Deputy Speaker Nantasha Williams & Council Member Lincoln Restler

Specialized High Schools: Excellence and Integration Plan

INTRODUCTION

While the entire New York City public school system remains deeply segregated, this segregation is particularly stark in our specialized high schools. Black and Latino students represent 62% percent of the New York City Public School System today, but at our three most prestigious high schools, they make up a tiny fraction of the student body. They are only 3% percent of the incoming class at Stuyvesant High School, 10% percent of incoming students at Bronx Science, and 11% percent of incoming freshmen at Brooklyn Tech. 

The numbers are particularly stark at the City’s flagship: Stuyvesant. This year, just three of the school’s 777 accepted students are Black. This reality is not new: over the past quarter century, negligible numbers of Black and Latino students have been admitted to Stuyvesant despite considerable debate and various good faith policy interventions.

To address this entrenched reality, we need a bold agenda. Our recommendations focus on expanding the application process to include a holistic review, increasing enrollment in specialized schools, focusing the Discovery Program on the most disadvantaged school districts, and enhancing academic rigor at middle schools. Our goal is for every student with exceptional academic potential to have a fair chance to attend a top high school, and to ensure these schools remain a bastion of academic excellence and reflect the diversity of our city. 

We must enact a bold agenda to enhance middle school rigor, expand capacity at specialized high schools, and ensure students of all backgrounds have access to excellent public high school education:

1. Triple Enrollment at Small Specialized High Schools to 3,000

By adding new seats at the five newer specialized high schools and potentially opening additional small specialized high schools, the DOE should triple the number of young people served by 2029. Expanding the five schools, which are located in each borough, will ensure more communities can benefit from the excellent education offered. More students should have access to the Brooklyn Latin School, High School of American Studies at Lehman College in the Bronx, High School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College in West Harlem, Queens High School for the Sciences at York College in Jamaica, and Staten Island Technical High School and potentially other new small specialized schools.

2. New Enrollment Process at Five City-Created Specialized High Schools

No medical, law or business school or undergraduate college admits students based solely on the outcome of one test. The five specialized high schools created by the Bloomberg administration can implement new admissions criteria tomorrow and they should do just that. The admissions process should set a baseline score required on the SHSAT, and then factor in middle school performance, teacher recommendations, applicant backgrounds (such as extracurricular activities), and essay(s).

3. Expand Advanced Math to Every Middle School

DOE should ensure all middle schools offer a rigorous 6th and 7th grade math curriculum that prepares qualified students for Algebra 1 in 8th grade. This would provide all students with preparation for the concepts covered on the SHSAT exam and a path to success in high school and beyond.  The DOE should also ensure that math tested on the SHSAT is aligned with the new standardized NYC Solves middle school math curriculum and does not include concepts that have not yet been covered in school. We should be raising the bar for middle school students across New York City by delivering a rigorous middle school education that prepares students for our best high schools and beyond.

4. Modify Discovery Program Eligibility and Expand Free Test Prep & Outreach

The Discovery Program eligibility criteria should be amended to target the most disadvantaged students. Participation should be limited to qualifying students in the 15 school districts with the highest poverty levels - where students are 4 times less likely to earn a spot at a specialized high school. The Chancellor has the authority to redefine these parameters today.  

Additionally, many students do not have the means or exposure to pursue expensive and time consuming test preparation. DOE should expand the DREAM-Specialized High Schools Institute (SHSI) to accept all qualifying students and offer varying hours and remote options to better accommodate student schedules.  DOE should develop a dedicated engagement team that has 1:1 conversations with all high performing students and their parents about specialized high schools

5. Pass New York City Council Resolution 167 to Repeal Hecht-Calandra Act

Sponsored by Deputy Speaker Nantasha Williams, this resolution calls on the State Legislature to repeal the legislation that governs admissions at Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech. We encourage the State Legislature to model a new admissions process after what we have proposed for the five smaller specialized high schools, which evaluates middle school academic performance, a written essay and the SHSAT exam.