You certainly know the program better than I do.
But my understanding is that white students are underpresented in G&T, the same as black and latino students.
It's the asian students that are overrepresented. Reflecting their community culture that value academic excellence. I don't see a problem with that.
If your argument was true, that the program is a vehicule to bring white families, then why is it being dominated by asian students?
It isn't, white and Asian students are equally represented- each are about 35% of the G&T cohort (while each are about 20% of the citywide cohort).
But 60-70% of private school kids are white, compared to 5-10% per other groups.
When G&T was re-established under Bloomberg, the implicit goal was to bring as many of those families from private to public as possible. Bloomberg supported charters for the same reason. White families and white wealth bring donation dollars, volunteer energy, community connections (most community board members are white), etc, etc.
I understand the intuitive difficulty people have with the idea of differentiated classrooms. It's both deeply in the weeds from a teaching practice perspective and
it also did not exist when today's parents were themselves in school, so few really understand what it looks like.
Not to generalize but many Asian families are deeply upset about the removal of these programs. It will not impact the quality of their education but it will mean more integration for a deeply insular community. As an education councilmember what I heard first hand was as much a reflection of the latter as a false perception of the former.
If your argument was true, that the program is a vehicule to bring white families, then why is it being dominated by asian students?