This summer, his panel released a report recommending the elimination of most selective admissions and all gifted and talented programs. The panel recommended that the city replace gifted and talented schools with magnet schools and enrichment programs, and add diversity requirements for high schools.

A school that could ‘become a model’

There is, however, one elementary school in East Harlem that, parents say, has the numbers to show that gifted programs can be diverse .

The school, TAG Young Scholars, is the only highly selective gifted and talented school with a student body that is more than a third black and Hispanic. TAG is also one of the five gifted elementary schools that welcomes students from any district, as long as they score roughly in the 99th percentile.

My colleague Eliza Shapiro wrote: “A group of parents with children at TAG said their school was proof that gifted classes can be racially diverse, and that TAG should become a model rather than an exception.”

But some experts and activists say that even diverse gifted schools like TAG reinforce the idea that advanced children must be separate from other students, and that expanding gifted schools would be a “Band-Aid” solution.

So far, Mr. de Blasio has distanced himself from his panel’s recommendation and has said he doesn’t expect to make a decision on gifted programs this school year.