The Plan to Shut Down Gifted Programs, Explained

Weather: Chance of showers most of the day, and thunderstorms in the afternoon. The high will be around 80.

Alternate-side parking: In effect until Monday (Labor Day).

Like Mr. de Blasio, the schools chancellor, Richard Carranza, has vowed to tackle inequality. When he took the job last year, Mr. Carranza sought to set himself apart from even the mayor by “promising both frank talk about racial inequality and sweeping action,” Ms. Shapiro wrote.

Any changes would risk alienating tens of thousands of mostly white and Asian families who enroll their children in selective schools, but could benefit parents who haven’t had the opportunity to do so.

The recommendations

The School Diversity Advisory Group appointed by Mr. de Blasio recommended yesterday that the city replace gifted and talented schools with magnet schools, which attract children interested in similar subjects, and add enrichment programs that are open to students of varying academic abilities.

The panel also recommended getting rid of the standardized admissions exam for elementary school gifted programs; stopping most grouping of students by academic ability; and phasing out gifted classes by not admitting new students.

[The plan to scrap New York’s gifted programs: 5 takeaways.]

Mr. de Blasio, who can adopt those proposals without input from state or city lawmakers, said he would assess the recommendations.

Mr. Carranza said in a statement that he would “take action to ensure all students have access to a rich and rigorous education.”

And finally: Kosciuszko Bridge to fully reopen

The view from the Kosciuszko Bridge is awe-inspiring. Its name can be tongue-tying. And driving its previous narrow lanes has made even sedate motorists let out an expletive.

And now, the $873 million new version of the bridge — between Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and Maspeth, Queens — is complete.

Today from noon to 6 p.m., people can walk or bike across the new second span, which will be the bridge’s permanent southbound roadway. Cars and trucks will begin crossing that span tomorrow by 5 a.m. (The first span is already open to traffic.)

The Kosciuszko now has a 20-foot-wide protected bike lane, and it’s the first major new bridge in the city since the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in 1964.

The original structure opened over Newtown Creek in 1939 and was named in 1940 following Germany’s invasion of Poland. As a show of good will to the Polish community in Greenpoint, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia named the bridge after Andrej Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Revolutionary War general of Polish descent.

“I am confident that Poland will live again. Any land that breeds such lovers of freedom can never be kept enslaved,” Mayor La Guardia told a crowd at a name-dedication ceremony.

In the years since, Kosciuszko has largely been pronounced two ways: The Poles say “ko-SHCH-OO-SH-ko,” but many Brooklynites say “Kos-kee-OSS-ko.”

Rebecca Liebson contributed reporting.

Metropolitan Diary: Nice scarf

Dear Diary:

It was a blustery September evening. I was keeping my face down to avoid the wind as I walked home from the gym.

Lifting my head briefly when I crossed the street near Washington Square Park, I noticed a man in front of me who seemed to be wearing a very chunky scarf.

Then I did a double take. The scarf was actually an enormous iguana perched backward on the man’s left shoulder. Its beady eyes watched as I fumbled to take a picture with my phone.

When I had captured the image, I looked around and saw a man holding his phone up surreptitiously. He flashed me a grin.

We were bad New Yorkers. No one else had batted an eye.

— Mari Chen-Fiske

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