Having gone through the process, I have a few comments. The OLSAT, which was used when DD was entering school has a problem since you don't know who is giving the test. Sometimes it is someone with a heavy accent. Since we had DD tested for a gifted preschool, we knew her IQ was around 150. When she took the OLSAT at 4 yo she tested around 60th percentile. The next year took it with someone else and was 99th percentile. There were 3 accelerated elementary schools for gifted kids. One was located in an area many affluent people didn't want to go, hence the school was about 95% AA with a scores lower on the OLSAT than the Upper West side school that had 99th percentile only. There were also some other popular gifted programs that were not technically accelerated but were great programs, great parental involvement -- parents generally raised about 1 MM per annum to support schools in computer labs and instructors, spanish programs etc. Obviously these schools were in certain demographic areas. You did not have this kind of parental involvement in some pockets of Harlem. Even if you get rid of the testing and gifted, you still would have parental involvement in schools supplementing. And I do not know how they would change the high school system that has been established for almost a century. Where you test to get into the top high schools in the country. Sty, Bronix Sci. And Hunter is underwritten by city university. What happens to Hunter? That is over 100 years old and is for HG kids. Free.