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发帖数: 17225 | 1 New York’s top Asian-American elected official slammed Mayor de Blasio for
proposing to eliminate the admission test at the city’s eight prestigious
public high schools without input from Asian-American leaders and parents.
“The mayor and chancellor failed to convene a meeting of all relevant
stakeholders, including the City’s AAPI [Asian American and Pacific
Islanders] elected officials, before they unveiled a proposal that seeks to
dismantle how the City’s most successful high schools operate,” said
Queens Congresswoman Grace Meng.
“To exclude impacted communities from such discussions, or to pit them
against one another, is not leadership.”
More than 60 percent o the students in the eight specialized high schools
are of Asian heritage — many from Meng’s district in central Queens.
Blacks and Latinos account for 70 percent of students in the public school
system, but less than ten percent are enrolled at the eight specialized high
schools. The mayor wants to diversify enrollment by scrapping the exam and
inviting the top 7 percent of seventh graders in each middle school to
attend the schools.
Meng, a graduate of Stuyvesant HS and New York’s sole Asian-American
congressional representative, said the mayor is trying to mask the problems
in elementary and middle schools by focusing on the racial disparity in the
eight specialized high schools.
She commented after the mayor’s legislation was reported out of the state
Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday.
“Far too many of our City’s elementary and middle school students are
being left behind. As the mother of two young children who attend New York
City public schools, I have witnessed these problems firsthand. The mayor’s
decision to distract from the harsh realities of the New York City school
system by proposing these changes is not only wrong, it is shortsighted,”
she said in a statement.
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Meng also took issue with Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza’s comment on
Tuesday that “I just don’t buy into the narrative that any one ethnic
group owns admission to these schools.” he said.
“I am insulted, and these comments are false. Asian Americans aren’t
trying to own admission to these schools,” Meng said.
Meng said she agrees with the goal of increasing diversity at the
specialized schools — but it should be done by better preparing black and
Latino students in middle schools to meet entrance requirements rather than
by undermining the elite schools.
“Instead of focusing on comprehensive reform in one effort, the mayor’s
legislative push concerning how eight well-performing schools operate isn’t
a serious policy proposal; it’s a headline,” she said.
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De Blasio, whose son, Dante, attended Brooklyn Tech, one of the specialized
schools, said boosting diversity was a moral imperative to achieve ‘”
social justice” for disadvantaged students. |
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