Mayor Bill de Blasio pivoted to his favorite policy achievement — free pre-K — instead of answering questions about a controversial recommendation to scrap the city’s gifted-and-talented program.

“It’s literally a recommendation that just came out. I’m going to assess it,” de Blasio said of the report by a panel whose members are appointed by him and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, Tuesday on “Morning Joe.”

The school diversity panel has proposed junking the G&T system altogether.

But de Blasio wasn’t interested in discussing the study.

Instead, he changed topics to what’s considered the single most successful accomplishment of his mayoralty: over 70,000 4-year-olds receiving free schooling.

“I got to tell you, early child education is already, pre-K for all, making a huge difference for kids who have had it. Helping us close the achievement gap between kids of color and white kids,” the mayor said.

Host Joe Scarborough pressed de Blasio on the proposal, asking, “You would agree that those schools, those gifted schools, are extraordinary educational institutions?”

“They are,” de Blasio quickly acknowledged, then went back to pre-K.

“If you do the early childhood part of the equation properly, that’s really where our investments should go,” de Blasio said.

“That’s where you’re getting the biggest bang for the buck, then those great schools you’re talking about later on, they are going to be available for more and more kids of greater and greater diversity,” he said.

The panel also recommended tossing academic admissions screening for middle schools and most high schools, while admitting that the proposed sweeping change could trigger the widespread flight of those same thriving students from the system.

The mayor disagreed when asked about that concern on “Morning Joe.”

“I don’t see an exodus. I see people wanting to stay here,” he said.