The Most Segregated School System in the Country

New York City has changed significantly over the past 50 years. From its increased racial diversity and gay tolerance, to the changes in wealth disparity, the city has definitely moved forward in many aspects. Although, one aspect has yet to advance: the city’s public school system remains one of the most segregated in the nation.

Every year, sometime in March, eighth grade students in all corners of New York City receive a letter. For some, this letter could enter them into a realm of opportunity: an acceptance to one of the highly coveted specialized public high schools (SHS). The rest? Those who are not accepted into one of the elite specialized high schools are relegated to the lower performing schools of the city. For years, the specialized high schools have been glaringly racially disproportionate, with Asian Americans making up 62% of specialized high schools despite being 16% of all NYC public high school students and white students, who made up 24% of these SHS while being 15% of the NYC public school student body (Shapiro). These skewed numbers have raised questions as to whether the tests are racially biased and discriminatory toward black and Hispanic students who make up the overwhelming majority of NYC students at 40.5% and 26% respectively while combined, only make up 9% of all students enrolled in SHS (Shapiro). At Stuyvesant High School, one of the top SHS in NYC (and according to some reports, the top public high school in New York State), nearly 75% of all students are Asian American while Black students make up 1% of the student body (Shapiro).

Have the specialized New York City public schools always been this segregated? Let’s go back in time 50 years. In 1971, New York State passed the Calandra-Hecht Act which stated that “admissions to [these specialized high schools] shall be solely and exclusively by taking a competitive, objective and scholastic achievement examination.” In his article “The New York City School Controversy Shows Why Standardized Testing is Broken” Jose Vilson dives into the issue with the system and explains, “Essentially, these schools enshrined into law the right to ignore school performance, grades, interviews, standardized state exams, or any other qualification in favor of a test that rarely aligns with the standards they learn in school, tacitly keeping these schools out of reach for under-resourced students and schools. The specialized high schools continue to exemplify why New York City has the most segregated school system in the country.” This single test that determines the futures of so many young, low income students of the city is a major contributor to the grotesque racial inequality that exists within the NYC specialized school system. “Everything from expensive test prep centers concentrated in specific neighborhoods to private tutors who spend hours with students across the city helps exacerbate admissions, and with it racial disparity. A single test determines the future of our children. That is unacceptable” (Vilson).

So, why have Mayor Bill De Blasio and his fellow elected officials not acted upon the significant racial inequality that plagues the specialized schools? Well, they’ve tried. In 2018, Mayor Bill De Blasio and his schools chancellor, Richard Carranza, proposed a plan that would set aside 20% of ninth-grade slots for low-income students who just miss the test-score cutoff for entry to these schools (Brody). These students participate in a summer program called Discovery. This went into effect for the first time last year. However, this past March, education officials announced that, one year later, almost nothing had changed: Ten black students got into Stuyvesant, out of a freshman class of roughly 760, up from seven black students last year (Shapiro). And only 20 Hispanic students gained entry, down from 33 last year. The overall percentage of black and Hispanic students in New York’s eight specialized high schools was essentially flat compared to last year, at around 11 percent even though the city’s school system as a whole is about 70 percent black and Hispanic. Recently, Mayor de Blasio has advocated for a plan to eliminate the schools’ entrance exam and replace it with a system that automatically offers seats to top performers at every city middle school. However, Eliza Shapiro of the New York Times reports, “that proposal would likely cut the number of seats for Asian-American students by about half, projections show.”

These attempts to alter the SHS admissions system have caused uproar among the Asian American community. Soo Kim, president of the Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association, said in an email that his organization values diversity and believes something should be done to improve access, but “we don’t believe that equity can be created by doing an inequity to another group.” The mayor’s changes, he added, are “so forced that they risk harming needy immigrant communities.” Many alumni groups at the schools have spoken out and said that the test was the most objective admissions method and that it gave generations of talented, low-income immigrants a path to success. In her article “Is New York City’s Plan to Diversify Specialized High Schools Racist toward Asian Americans?” Hui-Ling Sunshine Malone states, “Asian American students are as poor and disadvantaged as other non-White students, yet get into SHS based solely on merit. It is on these grounds that opponents have attacked the plan as unconstitutional and racist toward Asian Americans.” The CACAGNY (Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York) states on their website, “We call on Bill de Blasio to respect students who achieve, no matter their ethnicity, to stop pitting one disadvantaged minority against another, and to do something constructive instead: improve education for all communities, starting from the lowest grades!”

