07 Oct 2025 Horace Cooper: Mamdani’s Kindergarten Equity Plan Will Hamstring Our Youngest Kids

Project 21 Chairman Horace Cooper was recognized as gifted early on in his life — and he’s grateful that current New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wasn’t the one determining his educational options.

On Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle,” during a discussion of Mamdani’s desire to do away with gifted and talented kindergarten programs, Horace told guest host Joey Jones:

Being talented, having special gifts, being able to achieve is something that we should celebrate. This plan looks like we’re gonna start in kindergarten and cripple them early, and we don’t know how long the repercussions of that are going to last.

Let me just tell you really briefly: I was six years old when I showed up in my first grade class and the teacher said, “Wow we’ve not seen a kid this sharp.” They took me to Sam Houston State University for special tests and assessments, and they told my mother, “You’re going to have to do extra if you’re wanting this kid to really tap into it.”

What [Mamdani] just said is, “No, no, no, no! No extra! No tapping in — it would be unfair!” Because apparently in his preconceived world, smart, gifted and talented has a certain race associated with it — and that’s just a lie.