Mamdani declares war on excellence

New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani has a bold plan for the city’s schools: phase out the Gifted and Talented program in elementary education. His rationale is that these programs create disparities and feed inequality.

It’s a familiar progressive argument. If some students are excelling, others must be suffering. If a child is recognized as gifted, it’s unfair to those who aren’t. The logic is as simple as it is destructive: equality means sameness, even if sameness means mediocrity.

There is nothing wrong with recognizing giftedness. In fact, it’s common sense. If a child demonstrates unusual ability in math, science, writing, or the arts, you nurture it. You don’t bury it under a misguided notion of “equity.” Excellence, like athletic talent, must be cultivated. No one suggests we should stop training promising young athletes because not every child can make varsity. Yet in academics, this kind of reasoning now passes as justice.

Mamdani’s proposal rests on a zero-sum view of education: if gifted students are challenged, average or struggling students are deprived. But reality says otherwise. The failure of struggling students has little to do with the success of gifted ones and everything to do with broken leadership, failing priorities and an education bureaucracy that confuses slogans for solutions.

Worse, eliminating gifted programs doesn’t remove inequality; it cements it. Wealthy parents will always find ways to give their children an edge – through tutoring, test prep, extracurriculars, or private schools. It’s the working-class family, the immigrant striver, the ambitious child from a modest neighborhood, who loses the most when public pathways for talent are shut down. Mamdani’s policy would not reduce inequality; it would entrench it.

Of course, defenders of his plan will say New York is already taking steps to help struggling students. And to some degree, they’re right. The city has launched NYC Reads, a phonics-based literacy initiative designed to reverse years of damage caused by failed reading instruction. It has trained literacy coaches and rolled out new programs to engage parents. Nonprofits and community groups also step in with tutoring and mentorship programs. These efforts matter – and they are a good start.

But notice what’s missing. Schools still don’t give teachers systematic flexibility to intervene when students start falling behind across subjects. Mentorship and tutoring programs exist, but they aren’t scaled to reach every struggling child who needs one. And schools rarely celebrate excellence outside the narrow band of standardized tests. A student with a gift for music, or technical trades, or entrepreneurship is too often left in the shadows.

This is where conservatives can make a real difference: by insisting that fairness doesn’t mean dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. It means raising the floor without lowering the ceiling. It means holding onto gifted programs for those who excel, while building new ladders for those who struggle.

Schools should focus on fundamentals. Every child deserves mastery in reading and math. Early phonics-based literacy and basic numeracy are the non-negotiable building blocks of opportunity.

Teachers should be trusted and given the flexibility to intervene when a student is falling behind, rather than chaining them to rigid, top-down mandates.

Families should be engaged. Strong families remain the greatest equalizer in education. Encourage parents to read with children, reinforce discipline, and support homework routines.

Mentorship and tutoring should be expanded. Churches, civic groups and nonprofits should be scaled up so no struggling student is left without support.

And excellence of all kinds should be celebrated. Not every child will ace calculus, but some will thrive in the arts, athletics, or skilled trades. Schools should dignify these gifts as much as test scores.

The tragedy of Mamdani’s proposal is that it reflects a growing cultural fatigue with excellence itself. We live in a moment where fairness is too often defined not by how high the ceiling is, but by how low we can drag it. The logic is perverse: if some shine brighter, then all must be dimmed.

But dimming the brightest lights does not make the room fairer. It makes the whole room darker.

Excellence is not the enemy of equity. Real fairness comes when we allow the child who may one day cure cancer to reach his full potential, while ensuring the child who struggles with reading has every chance to catch up. Both deserve cultivation. Both deserve dignity. And both require rejecting the politics of mediocrity.

New York’s future – and America’s – depends on it.