This year only seven black students were offered the opportunity to attend Stuyvesant High School, the highly competitive public school that uses test scores as its only basis for admissions. That's two fewer than last year.
In addition, only 21 Hispanic students were offered admission, down from 24 last year. On the whole, black students comprise 32 percent of public school students in the entire system, while Hispanic students make up 40.3 percent. Critics have long blasted the testing system as the only basis for admission to the crown jewel of the public school system, with the advantage going to students who have been given test prep. Right now, Asians comprise 72.5 percent of Stuyvesant’s student body while only making up 13.7 percent of the city’s overall public school population.
"We must do more to reflect the diversity of our city in our top-tier schools — and we are committed to doing just that. In the coming months we will be looking at ways to address the gap that has left so many of our black and Latino students out of specialized high schools," schools chancellor Carmen Fariña told the Daily News.
A profile by the New York Times from last year showed the difficulty black students face at elite public high schools like Stuyvesant, where the level of work and the isolation black and hispanic students face can create a difficult atmosphere for learning, even if the student is one of the lucky few to be accepted.
Mayor de Blasio vowed on the campaign trail to change the way the specialized public schools admit students (his son, Dante, attends Brooklyn Tech, one of these schools), but will have to get state approval to make any changes in their admissions process.
