In an extraordinary rebuke to Mayor Bill de Blasio, a New York City education panel rejected a testing contract – halting, for now, the controversial practice of testing incoming kindergartners for admission to gifted programs.
With testing originally scheduled for this spring, it’s unclear how admissions to the city’s gifted and talented programs will move ahead.
The rejection was an unusual flex for a panel that has little formal authority, is mostly appointed by the mayor, and has acted largely as a rubber stamp for his education policies. Approval seemed like a forgone conclusion when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced earlier this month that the entrance test would continue for one more year. But that required the Panel for Educational Policy to approve an extension of the city’s contract with the company that provides the entrance exams, at a cost of $1.7 million.
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