{"id":12839,"date":"2014-01-31T11:17:59","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T11:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12839"},"modified":"2014-01-31T11:18:17","modified_gmt":"2014-01-31T11:18:17","slug":"nyc-school-cuts-gifted-class-over-lack-of-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12839","title":{"rendered":"NYC school cuts gifted class over lack of diversity"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_12840\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12840\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/blackkids.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12840\" alt=\"Diversity, another term for blacks only\" src=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/blackkids-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/blackkids-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/blackkids-148x99.jpg 148w, https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/blackkids-31x21.jpg 31w, https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/blackkids-38x25.jpg 38w, https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/blackkids-322x215.jpg 322w, https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/blackkids.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12840\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diversity, another term for blacks only<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A popular gifted-student program at a New York City elementary school is getting the ax after school officials decided it lacked diversity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">PS 139 Principal Mary McDonald told parents in a letter Jan. 24 that Students of Academic Rigor, or SOAR, would no longer accept applications for incoming kindergartners, the New York Daily News reported.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cOur Kindergarten classes will be heterogeneously grouped to reflect the diversity of our student body and the community we live in,\u201d Miss McDonald said in the letter posted on Flickr.com.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">One parent described SOAR as largely white.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Another conceded that the program had a lot of white students, but worried gifted students now won\u2019t be challenged enough.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWhere are they going to put the higher-level students? Sometimes, there are different levels, and teachers can\u2019t handle all the levels in one class,\u201d she told the Daily News.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In a follow-up letter sent to parents Monday, Miss McDonald wrote: \u201cAt PS 193, we believe that all children can learn and achieve high standards. We also know that we want all children at PS 193 to have equal access to high quality, challenging curriculum, and to have ample opportunities to master complex material and build academic and personal self-confidence. We also want our classes to reflect the diversity of our community. We believe we can have both: classrooms characterized by rigor and diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Source: Washington Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A popular gifted-student program at a New York City elementary school is getting the ax after school officials decided it lacked diversity. PS 139 Principal Mary McDonald told parents in a letter Jan. 24 that Students of Academic Rigor, or SOAR, would no longer accept applications for incoming kindergartners, the New York Daily News reported. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12839\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;NYC school cuts gifted class over lack of diversity&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[718,1553,8211,8213,8212],"class_list":["post-12839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-blacks-only","tag-diversity","tag-gifted-students","tag-or-soar","tag-students-of-academic-rigor"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/blackkids.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12839"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12842,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12839\/revisions\/12842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}