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.
The borough currently has only one specialized school, Queens High School for the Sciences, which accepts just 130 new students a year. Other existing specialized schools are far larger, such as Brooklyn Tech, which accepts around 1,400 new students a year, and Bronx High School of Science, which enrolls around 720 new students each year.
Cuomo’s long-term plan is to raise the total number of specialized seats in Queens to 1,000 to be more on par with Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bronx and Staten Island schools, as well as double the number of specialized high schools throughout New York City from nine to 18.
“Every child deserves the chance to reach their full potential, regardless of zip code, background or income,” Cuomo said. “Queens is home to extraordinary families and talented students, yet it has been overlooked when it comes to specialized education.”
The plan would help address the problem of long commutes of up to three hours that Queens students can face to attend specialized schools in other boroughs.
“Gov. Cuomo’s plan to expand specialized high schools and create a second one in Queens is about basic fairness,” said Yiatin Chu, co-president of PLACE NYC. “For too long, Queens — the city’s most diverse borough — has been left behind while other boroughs benefited from greater access to accelerated education.”
Cuomo’s education plan focuses on the goals of building eight more specialized high schools, expanding Gifted & Talented programs in every borough, modernizing classrooms and strengthening early college and pathways in technology, or P-TECH, programs.
The ex-governor’s plan also calls for replacing schools that are considered “chronically failing” with charter and specialty schools, aligning education with job skills and investing in teacher training.
Mamdani, himself a Bronx science alum, had at one point advocated ditching the controversial single test that decides admissions to many of the city’s specialized high schools, the SHSAT. But he has since changed his stance on that, citing “the need to focus on how we can … transform the conditions that then are the basis of that specialized high school test.”
Originally Published:
