After Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced his intentions to change the admissions process for the city’s eight elite academic high schools, also known as Specialized High Schools (SHS), politicians are getting out their stances on the changes.
De Blasio’s plan would expand the Discovery program, which helps lower-income students gain admission into the schools. The Discovery program allows students with lower-incomes to attend a summer session to earn a seat in the SHS.
Currently, the Discovery program accounts for five percent of the seats in the schools, under de Blasio’s plan, this number would increase to 20 percent.
The other change would be to eliminate the use of the single-admission test over the course of three years. Once the test is eliminated, the seats in the SHS would go to the top performers at each New York City middle school.
King’s County Politics reached out to the candidates running for the State Senate seat in the 20th district to find out where they stand on the issue. The candidates are Democratic incumbent Sen. Jesse Hamilton and challenger Zellnor Myrie.
The district includes Brownsville, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Gowanus, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, South Slope, and Sunset Park.
KCP: Do you agree with the Mayor de Blasio‘s plan to change the admissions procedures from one single test to eliminate the testing requirement admission over three years, as well as expanding the discovery program, additionally, what other specific changes would you like to see to the process?
State Sen. Jesse Hamilton: With respect to the Mayor’s specific proposals, I believe we need an inclusive, consensus-building dialogue to move forward together as one community including educators, staff, students, and parents. Here’s the vision I bring to that dialogue.
My vision for education includes expanding access to specialized high schools, even going so far as to open an additional specialized high school in each borough. Rather than subtraction, we should focus on addition – rather than divide the pie, we should make the pie bigger. Five more specialized high schools would mean more seats and more opportunities for students to have access to the unique learning environments specialized high schools offer.
I also believe we can do more to prepare children in the lead up to high school. The fact is, we are not developing the full potential of all our students. For instance, 2013 to 2017 Department of Education data says only about 30% of Black and Hispanic 7th graders met or exceeded proficiency standards (scoring Level 3 and Level 4) in English Language Arts – compared to about 65% of White and Asian 7th graders who met or exceeded proficiency standards in English Language Arts. We must make the investments to lift all our children up.
In 2016, I united with colleagues and more than 60 community-based organizations to found The Campus in Brownsville. The Campus, the first tech and wellness hub at a public housing site in the United States, draws together the wrap-around services and enrichment opportunities that children from affluent households have as a matter of course. Including meditation, yoga, coding, trips to Carnegie Hall and the Museum of Modern Art, mentorship and presentations from world leading doctors and engineers like emergency room physician and best-selling author Dr. Sampson Davis and Dr. Anna-Maria Rivas McGowan, NASA Langley Senior Engineer for Complex Systems. Within one year we made a difference, increasing both reading and math scores.
Zellnor Myrie: I agree with Mayor de Blasio, Chancellor Carranza, the Assembly Education Committee, and a chorus of parents and education activists that our specialized high schools have a diversity problem. As a black graduate of Brooklyn Tech, I know this firsthand.
I am supportive of city-level changes to expand the Discovery program in order to give more offers to students in high-poverty schools. The current plan regarding the test and its elimination, however, was announced without adequate consultation of parents, students, teachers, administrators, and community groups. Now that the legislative session has ended and the issue is on hold until January, these stakeholders should have the opportunity to voice their perspectives and concerns. No decision on the test should be made without this consultation.
To be clear, educational inequity isn’t limited to specialized high school admissions. Overcrowding, under-funding, and racial and socioeconomic segregation are issues that pervade our entire educational system. NYC schools are owed billions of dollars in state funding, including $36 million owed to the 20th State Senate District alone. Fighting for this funding will be my top educational priority.
How would you want to explain these changes to your constituents?
Hamilton: I believe in investing in a pipeline that ensures all our students have access to a quality education. All aspects of that pipeline matter, that includes more investment in teacher recruitment and retention, taking on board a focus on more teachers of color, more Black males serving as teachers, and giving our students additional positive role models. Luminaries like Dr. Davis and Dr. McGowan sharing their experience with Campus students is invaluable, our local luminaries, our teachers’ work with students is equally invaluable.
We need more schools like Medgar Evers College Preparatory School (MECP). At MECP 40 of graduates obtained associates degrees upon graduation and approximately 98% of graduates obtained a Regents diploma.
The focus on the specialized schools avoids the bigger question of how we are going to obtain excellence from underrepresented communities. I believe a holistic approach better serves all our children. Our goal must be success from all our students.
Myrie: Right now, we have 180 minutes of test time determining who gets to attend specialized high schools. This system benefits test prep companies and parents who can afford their services, at the expense of excluding disadvantaged students from getting in the door. Two thirds of NYC students are black or Latino – at specialized high schools, just 10% are.
To address these disparities, we should examine additional admission criteria that work toward a system where the top-performing students from each and every middle school receive an offer.
The specialized high schools provide world-class educational opportunities to 18,000 students. In addition to making their admissions process more equitable, our elected officials have a responsibility to create better opportunities for the hundreds of thousands of students attending under-funded schools. Senate Republicans and their allies in the Independent Democratic Conference have refused to support full funding of public schools in the state budget. With a real Democratic majority in the State Senate, we’ll finally secure the money our schools are owed.
