Last week my StuyCS family community had a discussion about Zohran Mamdani's plans for gifted education. For people outside of New York, Mamdani is the Democratic candidate for mayor and there was a recent article outlining his plans or rather, his positions on gifted ed - always a hot button topic for Stuy alums. It also turns out to be a hot button topic in education in general in New York.

Long story short, he plans to phase out admission to gifted programs in kindergarten while leaving the 3rd grade starting point. He also plans to leave the SHSAT - the entrance exam used for Stuy, Science, Tech and a few other schools in place while bolstering programs that help raise awareness and help prep middle school students from underrepresented groups for the exam.

Overall, I approve of his plans but something struck me in the article it mentioned in passing that the gifted programs would use a model of acceleration, a path that I would question as I think enrichment is generally a better way to go.

Acceleration basically means you go through the material faster. When Abe Baumel was principal of Stuy - from Fall '84 through sometime in the early '90s, he only allowed honors sections be created if they were accelerated - his stance was that "all Stuy classes are honors classes." This meant that the math honors program had students finishing geometry and alg2/trig in one three semesters rather than four. This did allow those students to take a class in Linear Algebra and Number Theory.

After Baumel retired, the math department shifted the honors program to an enrichment model.

Looking at gifted or honors programs not only at Stuy but also in the earlier grades, it's easy to see some of the problems with the acceleration model but other issues are subtler.

To start with, once you're in an accelerated program, you're off track - topic for topic you're not at the same place as the rest of the school. This means students can't be placed in to the gifted program if they're identified later unless the gifted and regular programs sync up at some point later on.

It also means that a student who has to leave the gifted program for the regular program will either be placed in a class where they've already covered all the material or in a class that's more advanced and the student is missing something.

Far from ideal.

Another issue is that kids are sometimes accelerated too far too fast and while they can get by the standardized tests, they don't really grok the material. I saw this a number of times at Stuyvesant. A kid would come from a school that had an overall weak program but they'd have a small number of high achieving students. They'd push them through the regents classes at an accelerated rate. I'd then get them at Stuy in a more advanced math class and even though this kid got an A in their prior classes and a ninety-something on the regents, they just didn't really have a strong foundation in the material. They studied it too superficially and just learned how to pass the test.

I've also seen this phenomenon when kids take Physics too early.

Relating to this, but sticking with math education, a number of friends and colleagues over the years have had a chance to study education systems in other countries and a frequent comment is that some other countries cover far less in their math courses but what is covered is covered more deeply. Every single person I've spoken to who's observed this noted that the kids educated in that way seem to end up much stronger mathematically overall.

I've even seen this with my own kids. When they were really young, I tried to introduce them to Algebra. First it was too early and they just didn't get it. I quickly dropped the effort. Later, I tried again and they were able to do the algebra but they didn't really get it, they just seemed to be following the form. I dropped the effort again. Finally, I approached the topic a third time and this time, they were at the right developmental place and mastered the topic with no difficulty in no time.

So, acceleration is, let us say, problematic.

Enrichment is better. What's enrichment? Going more deeply into the subject you'd normally be studying anyway, looking at interesting applications of the subject, or covering tangential material that won't be covered in future required classes.

In a math class, maybe doing more derivations or proofs or as another example, when I taught linear algebra, I'd relate it to computer graphics applications. Nowadays, I'd probably look at something that relates to AI or ML but back then, graphics were all the rage.

In my CS honors classes at Hunter, I'd cover aspects of software engineering or interesting approaches that they would see neither in the regular CS sections of my class nor in future required CS classes.

Actually, many of the classes I designed at Stuy were like this - what are enrichment topics that these kids could use that they won't see in college. If I'm just teaching them stuff they'll get again in a couple of years when they'll probably be more ready for it, then what's the point.

With enrichment, kids can enter and leave gifted programs at any point in time. They also serve to reinforce the core topics they're supposed to be learning rather than glossing over materials in a race to get as far ahead as possible.

If Zohran Mamdani wins (and he currently has my vote), I hope his education people go further than just look at gifted programs at a superficial level and that they look at how they're implemented as well.