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MIKE’S CONTROL IS A ‘GIFT’ FOR STAR STUDENTS

The legendary Broadway show “Annie” was showcased on Staten Island the other day — by second-graders.

The student actors were part of PS 69’s gifted-and-talented program, launched several years ago as part of Mayor Bloomberg’ efforts to provide more challenging instruction for the city’s smartest kids.

“It was better than Broadway,” proud Principal Doreen Murphy said of the production.

The first-through fourth-graders in the New Springville school’s gifted program are also high performers in the classroom. All 80 met or exceeded standards on state math and English tests this year, Murphy said.

In the debate over whether to extend mayoral control of education, much of the debate has centered on lifting up the performance of lagging students and closing the racial achievement gap.

But the mayor and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein also overhauled gifted-and-talented programs and expanded them to all parts of the city to meet the needs of bright youngsters.

They also opened a dozen more specialized and selective high schools for brainy teens — including The Brooklyn Latin School, the Columbia Secondary School and NYC iSchool in Manhattan –and several new “early college” high schools in partnership with the City University.

Under the old Board of Education, there was a hodgepodge of gifted programs, many based on more subjective criteria. But some school districts — like Staten Island’s District 31, Brooklyn’s District 32 and swaths of The Bronx — didn’t have gifted programs.

They do now.

Bertha Kapetanakis, whose granddaughter, Melina, is a third-grader in PS 69’s gifted program, said access to such programs is one reason she supports mayoral control.

“I’m very pleased with what Bloomberg is doing in the schools. We’ve gotten a lot accomplished. There’s accountability,” she said.

Klein imposed a citywide standard for gifted programs — requiring kindergartners to take two tests to qualify. But the program also expanded access to under-served areas.

Students must score in the 90th percentile to get into the district programs, and in the 97th percentile to enroll in a citywide gifted program.

School districts that had more gifted programs based on the previously less stringent standards blasted the changes.

“We had a gifted-and- talented program in every school. Nobody was harmed by having more students in a gifted-and-talented classes,” said District 22 Parent Council head Christopher Spinelli.

He added, “We had a strong record of success. They just kind of came up with a policy and enforced it on everyone.”

carl.campanile@nypost.com