Gordon J. Ebanks â24 is a Crimson Editorial editor. His column runs on alternate Mondays.
People in this country get to where they get because they either work hard or they donât; they sink or they swim, the wheat gets separated from the chaff, right? In New York, the nationâs largest city and my hometown, students are subjected to a sort of intellectual segregation from as young an age as four, replete with separate classrooms, teachers, and even entire schools for the cityâs âgifted and talented.â At every academic level, students are packaged into schools and programs pre-fitted for their âcognitive ability,â culminating in the Standardized High School Admissions Test â a high-stakes entrance exam for eighth-graders pining for a spot in one of the cityâs specialized high schools.