NYC’s advanced education gap: Why are middle schoolers being given short shrift?

New York City is awash in children who would benefit from advanced education. But there's one big problem—scarcity—and nowhere is that scarcity worse than in middle school.

New York City is awash in “gifted and talented” children, otherwise known as high-achieving public school students who would benefit from advanced education. In some neighborhoods, for example, over 50 percent of students test in the top 10th percentile nationwide.

And to New York’s credit, there are programs in elementary, middle, and high school designed to help maximize these students’ education—which the city calls “Gifted and Talented” or “G&T” programs. They exist in grades K–5; in five citywide accelerated G&T schools that serve grades 6–8, as well as district and citywide Honors programs; and in high schools that offer accelerated curriculum and instruction, Advanced Placement classes, International Baccalaureate degrees, College Now, and dual enrollment opportunities.

There is one big problem, however—scarcity—and nowhere is that scarcity worse than in middle school. For example, about 10,000 students qualify annually for the elementary school programs, but there are only about 2,500 seats citywide. Once those fifth graders graduate into middle school, though, the already slim pickings get practically non-existent. The five citywide accelerated K–8 schools accept applications for sixth grade entry (based on grades). But because the bulk of seats are filled by students enrolled in their elementary school G&T programs, the number of available spots range from a whopping 15–20 at one, to 2–5 in another. Every year, about 70,000 students apply for public sixth grade. About 30,000 of them have grades high enough to qualify for the G&T school application lottery. The vast majority are denied a seat.

This scarcity has real costs for students who lose the lottery. “The main difference [at a G&T middle school compared to standard public schools] was definitely less need to do homework and classwork that seemed ‘pointless,’” said mom Natalia GK, whose children have attended both. “They could focus on more project based and exploratory learning. It seemed less rigid.”

The scarcity also has costs for the NYC public school system, which is bleeding students. Enrollment is down from 1.1 million in 2017 to 912,064 in 2024, and that’s with the expansion of universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds, meaning the drop in the K–12 population is actually larger. One attempt to keep families in the system involved some schools, especially in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, offering a screened Honors track.

This was to appease parents like Amelia M., who chose a local middle school over a screened one for her child, then regretfully admitted, “The math teacher said there aren’t options for giving extra or advanced work. There’s a lot of bright kids who could be doing more with a more engaging, accelerated curriculum. I can’t help second-guessing our decision to not send him to a school with a screened program. But when asked about the screened programs prior to applications, the middle school administrations were vague on how this is actually executed.”

The vagueness continues into this year. Initial press releases for Honors programs promised acceleration in four core subjects: English language arts, science, social studies, and mathematics. However, parents report that, as far as they can see, the only above-standard-grade-level work is happening in math, and even then, it isn’t much.

Liz Klodginski Storm, a mom with three kids in District 2 public schools, reported that most schools consider their obligation to offer high level math courses fulfilled if they provide Algebra 1 in eighth grade, which is a year ahead of the standard public school curriculum. There is no opportunity, she said, “to accelerate to, say, Geometry or Algebra 2. You can count on one hand the middle schools in NYC that offer geometry.”

Some parents are pushing for more. A handful are even succeeding.

“With the ubiquity and frequency of adaptive assessments like iReady, parents on School Leadership Teams (SLT) have transparency into student cohorts who may benefit from more challenging curriculum,” explained Yiatin Chu, an eighth grade parent and SLT member at Mark Twain School for the Gifted and Talented in Coney Island. “At Mark Twain, we were able to work collaboratively with our school to pilot additional regents level coursework: geometry in eighth grade (in addition to algebra and biology) and algebra for seventh graders. Subject-level instruction in middle schools affords the opportunity for acceleration tailored to students’ strength in specific areas.”

But the Coney Island school isn’t accessible for most families, even those already living in Brooklyn.

“Parents who have high-achieving kids either (A) don’t want their kid to have to wake up at 6 a.m. to travel or (B) [Mark Twain] just wouldn’t be a great space for them,” said one local parent from District 15.

Even without geographical restrictions, Mark Twain only accepts 400 applicants into its sixth grade class every year. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of NYC students who could benefit from an accelerated education in all subjects.

Based on the number of public school seats available, the city appears to believe there are students in grades K–5 and grades 9–12 who would benefit from and are capable of doing advanced work. But not those in middle school? Where are the students from elementary school G&T programs supposed to go before enrolling in Specialized and screened programs in high school, outside of the few middle schools for which there are orders of magnitude more qualified candidates than seats?

The very least New York City must do to rectify this inequity is ensure that there are the same number of middle school Honors seats in every district as there are elementary school G&T ones, then add at least an equal number of seats for the late bloomers—as well as for those students who weren’t lucky enough to get into a gifted program in kindergarten but have demonstrated through their work in general education classrooms that they could also benefit from an accelerated curriculum.

You don’t need to know high-level math to see that.