Letter in Support of Eliminating Competitive Admissions in NYC’s Public Elementary and Middle Schools

SUMMARY

The Civil Rights Committee and Education & the Law Committee sent a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza in support of the School Diversity Advisory Group’s (SDAG) recommendation in its recent report, “Making the Grade II: New Programs for Better Schools” (“Report”), that competitive admissions in public elementary and middle schools be eliminated. The letter follows up on a letter the committees sent to the Chancellor and SDAG in May of this year that urged this reform, noting that measures of young children’s ability and behavior through competitive admission screening and testing are unreliable and racially biased; that competitive admissions for very young children are pedagogically unsound; that all children derive educational and social benefits from diverse classrooms with students of different races, economic status, and learning ability; and that the practice of excluding the majority of certain socioeconomic and racial groups of young children from a large percentage of public institutions is inequitable. “[T]he moment is ripe for New York City to eliminate programs that unnecessarily segregate our students, schools, and educational programs, leaving some students without the opportunity for enriched learning that all of our children deserve.”

OUTCOME

New York City Makes Admissions to Public Schools and Gifted Programs Fairer for Students – January 19, 2021

REPORT

November 1, 2019

The Honorable Bill de Blasio
Mayor
The City of New York
City Hall
New York, NY 10007

Chancellor Richard A. Carranza
New York City Department of Education
Tweed Courthouse
52 Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007

Re: Eliminating competitive admissions to public elementary- and middle-school programs and schools

Dear Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza:

On May 1, 2019, the New York City Bar Association (“City Bar”), through its Civil Rights and Education and the Law Committees,[1] delivered a letter to the Chancellor and to the School Diversity Advisory Group, urging the elimination of competitive admissions to public elementary- and middle-school programs and schools.[2] In support of its conclusions, the City Bar noted that:

• Measures of young children’s ability and behavior through competitive admission screening and testing are unreliable and racially biased.

• Competitive admissions for very young children are pedagogically unsound because research demonstrates that all children derive educational and social benefits from diverse classrooms with students of differing races, economic status, and learning ability.

• The practice of excluding the majority of certain socioeconomic and racial groups of young children from a large percentage of public institutions is inequitable and conducive to racial hierarchy.

We are heartened to find the School Diversity Advisory Group’s second report, “Making the Grade II: New Programs for Better Schools” (“Report”), in agreement with our view that competitive admissions in public elementary and middle schools should be eliminated. The Report notes the rise of gifted and talented (G&T) programs in response to integration efforts in the 1950s and provides a robust analysis of the segregative effect that those programs continue to have in New York City public schools today. The Report correctly notes that “G&T caters to the economically privileged instead of the intellectually privileged,” while “[o]ther forms of educational enrichment have proven to provide more pathways to racial and socioeconomic integration.”

We write to you today faced with what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the “fierce urgency of now.” Thanks in large measure to your transformational leadership, the moment is ripe for New York City to eliminate programs that unnecessarily segregate our students, schools, and educational programs, leaving some students without the opportunity for enriched learning that all of our children deserve. These reforms are long overdue; without bold action now, yet another generation of students will suffer separate and unequal learning opportunities.

By supporting the development of, and then approving the community-driven diversity plan in Community School District 15, you have already acknowledged the importance of removing competitive screens as a barrier to integration in our public education system. Mayor de Blasio rightly praised the community members who jointly developed the plan for their shared vision:

“They did not say let’s have diversity, but schools in which kids can’t succeed. And they did not say let’s have schools in which some kids succeed and other kids don’t succeed.  They said we need a common standard of schools where every child succeeds and kids learn together with children of all backgrounds.  That’s what equity and excellence is all about.”[3]

Implementing the recommendations of the Report to eliminate competitive exclusionary admissions for all public elementary and middle schools is a necessary next step to furthering the causes of equity and excellence for all young students in our city. The Report recommends, and we agree, that the elimination of G&T programs should be accompanied by a rollout of equitable enrichment alternatives, because all students deserve to be challenged.

We therefore urge you to discontinue the use of the Gifted and Talented admissions test in elementary schools and to eliminate exclusionary screens in middle schools. Please let us know if  our committees can be of service to you in this endeavor.

Respectfully,

Zoey Chenitz, Chair
Civil Rights Committee

Laura D. Barbieri, Chair
Education and the Law Committee

Cc:

Hon. Corey Johnson
Speaker, New York City Council

Hon. Mark Treyger
Chair, New York City Council Committee on Education