If only a few can handle something, is it elitist, or specific?
The New York Times has this piece in today's edition: "Fewer Children Entering Gifted Programs" by Elissa Gootman and Robert Gebeloff. It makes me wonder if New York City's gifted programs are supposed to be an engine for social engineering, a way to make school enrollment "fair" or "equal", or if they exist to give additional educational opportunities to those students who can handle and benefit from them? The tone of this article strongly implies the former, but I think that's wrong. Looking at it as a "gift" for today is being incredibly short-sighted; the concept of gifted programs is that the leaders of tomorrow will have had the educational opportunities to enable them to be as much as they can be, so they can come back to the community to help it into the future. The article talks about the varying numbers of black, Hispanic, and Asian children in the programs since the city instituted a standard cut-off score on the admission tests, but that's not the fault of the tests or the education department. It may be the fault of the parents for not giving their children sufficient experience or impetus, but to blame an educational system because it isn't performing social engineering is to damn a hammer for not being a screwdriver: both are useful, but if you need one, don't use the other. We need social engineering to perform social engineering, but we need gifted education programs to educate those who can most benefit from them.

After writing that, I thought it sounded familiar, and indeed, found that the Times had made the same lament in June, and I'd responded with this post. So now I'm wondering if I'm disagreeing with the Times for what it's writing, or if I'm disagreeing with the newspaper for not so much reporting the news as turning itself into a club demanding social change.