Hundreds Protest Elite School Diversity Plan On Brooklyn Bridge

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NY — Hundreds of opponents to Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan to diversify New York City's elite high schools marched across the Brooklyn Bridge Friday afternoon to protest the proposal.

Students joined Julie Killian, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, in the noon march against de Blasio's plan to scrap the entrance exam for eight of the city's nine specialized high schools.

“Getting rid of the test or changing the standards on the test is not the answer to the failing schools," Killan said. "We got to help every kid so they all can do well enough to pass this test.”

De Blasio has proposed phasing out the Specialized High School Admissions Test over three years to remove what has become a barrier to admission for many black and Latino students. The Democratic mayor would instead offer most seats at the elite schools to the top 7 percent of students at each middle school.

The march led to City Hall, where protesters called on the mayor to keep the test and improve all schools so every kid gets a shot at a top-notch education.

Holding signs with slogans such as "Judge on SKILL NOT on skin," a predominantly Asian crowd cast the plan as a politically convenient distraction rather than a true solution.

“What we want is what’s best for the city and what’s best for all minorities," said Kevin Boodram, 18, a Stuyvesant High School senior who came from Queens to join the march.

“This just really isn’t it.”

A decades-old state law requires eight of the nine schools to use the exam as the sole basis of admission. Education experts argue the test privileges well off students who can afford costly test-prep courses.

De Blasio and schools Chancellor Richard Carranza believe scrapping it is necessary to racially integrate the upper echelon of the city's notoriously segregated public school system. Black and Hispanic students would get 45 percent of the offers for seats in the specialized schools under the mayor's proposal, five times the current rate of 9 percent, officials said.

"Community and opportunity are at the center of this plan," de Blasio spokeswoman Jaclyn Rothenberg said in a statement. "As the Mayor said, our plan is going to create fairness for communities across the five boroughs and everyone will be engaged in the dialogue."

But detractors say the plan, which requires approval from the state Legislature, would reduce academic rigor at the schools and displace Asian students, who face their own struggles despite holding the most seats in them.

Samuel Liao, a seventh-grader at Mark Twain I.S. 239 in Brooklyn, said his entire academic life is geared toward getting a good score on the exam.

The son of middle-class immigrants has been studying since he started sixth grade and plans to take test-prep courses this summer before taking the test in the fall. His brother currently attends Brooklyn Technical High School.

"I think the way of getting in should stay the same, because it depends on if you study well and you try to get into the school you want," Samuel said.

Samuel's mother, Miaona Liao, works as an elementary school teacher assistant. She and her husband, a former chef, are paying for Samuel to attend one of his summer prep courses, but the city's free programs have also helped their kids get ready for the test.

"The mayor, he maybe needs to spend more money on those programs so that everybody has a chance to get in," Liao said.

"As a parent, I just remind (my son), you need to work for your future," she added. "You need to work hard."

De Blasio expressed optimism Friday that his proposal will succeed despite its uncertain fate in Albany.

State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has reportedly said lawmakers will likely wait until next year's legislative session to fully tackle the issue. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has not taken a firm position on the plan.

The mayor conceded that the city needs to broadly improve its schools and give students more opportunities to attend the best ones. But he maintained that the issues at specialized high schools also need to be tackled.

"We have to make these bigger changes in the specialized schools, I’m absolutely convinced, in the name of fairness," de Blasio said Friday in a WNYC interview.

In a New York Daily News op-ed published Thursday, de Blasio's son Dante, who is biracial, blamed the test for propping up racist attitudes at Brooklyn Tech.

He once heard a white student there say a black cafeteria worker should "go back to Africa," he wrote, while some of his classmates "complained that black and Latino students were able to get into elite colleges without 'working hard.'"

"Given these schools’ complete reliance on the test, it’s no wonder kids are quick to take away a false narrative that certain students don’t belong at top high schools," wrote the younger de Blasio, now a rising senior at Yale University.

(Lead image: Hundreds of students and parents marched across the Brooklyn Bridge Friday to protest Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan to diversify the city's specialized high schools. Photos by Noah Manskar/Patch)