Initially, I agreed with the CACAGNY’s statement. I didn’t think any of de Blasio’s plans for diversity would lead to increased diversity without unjustly affecting other minorities, such as Asian Americans. And so, that pointed me to educational reform in elementary and middle schools because it was at those levels that underprivileged black and Hispanic students were falling behind. However, my understanding changed when I realized that most Asian American immigrants were not recognizing the deep history and harmful structures deeply embedded into American education that have hurt (and continue to hurt) black and Hispanic students. They don’t easily recognize how their argument is fundamentally invested in Whiteness — a construction created to put Whites at the top of the hierarchy and Blacks at the bottom (Malone). The Mayor’s plans are not racist against Asian Americans. What is racist is the narrative that has been parroted by white conservatives and now Asian Americans to keep unjust structures in tact by denying historical and contemporary systemic anti-black racial oppression. In simpler terms, this argument tells us that black, Hispanic, and other vulnerable students are just not good enough.

Although, not all Asian Americans are on the same page regarding these racial issues with education. While many hold opinions similar to that of the CACAGNY, Asians are actually divided on the issue. Supporters argue that the general idea of affirmative action is necessary in order to address past discrimination toward blacks and to create diverse schools that reflect the demographic of New York City. In their opinion piece “How Harvard admissions can be a barometer of our deepest divides” professors Jennifer Lee and Van C. Tran report, “Our new research shows that the divide among Asians is generational. Based on the 2016 National Asian American Survey, we found that Asian immigrants are least likely to support affirmative action. By contrast, Asians born in the US with parents who were also born here — the so-called later generation — are most likely to do so. In fact, later-generation Asians are more likely to support affirmative action than Asian immigrants by a factor of three.” This generational divide in opinion points to cultural differences and assimilation of later-generation Asian Americans. First generation Asian Americans and even second generation immigrants come from countries that lack affirmative action-like policies, so they are not able to understand the historical origins of principles that were designed to rectify past discrimination against blacks. In countries such as China and Korea, the path to college rests on an incredibly difficult, but objective standardized test. The gaokao is China’s notoriously grueling college entrance exam that essentially every high school student takes. “Much of China goes into effective lockdown during the test, with factories and building sites closed down, drivers banned from honking their horns, and police on patrol to ensure students aren’t disturbed” (Lu). Likewise, in Korea, students take the infamous Suneung, which is an eight-hour marathon of back-to-back exams, which “not only dictates whether the students will go to university, but can affect their job prospects, income, where they will live and even future relationships” (Sharif). With this in mind, it is understandable why first generation Asian Americans are so strongly against affirmative action-like policies and support the objective test currently in place to receive admissions into the NYC SHS. The current test mirrors the practices of their home countries.

Furthermore, much of their opposition stems from the fact that they, too, experience discrimination in the US. Whether it be from language barriers, unfamiliar accents, or cultural biases, many Asian immigrants experience inequality in the workplace which makes it difficult even for those who are highly educated to transfer their university degrees and job skills from their home countries to the US. Moreover, Tran and Lee report, “even US-born Asians do not earn as much as comparably educated whites even after accounting for college type, major, metropolitan area and years of experience.”

It is reasonable to see why Asian immigrants aren’t eager to jump on the affirmative action train when they feel that they themselves don’t receive fair and equal treatment in America. But how can second or third generation Asian Americans lead the way in pushing for equality? It will never be perfect, but we can start by voicing our support for affirmative action-like policies. We need to advocate for them and explain to our immigrant relatives what these policies serve to do in our country. Pushing for equality for blacks and minorities historically discriminated against will only help Asian Americans in the future. American values of equality and diversity are what make America so enticing to Asian immigrants in the first place.

Chinese Americans OiYan Poon and Janelle Wong explain in their piece “The Generational Divide on Affirmative Action” that “Young Chinese Americans have witnessed firsthand the rise of Black Lives Matter and the development of an immigrant rights movement led by their undocumented peers who came to the U.S. as young children. As such, they may be unwilling to get behind admissions criteria that perpetuate the massive racial and ethnic inequalities in our K-12 system.” Later-generation Asian Americans who have grown up in the United States are more likely to have a wider education and understanding of the historical discrimination against blacks as well as an overview of American history. Together, we as Asian Americans can voice our support and get behind these policies that encourage diversity and equality in our country.

In the past 10 years, there has been some retreat from affirmative action policies in the United States. But what about on a global level? Do other countries employ similar policies or is America unique in this aspect because of its vast range of cultures and ethnicities? Actually, globally, affirmative action appears much stronger. International treaties and laws have become increasingly supportive of affirmative action. Core programs have been embedded in many countries’ national laws and even constitutions, and policies have been upheld in courts. Important countries have adopted new policies in recent years. Professors Michele S. Moses and Laura Dudley Jenkins report: “Our research has shown that about one quarter of the world’s countries have some form of affirmative action for student admissions into higher education. Many of these programs have emerged over the last 25 years.These policies may go by various names — affirmative action, reservations, alternative access, positive discrimination — but all are efforts to increase the numbers of underrepresented students in higher education.” The French, for example, have selective institutions that target particular schools and neighborhoods in areas classified as Zones d’Education Prioritaires — priority education zones (Dietrich). These areas are deemed priority zones because of their high percentages of immigrant students for whom French is a second language, students performing below grade level, and low-income students. This is all in an effort to increase admissions of students of color. Students from these zones are eligible to compete to be part of special admissions programs, which are designed to give them greater access to selective higher education. Brazil, India, South Africa, and a wide variety of institutions and governments on six continents have programs to expand admission of students from minority groups on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, class, geography or type of high school.

