Contact: Matt Gonzales, Director, School Diversity Project mgonzales@nyappleseed.org
New York, NY (January 05, 2019) – New York Appleseed is proud to present a new advocacy briefing Student Assignment to Public Middle Schools in New York City – a summary of the use of selective admissions “screens” and other admissions methods by middle-school programs within the purview of the New York City Department of Education in 2018.
Arriving at a time of acrimonious debate about Mayor de Blasio’s proposal to change admissions at the Specialized High Schools, New York Appleseed’s new briefing further explodes the myth that residential housing patterns are the sole cause of educational segregation. Rather, middle-school segregation at the community-school-district level appears to be driven by the use of exclusionary screens based on students’ educational attainment and behavior during the first nine years of their lives. Segregated middle-schools then lead to segregation in our Specialized High Schools. A high concentration of specialized-school offers go to students from a very small subset of middle schools that use these discriminatory screens.
The briefing concludes with a recommendation to remove all exclusionary screens from middle schools across New York City by the 2020 admission cycle and encourage communities to develop CSD-wide plans similar to that developed by the CSD 15 community.
New York Appleseed advocates for integrated schools and communities in New York City and New York State. With evidence-based advocacy and close work with stakeholders, we achieve direct impact in the community and beyond. We extend and magnify this impact across North America through participation in the Appleseed network.
Read the Chalkbeat article.
Read the Daily News article.