GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The woefully small percentages of black and Hispanic students at the city’s specialized high schools is not a new development, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do something to change it. Here’s my suggestion: The Department of Education should adopt a proportional admissions plan for the exam schools that would offer admission to the highest-scoring students from each of the neighborhoods of the city.

An idea whose time has come

In 1995, then-Chancellor Ramon Cortines lamented the declining percentages of black and Hispanic students at the city’s specialized high schools. At the time, the numbers were actually better than they are now: Bronx Science’s enrollment was 10.7% black and 9.2% Hispanic; Stuyvesant’s was 4.8% black and 4.3% Hispanic.

In 1996, ACORN (well before its recent collapse) published a report, entitled “Secret Apartheid II: Race, Regents and Resources,” that analyzed enrollment numbers at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, the two most selective schools. (more…)

Graph by Eduwonkette.

Sociologist Jennifer Jennings (who blogs as Eduwonkette) graphed a change in demographics at the city’s eight specialized high schools, providing dramatic visual evidence of a trend described in detail by the New York Times last week.

The Times article focused on persistently low numbers of black and Hispanic students in both the group of students taking the demanding high school entrance exam and scoring high enough to earn a place at one of the specialized high schools.

But Eduwonkette’s graph shows that black and Hispanic students have long been underrepresented in the elite high schools. Instead, it suggests that the real news in recent years is soaring enrollment at specialized high schools by Asian students and declining enrollment by white students.

Growing up, teacher-blogger A Daughter’s Geography was the only black student in her school. So she sympathizes with the new girl at the predominately black school where she teaches, whose parents are white and Asian. A Daughter’s Geography objects to some of her colleagues’ attitudes toward the girl:

After school, I overheard one of the teachers saying she was going to tell the girl’s parents to “get her out of here” because “our kids will set such a bad example for her.” I immediately objected to this. Saying something along the lines of it being great that she’s at The Middle School because young people need exposure, our school is disproportionately Black, let us be careful not to put Asian Girl on a pedestal in the exoticized/model minority trap. The teacher started yelling over me, “In her culture, their kids obey. They respect adults. She doesn’t need to be around our kids. They’re too nasty for her. She’s so sweet. She needs to be in one of those schools in Park Slope.”

The student seems to be fitting in pretty well and making friends easily, A Daughter’s Geography reports.

America’s schools systematically fail to educate black males as well as they educate other students, according to a new report by the Schott Foundation for Public Education, Given Half a Chance: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males.

If Black students did poorly in all schools, we would plausibly seek solutions to the problem of their achievement among those students themselves. The same would be the case if, in schools with majority Black enrollments, Black students did poorly and the other students did well. But in reality, Black students in good schools do well. At the same time, White, non-Hispanic students who attend schools where most of the students are Black and their graduation rates are low, also do poorly. The crisis of the education of Black males sits squarely in the middle of the crisis America faces as we work to create a world-class public education system that will support and maintain the values of a fair and equitable democratic society.

According to the report, in New York State, 39 percent of black male students graduated from high school in 2005-06, compared to 75 percent of white male students, and far more black male students performed at the Below Basic level on all sections of the NAEP tests compared to white male students. Also, as the report points out, on the eighth grade NAEP reading assessment, “virtually none reach the Advanced level.” Furthermore, black males in New York State are about 5 times less likely to be placed in Gifted and Talented programs, and nearly 3 times more likely to be classified as mentally retarded.

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