“It’s easy to pretend to be colorblind when your head is buried in the sand. It’s easy to say you know what the community wants when your ‘community’ is meticulously curated.”
While talent helps, students also need knowledge, expertise and polish to get into dozens of New York City public school arts programs that use auditions and portfolios to screen applicants. Although these schools have largely escaped the rancorous debate over selective admissions policies, they raise many of the same concerns about equity, class and race.
“Instead of resetting priorities and learning from experiences during the pandemic, some schools are moving backwards to the pre-pandemic status quo that prevents many students and families from having equal access to educational opportunities.”
“Democracies cannot function when entire groups of people are insulated from the realities of those they don’t understand. By reframing the issue as an urgent threat to democracy, we may become more motivated to change.”
Critics target the city’s eight specialized schools for using a single test to determine who gets to enter. But other selective public high-schools use a confusing mix of admissions policies that raise their own questions about transparency and fairness.
The proposal has supporters on the Upper West Side, as disparities in enrollment and admissions policies are under scrutiny citywide.
The effort to compel the DOE to release the information is part of a years’ long effort by the Community Education Council of District 2 to turn what is often an opaque, confusing and infuriating process into one of greater fairness and greater transparency, CEC members say.
Parents know a school is coming to 75 Morton Street. What they don’t know is where its students will come from.
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