NYC Council Pushes For More Diversity at Top Schools

The question of racial diversity in New York City's public schools came under scrutiny by the City Council on Thursday.

While council members reviewed three different resolutions, the hot-button issue that filled the hearing room was the single-test admissions policy for the specialized high schools, the jewels of New York City school system.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Fariña support state legislation to add criteria — such as attendance and grades — to the test as a way to broaden diversity at the highly competitive schools where the majority of students are Asian and white. Black and Hispanic enrollment, combined, is less than 5 percent at Stuyvesant High School and 13 percent at the specialized schools overall even though these groups make up 68 percent of all public school students in the city.

Education Committee Chairman Daniel Dromm argued on behalf of multiple measures to determine admissions. "Basing the entire judgment of a student on a single test score from a single day not an exact science," he said.

But many alumni and lawmakers said a test was the most objective measure, and urged city officials to increase recruitment and tutoring support at middle schools. 

Councilman Jumaane Williams offered a different perspective when he said his middle school grades alone would not have gotten him into Brooklyn Technical High School, but he did well enough on the standardized test to enroll. And he pressed the Department of Education representative to explain why some schools with multiple criteria, such as Eleanor Roosevelt High School,  were not yielding more diversity.

Robert Sanft, from the division of student enrollment, said his team was studying the data adding, "it's not a one size fits all model."

There was unanimity among education officials and council members on a resolution to provide more data about the diversity of city schools.

According to data released on Thursday, six out of the 32 school districts in the city are a "racially isolated," meaning 75 percent of their elementary and middle school students are from a single race.

Meanwhile the federal Department of Education is still investigating a civil rights complaint that claims New York City discriminates against black and Latino students by using a multiple choice test as the sole criterion for the specialized high schools.