Education

What to know about New York City’s school admissions changes

They’re the most significant shift to desegregate schools since de Blasio took office.

New York City schools Chancellor Richard Carranza at a media availability on December 21.

New York City schools Chancellor Richard Carranza at a media availability on December 21. Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

Earlier this year, New York City schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, who has made diversity at city schools a top priority, caught flack for saying “never waste a good crisis” regarding making big changes to the city’s school system. But it seems that Mayor Bill de Blasio listened.

De Blasio announced on Friday a monumental shift in how many city public middle schools and high schools accept students. He said that he would drop screening criteria for selective middle schools for the upcoming school year and eliminate geographic preference for admission at high schools. That change is meant to increase diversity at the city’s top public schools and help to desegregate one of the most segregated school systems in the entire country.

Advocates for increasing diversity in schools have been calling for such changes for years, including Carranza, who has vocally opposed screened schools. De Blasio finally took action in response to the disruptions that the COVID-19 pandemic caused to schooling and testing. But they may have far reaching implications well beyond the pandemic. Here’s what you need to know about the changes.

What exactly are the changes that de Blasio made?

About 200 middle schools – 40% of all public middle schools in the city – accept students through a screening process, based on a variety of criteria including grades, standardized test scores, student interviews and attendance. They tend to be the highest performing schools and often located in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods. Black, Latino and low-income students also tend to be very underrepresented at these schools. Under the shift, these schools will not be allowed to screen students. Instead they will select students through a lottery system, the same as other non-screened schools. Students will rank their top schools on their middle school applications as they always have, including traditionally screened schools. High schools screening processes will remain in place, although schools Chancellor Richard Carranza encouraged screened high schools to consider voluntarily dropping the screens.

About 250 high schools will also no longer give geographic admissions preference to students. Preference by district will get eliminated for the upcoming school year, with preference for borough residents going the next year. These schools would treat admissions the same as all other public high schools in the city, which are open to all students regardless of where they’re from and have no geographic preference. Manhattan’s District 2, encompassing affluent neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and Tribeca, is one of the most egregious examples of this special carve out. It has some of the best and most selective public high schools in the city, and six of those high schools give priority to students living in the district. That means that high-performing students of color from other neighborhoods are less likely to get in, even if they meet the screening criteria. Middle schools that offer district priority in admissions will be allowed to continue to offer that.

Is this permanent?

The elimination of screens for middles schools has only been announced for one year with the understanding that the pandemic interfered with standardized tests that are often used in admission criteria, and the fact that the city did away with the traditional grading system to accommodate students who may be struggling during the pandemic or falling behind due to the massive upheavals in schooling. The de Blasio administration will evaluate the admissions process for the 2021-2022 school year, and there’s no guarantee that screenings will be eliminated for the 2022-2023 school year. 

The elimination of district preference for high schools, however, is permanent. The announcement came the same week that principals at Manhattan’s District 2 high schools called on the city to diversify the district by doing away with the geographic prioritization that keeps some of the city’s best public schools disproportionately white. 

Do these changes impact the city’s specialized public high schools?

Admissions at the city’s nine specialized high schools will remain unchanged. Students will still need to take the Specialized High School Admissions Test, which is still the sole determinant of if students are accepted, for eight of the schools and follow the performance or portfolio submission process for LaGuardia High School. The criteria for these schools, despite being New York City public schools, are set by the state, so only the state Legislature can implement any changes. However, the changes to admissions criteria that de Blasio enacted affect far more schools, some of which are even less representative of the city’s population than the specialized high schools, or more skewed towards the wealthy, as the specialized high schools have large percentages of low-income Asian American students, who are not well-represented in many other screened schools.

Has this been done before?

In 2018, District 15 in Brooklyn changed its admissions process for middle schools, eliminating the screening process and shifting to a lottery system that gave extra weight to students who are low-income and homeless students, as well as those learning English as a second language. The goal of the change was to decrease segregation within the district itself, which includes affluent enclaves like Park Slope and Carroll Gardens as well as working-class and mostly immigrant communities like Sunset Park and Red Hook. Within a year, the diversity plan was already showing results, with the whitest and richest schools in the district showing some of the most dramatic shifts in enrollment. De Blasio’s new announcement expands what that one district did to the entire school system for at least one year, although without the extra weight for underserved students in the lottery system. Any middle schools that already have diversity plans in place to help prioritize underserved students for admissions at middle schools, like District 1 on the Lower East Side and District 3 on the Upper West Side, will keep those plans in place.

Why does this matter?

De Blasio has long been criticized for slow walking action on integrating the city’s school system. When in 2018 he first called for the elimination of the Specialized High School Admissions Test, he received criticism for targeting low-income Asian-American students, many of whom attend those schools, and for focusing on the eight schools that he doesn’t have the power to change, instead of the far greater number that he does control. De Blasio convened a task force with the aim of creating a plan to desegregate city public schools. In 2019, it released its final report, which included recommendations like eliminating screened schools. Last month, public school students filed a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing the city of discriminating against Black and Latino students with screening processes for the city’s top public schools. It seems that the pandemic finally pushed de Blasio to take action after years of activism by student leaders and integration advocates, leading to the biggest shakeup of the city’s school admissions process in years. Those who have pushed for these kinds of changes applauded de Blasio’s announcement, even as they say that the city must do more to eliminate segregation that has long plagued city schools, create a more equitable school system and address the root problems that have created academic disparities between Black and Latino students and their white counterparts.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.