蜜桃影视

A version of this essay was originally published on the blog.

Updated Oct. 3

I give up.

New York City School Chancellor Richard Carranza has decreed that the isn鈥檛 that SAT scores are well below the national average, that there鈥檚 a lack of access to Advanced Placement classes or that a majority of graduates who go to CUNY’s community colleges can’t handle the work.

No, according to the chancellor, the most important issue facing New York City public schools is that every institution isn鈥檛 a demographic replica of NYC as a whole. Our high schools , and that鈥檚 the reason for all of the above woes.

Fine. You win.

The solution to dismal college readiness, flat SAT scores and too few AP courses, as well as anything else you can conceive of, is integration. So let鈥檚 get to it.

Yet here is where the chancellor throws up his hands in surrender.

While groups like Teens Take Charge propose plans () for mixing low-achieving students in with high-achieving ones to at least obscure how many teens will continue to fail, the chancellor and Mayor Bill de Blasio have chosen to focus their energy on , out of more than 400.

They would love to change admissions to these specialized high schools, but the big bad New York State Assembly won鈥檛 let them.

Sorry, voters, we tried. Those racists in Albany stopped us, which is why systemwide failure continues. 鈥淥ur previously thrown-up hands are tied, alas,鈥� is more or less what the mayor said when he on Sept. 25 that he’d be taking a break from his two-year campaign to get rid of the Specialized High School Admissions Test.

I realize that de Blasio was very busy in his presidential campaign before finally dropping out. So, now that he鈥檚 been forced to focus on NYC once again, I, as a good, responsible citizen, offer three ways in which he could integrate NYC high schools in time for September 2020 admissions 鈥� and thus presumably fix everything that ails them.

Get rid of district/borough priority

Right now, the majority of high schools are citywide (a handful of zoned high schools remain, but their number is statistically insignificant). A student from Staten Island can theoretically apply to a school in the Bronx, one from Queens can apply to a school in Manhattan, and so on.

Except when it comes to district and/or borough priority schools. For instance, Manhattan鈥檚 District 2 (East Side south of 97th Street, West Side south of 59th Street, while avoiding the Lower East Side) schools are, theoretically, open to students citywide. But they give priority to those who live or attended middle school in District 2. As a result, a popular institution like , which receives 49 applications for every general education seat, makes 100 percent of its offers to District 2 students or residents. ElRo, as it鈥檚 colloquially called, is 66 percent white and 19 percent free/reduced-price lunch, with 0 percent English learners.

At (also 49 applications for every gen ed seat), 98 percent of offers go to District 2 students or residents and 2 percent go to Manhattan students or residents. Baruch College is 43 percent white, 35 percent Asian, 39 percent free/reduced-price lunch and 1 percent English learners.

There are .

Luckily, this is an issue the mayor can fix on his own. He doesn鈥檛 need the state to agree. So 鈥� what鈥檚 the holdup?

Create a specialized high school for all who want one

We鈥檝e all heard the mantra by now: The specialized high schools are not diverse. (They鈥檙e less white and more poor than the screened schools mentioned above, but that doesn鈥檛 count.) Plus, there aren鈥檛 enough of them to go around.

?

About 30,000 students currently sit for the specialized high school test. In all eight schools, there are around 4,000 seats. What if NYC commits to making a seat available to absolutely every single test-taker? NYC has more than 400 high schools. Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science field incoming classes of about 900 each. Brooklyn Tech admits close to 2,000! To accommodate 30,000 applicants, you鈥檇 need maybe 20 more specialized high schools? Thirty? Even 40 out of 400 isn鈥檛 that many. And this time, we鈥檇 make sure to scatter them equally around the five boroughs so that students from Queens wouldn鈥檛 be forced to make three-hour round trips, the way some do now.

We wouldn鈥檛 need to build new buildings or hire new teachers. We could just convert existing schools. Kids would still need to in the order they prefer (not all of them; odds are they鈥檇 stick to their geographic area, but if you want to rank all 40, go for it!), and their admissions test score would still determine priority, but with so many choices, there鈥檚 bound to be a broader range of academic abilities, not to mention race and gender, in each.

Luckily, this is an issue the mayor can fix on his own. The state needs to agree to get rid of the test, but not to , the way former mayor Michael Bloomberg did. So 鈥� what鈥檚 the holdup?

Apply the 7 percent plan to screened high schools

Instead of administering the admissions exam, the mayor and chancellor would like to guarantee a specialized high school seat to the from every public middle school.

But, as noted above, there are only eight specialized high schools. There are more than 130 screened schools. Wouldn鈥檛 more students benefit and more diversity be achieved if the 7 percent plan were put into place for the screened rather than the exam schools?

These schools already use like grades, test scores, interviews, portfolios and community service to admit their students. The mayor and chancellor believe these methods are superior to a single test (though both are confused as to why 鈥� the notwithstanding).

According to them, these schools are . So shouldn鈥檛 we be fighting to give more underserved students access to them? Like, say, the top 7 percent from every public middle school? Or, since we鈥檙e talking about many more schools, why not the top 15 percent? Top 35 percent?

This is also an issue the mayor can fix on his own. The state has nothing to do with setting admissions criteria for screened schools.

So 鈥� I hate to bug 鈥� but鈥� pssst 鈥� what鈥檚 the holdup, again?

Alina Adams is a New York Times best-selling romance and mystery writer, the author of Getting Into NYC Kindergarten and Getting Into NYC High School, a blogger at and mother of three. She believes you can’t have true school choice until all parents know all their school choices 鈥� and how to get them. Visit her website, .

Column has been updated to clarify lack of college readiness among New York City high school graduates.

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