In 1995 the Department of Education (then the Board of Education) started a program called the Specialized High Schools Institute with the goal of getting more black and Hispanic students into the city's top-tier specialized high schools (i.e. Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech). But it isn't quite working out the way it was expected to.
Last year the program got 357 of its students (38 percent of those who completed the 16-month program) into schools like Stuy but only 38 of those students were black (up from 31 last year) and only 39 of those were Latino (also up from 31 last year). At the same time the percentage of black and Hispanic students in the program has dropped in the past few years as the number of Asian and white students has steadily climbed.
For what it is worth, by the Department of Education's definition, the $2 million dollar program is still doing what it is supposed to. Last year the focus of the program shifted, after a Supreme Court decision barred school districts from using race as a factor in admissions, to focus on attracting low- and middle-class students into the schools.
Earlier this month, amidst concerns over a racist video made by white Stuyvesant students, it was revealed that the makeup of the crown jewel of the Department of Education has grown increasingly out-of-sync with the racial makeup of the city as a whole. While the student population at Stuyvesant is 71.6 percent Asian, 24.1 percent white, 2.9 percent Hispanic, and 1.2 percent black, the last census pegged New York City's makeup at 33.3 percent white, 22.8 percent black, 12.6 percent Asian and 28.6 percent Hispanic.
