Elite High School Alumni To Fight Mayor's Diversity Bill

NEW YORK, NY — Some alumni of New York City's specialized high schools are fighting Mayor Bill de Blasio's effort to abolish the test students must take to join their ranks.

"De Blasio's plan to admit 'top' students from each and every middle school is a typical semantic con job," Brooklyn Technical High School alumnus John Sloane wrote on Facebook.

The mayor is pushing the state Legislature to scrap the Specialized High School Admissions Test as part of an effort to rectify longstanding racial disparities in admission to eight of the city's nine elite schools.

In the meantime, the city will set aside 20 percent of seats at the schools for disadvantaged but talented students who miss the cutoff score on the exam.

"There are talented students all across the five boroughs, but for far too long our specialized high schools have failed to reflect the diversity of our city," de Blasio, a Democrat, said in a statement Sunday. "We cannot let this injustice continue."

The plan marks the de Blasio administration's most substantive effort to integrate the specialized high schools, which are among the best in the state but have long failed to represent the city demographically. Black and Latino students were offered just 10 percent of seats in the schools for next year despite comprising about two thirds of the city's student population.

But alumni of some of the largest specialized high schools argued scrapping the test would do more harm than good.

The Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation and the Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association — which had a combined budget of over $2.6 million in 2015 — issued a joint statement Sunday opposing a state bill to abolish the admissions test.

The groups urged alumni to fight the legislation by sending messages to lawmakers as the state Assembly Education Committee prepares to consider it Wednesday.

"(W)hile this interest in increasing diversity is obviously well-intended, both the new bill content and the process by which it was introduced are seriously flawed," the statement says.

A 1971 state law known as the Hecht-Calandra Act established the four original specialized high schools and required three of them — Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Technical High School and Bronx High School of Science — to use a "competitive, objective and scholastic achievement examination" as the sole basis for admission.

The city has since designated five other schools under the law that also admit students based on the test. Admission to a ninth school, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art, is based on an audition and academic review.

The exam has perpetuated racial disparities since its inception, benefitting students who have time and money to prepare for it outside of school while creating an obstacle for those who don't, according to experts and research. For example, just 10 black students will be in Stuyvesant High School's incoming class of more than 900 in the fall.

De Blasio is supporting state legislation that would phase out the use of the test over three years.

Under the proposal, sponsored by Assemblyman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn), up to 95 percent of seats would eventually go to the top 7 percent of students from each middle school. Other kids, including those in non-public schools and those who aren't in the top cohort, could enter a lottery for the remaining spots.

The Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech alumni groups complained that the bill was developed without input from specialized high school stakeholders. They called the formula it proposes a "complicated, unworkable approach" that could put unprepared students in rigorous courses and exclude kids studying at private religious schools.

"It would be extremely unfortunate and unfair to any child if she/he were admitted under this proposed new formula without the tools to succeed," the statement says. "We need to give all of our kids the tools to succeed at a very high level specialized high school if she/he so chooses."

The Hecht-Calandra Act also allowed schools to reserve some spots for students who have strong academic records but didn't score high enough on the test through a "discovery program."

De Blasio also plans to to expand the program to include 20 percent of seats at every high school starting with the 2019-2020 school year. The city will also adjust the criteria for the program so it includes only kids from high-poverty middle schools, which officials say will improve geographic as well as racial and economic diversity — just 21 middle schools comprised about half of all specialized high school offers in 2016.

As a result, city officials said, black and Latino students would get an estimated 16 percent of the offers, compared with the current rate of 9 percent.

Alumni groups expressed support for that piece of the plan, but expressed concern that the de Blasio-backed state legislation would phase it out.

The mayor's plan does not include a step that experts say could immediately address the diversity problem: removing the five newest schools' specialized designation and implementing an alternate admissions system. Asked about that option at a news conference Sunday, de Blasio said, "the best way to win is to change the law. It’s as simple as that," according to Politico New York.

De Blasio's plan drew support from several state and local lawmakers, education advocates and two top state education officials: state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and Betty A. Rosa, the chancellor of the state Board of Regents.

"I am encouraged that the City seems poised to make equity a reality, addressing the lingering legacies of racial and class bias, which is pervasive in the public project of schooling throughout the U.S.," David E. Kirkland, the executive director of the NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and The Transformation of Schools, said in a statement accompanying the city's announcement.

"Of course, this is just one step in the right direction, but make no mistake, it is (a) giant step forward," Kirkland added.

The issue comes to a stagnant state Legislature with just 11 working days left in the legislative session.

In a Monday interview on NY1, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo assailed the statewide problem of educational inequity but did not take an explicit position on the bill de Blasio proposed.

"I think the mayor raises legitimate concerns. I don’t know that there’s much of an appetite in Albany now to get into a new bill, a new issue," Cuomo said.

David C. Bloomfield, an education policy professor at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center, said de Blasio's plan to address an issue he pledged to tackle in his 2013 mayoral campaign could be hampered by leaving its most impactful piece to the Legislature.

"This change may be more symbolic than practical, but finally delivering on a campaign promise from five years ago," Bloomfield said.

(Lead image: Stuyvesant High School is pictured in Manhattan in 2005. Photo by Peter Kramer/Getty Images)