How the Left can learn to love gifted education | Episode 990 of The Education Gadfly Show

This week, Mike Petrilli flies solo to discuss New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s proposal to eliminate gifted education in the early grades—and how progressives can be persuaded to champion advanced learning opportunities for all students.

Then, on the Research Minute, Adam Tyner reviews a new study on how parental education shapes excellence gaps among students.

Recommended content: 

• How can we depolarize “gifted education”? —Michael J. Petrilli, SCHOOLED
• Building a wider, more diverse pipeline of advanced learners — The National Working Group on Advanced Education
• The war against gifted education continues, Zohran Mamdani edition —James Pethokoukis, Faster, Please
• Gifted, talented and Zohran Mamdani —The Wall Street Journal
• Five facts about the first-generation excellence gap —Uditi Karna, John A. List, Andrew Simon and Haruka Uchida, NBER 2025

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