Leadership in the contemporary movement for school integration has come from a variety of corners. The 2010 charter school law gave cover to responsible charter schools like Brooklyn Prospect to innovate new admissions strategies so as to be representative of their community school district with regard to “at-risk” students. In 2012 community stakeholders pointed to the targets set for charter schools by that law as a goal for enrollment at a district school – the expanded PS 133. In scrambling to respond to this demand (and not without plenty of initial resistance) the DOE looked to models like those in use at BPCS. The result was the PS 133 “set-aside” admissions plan that has become the building block for nearly all of DOE’s initiatives in the years since.
It is fitting and by no means a coincidence that the District 15 diversity plan and BPCS have arrived today at essentially the same place (no academic and behavior “screens” and over half of seats set aside for students most likely to be disadvantaged in negotiating complex school-choice processes).
Read more about Brooklyn Prospect here.
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