NEW YORK – If you’ve ever wondered why many government schools are bastions of mediocrity and dysfunction, check out what’s happening in one New York City elementary school.

NYDailyNews.com reports that Public School 139 Principal Mary McDonald recently decided that her school will phase out its gifted program for incoming kindergartners because it lacks “diversity.”

In other (non-politically correct) words, too many students in the gifted program are white, and that offends McDonald’s sensibilities and her quest for classroom populations that – as she put it in a letter to parents – “reflect the diversity of our student body and the community we live in.”

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

Caucasian students make up about 28 percent of the school’s student population, NYDailyNews.com reports.

The policy change led some parents to question what the school intends to do with the “higher-level students.” In a follow-up letter, McDonald assured parents of current PS 139 students that if they like their gifted program, they can keep their gifted program.

“These changes are for incoming Kindergartners students only,” McDonald wrote in her Jan. 27 letter.

Those youngsters will be placed in “heterogeneously grouped” classes in which all PS 139 students will “have equal access to high quality, challenging curriculum” and “ample opportunities to master complex material and build academic and personal self-confidence,” wrote McDonald.

The change will allow the school to “move forward as a community,” she noted.

Since making her proclamation, McDonald appears to be hiding from the media. The principal has ignored “numerous requests for comment,” according to NYDailyNews.com. Even the progressives in charge of New York City schools have made it clear that the decision to phase out the gifted program was McDonald’s, not theirs.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

McDonald must be aware that her decision will anger parents and taxpayers who believe schools should be focused on helping each child reach his or her academic potential, rather than pursuing left-wing social goals of “equality” and “fairness.”

Instead of dumbing things down for advanced students – whatever race they may be – McDonald should have told all PS 139 parents that they can prepare their children for academic success by taking practical steps, such as emphasizing reading in the home and modeling a love of learning.

Of course, the best of advice for parents concerned with producing academically successful children is to flee their neighborhood government school (if they can) for something better – such as a charter school, a private school or a home school.