media Impact Kids’ Social Media Use Linked to Lower Reading and Memory Scores, Study Suggests EdWeek, 10/17/2025 There may be a link between social media use during early adolescence and lower cognitive performance, a new study suggests. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, on Oct. 13, found that 9- to 13-year-olds with rising levels of social media exposure performed poorer on reading, memory, and vocabulary tests compared with their peers who used little to no social media. The findings come as hundreds of school districts have sued major social media companies claiming their products are eroding students’ mental health and ability to learn, and forcing schools to devote significant resources to managing the academic and behavioral fallout. White House Meets With New Colleges About ‘Compact’ After Rejections Wall Street Journal, 10/17/2025 Will Mamdani break tradition and keep Eric Adams’ schools chancellor? He’s open to it. Chalkbeat, 10/17/2025 Albany County sees big decrease in immigrant children at Head Start Times Union, 10/16/2025 Math Curriculum Not Mathing Illustrative Math’s CEO on What Went Wrong in NYC and Why Pre-K Math Is Up Next Chalkbeat, 10/15/2025 Illustrative Mathematics was established in 2011 at the University of Arizona as a means to assist schools in adopting the Common Core standards. It has since grown to include a K-12 math curriculum that’s been implemented across 48 states by some 1,500 school districts — including those in New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. …Select schools within the New York City system have been using Illustrative Mathematics for half a decade. A recent, massive rollout across hundreds of campuses has been met with sharp criticism from many teachers and declining scores on the Regents Algebra I exam. Battleground NYC with SE Cupp: Interview with Yiatin Chu on G&T Fox 5 New York, 10/15/2025 Eva Moskowitz on NYC Charters, a Florida Expansion, and the Schools ‘Crisis’ Wall Street Journal, 10/14/2025 Trending Up After years of quietly falling, college tuition is on the rise again Hechinger Report, 10/13/2025 Summer usually provides a respite for Connor Pavlicko from his duties as student body president at Slippery Rock University. But this summer, he was bombarded by classmates demanding to know why their tuition was suddenly going up. What made these students particularly angry was that the 3.6 percent increase followed a span since 2018 in which tuition at public universities in Pennsylvania, including Slippery Rock, had been frozen in place, said Pavlicko, a junior political science and government major from Ohio. “This is happening everywhere,” he said he found after “endlessly doomscrolling” social media. NYC school cell phone ban ushers in shocking reality: Kids are talking to each other NY Daily News, 10/12/2025 葛謨主張擴大資優教育與特殊高中名額 批曼達尼取消政策錯誤 World Journal, 10/12/2025 Queens SHS on the Table Cuomo calls for more specialized high schools amid controversy over Mamdani education stance NY Daily News, 10/11/2025 Independent mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo said Saturday he plans to add more specialized high schools across NYC and expand gifted and talented programs, hitting hard on a key education issue that has become a divisive flashpoint in the mayoral election. Cuomo’s main rival, Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani, sparked debate recently when he said in a New York Times candidate survey that he’d end admissions to the gifted and talented program for kindergarteners. Mamdani’s stance reignited a heated controversy over the popular program in New York City public schools that carves out a separate learning track for select students. In his Saturday announcement, Cuomo said he partnered with the organization Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education or PLACE NYC, in developing the plan, a keystone of which would be to build another specialized school in Queens. Student Expectations To Attend College Plunge To New 20-Year Low Forbes, 10/10/2025 Lawmakers push for gifted programs to be more widespread in NYC schools Gothamist, 10/10/2025 G&T Admissions Concerns Mamdani wants to rethink gifted and talented in NYC. The program has already seen big shifts. Chalkbeat, 10/10/2025 Mamdani’s proposal, which would preserve classes that start in third grade, seems to be sparking discussion within the city Education Department. Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos told families at a Staten Island parent town hall on Monday that she’s “concerned” about the current admission process, and that the Education Department in recent days has started talking about possible changes. |