So if all these other countries are involved in affirmative action-like policies, where does that leave us? How does that relate to America and more specifically, the specialized public high schools of New York City? If anything, it furthers the case for affirmative action-like policies and proves the practicality and necessity for them. They are used around the world in countries that are home to immigrants hailing from multiple countries and coming from various cultures. In New York City, for decades, the SHS have closed their doors to students of color. As a result, students of color remain unbelievably underrepresented. Changes to the system, which would mirror policies like affirmative action, would combat the effects of discrimination by allowing these schools to be more intentional in how they evaluate students. In simpler terms, affirmative action-like policies ensure these schools provide the opportunity to those historically shut out of the system because of their race, ethnicity, or identity. Thus, it is critically important that Mayor de Blasio and his fellow policymakers work to incorporate new changes to the admissions system which will better serve those previously underrepresented groups. If not, inequality will continue to persist and the SHS system will fail to serve those who could truly benefit the most. Asian American parents want the best for their children. But young Asian Americans, those most likely to be affected directly by college admissions policies, seem to get that the real secret to success does not rest on ending affirmative action.

Works Cited:

Brody, Leslie. “New York City Mayor Alters Exam-School Admissions.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 4 June 2018, www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-mayor-moves-to-diversify-citys-specialized-high-schools-1527971146.

Dietrich, John W. “The International Spread of Affirmative Action Policies: What Is True Equality?” History and Social Sciences Faculty Journal Articles, 2013, pp. 1–39.

Hafalir, Isa E., et al. “Effective Affirmative Action in School Choice.” Theoretical Economics, vol. 8, no. 2, 2013, pp. 325–363., doi:10.3982/te1135.

“Inside Higher Ed.” The Views of Chinese Americans on Affirmative Action Vary by Age (Opinion), www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2019/02/25/views-chinese-americans-affirmative-action-vary-age-opinion.

Kelly, Erin, and Frank Dobbin. “How Affirmative Action Became Diversity Management.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 41, no. 7, 1998, pp. 960–984., doi:10.1177/0002764298041007008.

Kieser, Chris. “Parents Sue to Stop Mayor De Blasio’s Racial Discrimination in NYC Schools.” Pacific Legal Foundation, Pacific Legal Foundation, 7 Feb. 2019, pacificlegal.org/plf-sues-to-stop-racial-discrimination-in-new-york-city-magnet-school-admissions/.

Lee, Jennifer, and Van C. Tran. “How Harvard Admissions Can Be a Barometer of Our Deepest Divides.” CNN, Cable News Network, 27 Sept. 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/opinions/harvard-admissions-affirmative-action-asian-americans-lee-tran/index.html.

Lu, Shen, and James Griffiths. “Gaokao: Can You Pass China’s Toughest Exam?” CNN, Cable News Network, 7 June 2019, www.cnn.com/2016/06/07/asia/gaokao-quiz/index.html.

Malone, Hui-Ling Sunshine. “Is New York City’s Plan to Diversify Specialized High Schools Racist toward Asian Americans?” NYU Steinhardt, 17 June 2020, steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/perspectives/new-york-citys-plan-diversify-specialized-high-schools-racist-toward-asian.

Moses, Michele S, and Laura Dudley Jenkins. “Affirmative Action around the World.” The Conversation, 17 Apr. 2020, theconversation.com/affirmative-action-around-the-world-82190.

Shapiro, Eliza. “Big Money Enters Debate Over Race and Admissions at Stuyvesant.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 27 Apr. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/nyregion/specialized-high-schools-lobbying.html.

Shapiro, Eliza. “Racist? Fair? Biased? Asian-American Alumni Debate Elite High School Admissions.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Feb. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/nyregion/nyc-specialized-high-school-test.html.

Shapiro, Eliza. “This Year, Only 10 Black Students Got Into N.Y.C.’s Top High School.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/nyregion/nyc-schools-numbers-black-students-diversity-specialized.html.

Sharif, Hossein. “Suneung: The Day Silence Falls over South Korea.” BBC News, BBC, 26 Nov. 2018, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46181240.

Vilson, Jose. “The New York City School Controversy Shows Why Standardized Testing Is Broken.” Vox, Vox, 22 Mar. 2019, www.vox.com/first-person/2019/3/22/18276408/new-york-city-stuyvesant-high-school-brooklyn-tech-science.

Wong, Alia. “4 Myths Fueling the Fight Over NYC’s Exclusive High Schools.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 21 Mar. 2019, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/stuyvesant-admissions-controversy-fact-or-fiction/585460/.