Kindergartners will have to prove they understand spatial relations, teachers will receive extra training, and schools throughout the city will open new programs for top students under a new, comprehensive, citywide approach to “gifted and talented” education that was announced yesterday.

Parents and politicians worried that the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, was attempting to water down the public schools’ opportunities for their brightest students when the Department of Education quietly created a “think tank” last year to evaluate programs for the gifted and talented.

Much of the apprehension stemmed from the appointment to the panel of a leading theorist in the field, Joseph Renzulli. Director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut, Mr. Renzulli has written for decades about the importance of providing enrichment to all students – not just the top 3% or 5% – through what he called the “School-wide Enrichment Model.” If Mr. Renzulli’s ideas were implemented in New York City, critics said, test-score cutoffs for gifted programs could drop and successful gifted-and-talented programs could be eliminated.

Last night at a speech at Hunter College, however, the deputy chancellor for Teaching and Learning, Carmen Farina, said critics’ fears were unfounded.

“Supporting existing programs, opening new programs, including those in previously underserved areas, while maintaining high quality in all G&T programs,” Ms. Farina said, “that’s the commitment of the mayor and the chancellor to the children of New York City.”

She said the city would not eliminate successful existing programs. Rather, it will expand the availability of gifted-and-talented programs, leaving it up to regional leaders to decide whether to use Mr. Renzulli’s school-wide model or the self-contained classroom enrichment model.

The first phase of the new plan is to be rolled out in September, when the education department plans to open at least 12 new self-contained programs and 30 new school-wide enrichment programs – under which teachers will help students explore what they’re most interested and talented in – in elementary schools. Many will serve historically underserved communities, including Harlem, Washington Heights, and City Island.

The department is also enhancing professional development for the teachers who instruct students in gifted-and-talented programs, and it is working with universities to make sure aspiring educators are being trained to meet new higher state certification standards for teachers in gifted-and-talented programs.

By September 2007, the city will develop a test for 4- and 5-year-olds whose parents want them admitted to gifted-and-talented programs. The city is issuing a request for proposals in its quest to come up with a good test.

Currently, most of the city’s youngest students are being tested for entry into gifted programs, but the tests are not uniform throughout the city, or even throughout regions. Current tests focus mostly on verbal proficiency. The new test will also examine youngsters’ understanding of spatial relationships and their perseverance.

Even after Ms. Farina’s announcement, many questions remained unanswered.

Ms. Farina didn’t specify, for example, how high the bar would be set for entry into gifted programs.

It also remains unclear what portion of new programs will follow the school wide enrichment model and what portion will follow the more traditional model, in which intellectually gifted children learn together in an academically accelerated classroom.

Some people who told The New York Sun in December that they were afraid the city was trying to get rid of the very programs that keep the smartest children in the public schools said yesterday that they were pleasantly surprised.

A leading critic of the Renzulli approach, State Senator Carl Kruger, said: “The first blush reaction would be that Chancellor Klein finally woke up and understood what we tried to lay out to him when he first became chancellor – that gifted-and-talented programs are the centerpiece of a quality education.”

But Mr. Kruger, a Democrat of Brooklyn, cautioned that until the city details all aspects of its proposal, it will be unclear exactly what impact the program will have on city schools.

“I am reluctant to applaud it without knowing the devil, because he’s buried somewhere deep in the details,” he said.

Others were skeptical of Ms. Farina’s plan.

The chairwoman of the City Council’s Committee on Education, Eva Moskowitz, said: “I’m a little worried about this ‘enrichment’ language because every school should have enrichment.”

She said providing targeted enrichment to students to meet their individual interests and talents will not address the academic needs of the most advanced students.

“I’d love to be proven wrong, but I’m not persuaded that this is really ad dressing the needs of academically advanced kids,” Ms. Moskowitz, a candidate for Manhattan borough president, said, after listening to Ms. Farina’s plan.

Another council member, Lewis Fidler, who is sponsoring a bill that would ensure that the top 10% of students in each district are provided with gifted-and-talented programs, said he is skeptical about the program because many of the details remain undefined. For example, he said he wonders if the city’s new definition of “gifted” will be unchanged.

“We have to make sure that we’re on the same page,” Mr. Fidler said, adding, “This is a promise that’s got to be kept because our children are entitled to it.”

In a statement, the teachers union president, Randi Weingarten, said the United Federation of Teachers has been pushing for more gifted-and-talented programs for months.

“Now the DOE, which has at best a mixed record of support for these initiatives and has assembled a secret task force most of us believed was intended to water down or phase out gifted programs, has apparently seen the light,” she said. “But many questions remain unanswered. How will the selection process for kids define giftedness? What will the curricula and resources be for these gifted programs? How will the instruction differ from what now goes on in the best classrooms?”

Ms. Weingarten also blasted the department for its lack of transparency and accountability and its failure to consult with teachers and parents before creating the new policy.

“It is hard to tell whether the speech addresses the real educational need many of us have raised, or a political need,” she said.

Ms. Farina made her announcement last night at a speech honoring the opening of the Hunter College Center for Gifted Studies and Education.

The director of the new program, Dona Matthews, was a member of the panel that helped devise the new program.