Alumni From Elite New York City High Schools Unite to Fight Admissions Changes Graduates from Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech are joining forces to battle a bill in Albany that would eliminate tests By Leslie Brody
https://www.wsj.com/articles/alumni-from-elite-new-york-city-high-schools-unite-to-fight-admissions-changes-1529522342?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=1&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s
As soon as Albany posted provisions that would eliminate the admissions test for eight specialized public high schools in New York City at about 10 p.m. one recent Friday, heads of the alumni associations of Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech and Bronx Science began trading late-night emails and phone calls.
They sprung into action to keep the test. They released a joint opposition memo. They dispatched a lobbyist to plead their case with state lawmakers. Brooklyn Tech alumni have sent legislators thousands of emails to argue for the test, says Larry Cary, a labor lawyer and head of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation.
Their argument: The sought-after schools should be far more diverse but the proposed changes would introduce subjective measures and could admit students who aren’t prepared for the schools’ academic rigor.
Mayor Bill de Blasio is championing the bill, saying that using only one exam to select students has been an unjust barrier to talented black and Latino teenagers. The Democratic mayor, whose son graduated from Brooklyn Tech, wants to admit applicants based on a mix of course grades and state exam scores, so that the top 7% of eighth-graders from each middle school citywide would get offers. In time, by Mr. de Blasio’s estimate, about 45% of offers to these eight schools would go to black and Latino students, up from 9% now.
The measure is expected to be debated in the winter legislative session that usually starts in January. The alumni groups say they will devise a battle plan during the summer.
“We want to make sure we have a seat at the table to craft a viable solution that preserves the academic integrity of specialized schools,” said Christina Bater, president of the Bronx High School of Science Alumni Foundation.
Advocating to keep the test has brought together alumni associations from three high schools that have long been rivals, competing for who had the most chess trophies, robotics triumphs and science awards (Bronx Science has eight Nobel Prizes, Stuyvesant has four and Brooklyn Tech has two.)
They also banded together in 2014 to successfully fight previous efforts to eliminate the test. Asian-American civil rights groups also have rallied to save the exam, saying the proposed overhaul would unfairly squeeze out their hardworking, high-achieving children. Now, 62% of the 15,540 students at the eight schools are Asian.
The alumni associations aren’t typically out protesting. They raise money for student enrichment, facilities upgrades and alumni outreach. Stuyvesant’s alumni association president says it has more than $3 million in net assets, Brooklyn Tech’s says it has nearly $14 million, and Bronx Science’s says it has about $10 million.
Soo Kim, an investment manager at Standard General and president of the Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association, said the bill’s quick rollout this month allowed for too little input from alumni and affected families. “There’s nobody on our side that doesn’t value diversity,” he said. “But this is not how good policy is made.”
Assemblyman Charles Barron, a Brooklyn Democrat sponsoring the bill, said there is plenty of time for public hearings, the details could still be revised, and many alumni and students backed him. “There are a lot of supporters who believe in equal access and multiple measures” of academic ability, Mr. Barron said. “We’re winning people over.”
Jaclyn Rothenberg, a spokeswoman for City Hall, said its officials would continue to meet with some alumni.
Prominent graduates have written editorials, including Boaz Weinstein, a hedge-fund manager who sits on the Stuyvesant alumni board. U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, a Queens Democrat who went to Stuyvesant, weighed in with a statement supporting the test, and State Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky, a Democrat who graduated from Bronx Science, joined a recent rally.
The alumni associations see other steps the city could take to increase student diversity.
The Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation points to its pipeline program that attracts low-income black and Hispanic middle schoolers for two-years of training on Saturdays and during summers in science, technology and math. It also is pushing for a sixth-grade practice admissions test that would identify talent early and promote the schools to families who aren’t aware of them.
Pamela Davis-Clarke, an attorney and founder of the Stuyvesant High School Black Alumni Diversity Initiative, is calling for universal screening of pre-kindergarteners in underrepresented communities for gifted programs. Parents of high performers should get counseling on options that would put the children on a path to specialized high schools.
All neighborhoods should have accelerated instruction for advanced students in middle school, Ms. Davis-Clarke says, adding there aren’t enough gifted programs in predominantly black and Latino areas. Just 21 public middle schools—or 4% of city middle schools—accounted for about half of the specialized high school offers in 2016. These feeders are selective and sought-after.
“We want to see a return to local gifted programs so every school has the opportunity to be a feeder school,” Ms. Davis-Clarke said. “We want to fix the pipeline.”
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