As New York City parents debate how to give all students fair access to good public schools, some advocates in Brooklyn want to abolish middle schools' use of academic criteria to select students.
Some supporters of the proposal for District 15 from its Diversity Plan Working Group are optimistic they will win, partly because New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has questioned the principle for accepting students by ability. Other parents are cautious, saying they want their hard-working children to have the chance to earn their way into desirable schools.
District 15, which includes low-income immigrant neighborhoods such as Sunset Park and more-affluent(富裕的)areas like Park Slope, is one of the first in the city trying to change its admission system to better integrate(整合)all of its middle schools. Its Diversity Group, which includes parents and city Department of Education officials, has tried to drum up support by hosting workshops and seeking community input.
Michele Greenberg, a District 15 parent, calls the proposal more fair than the current selective system, which she said discriminates against students with few resources. "Children shouldn't be rejected because they don't somehow fit," she said.
Department officials said they will decide on the proposal this summer. If approved, the plan would mark a huge change from today's method. Now, students rank the schools they want to attend, and schools rank students they want to enroll, based on varying criteria such as course grades, test scores, behavior, attendance, punctuality and auditions. The department makes matches. Many parents complain this complex process brings massive anxiety.
Alina Rodriguez, a special-education teacher who works and lives in District 15, feels torn. As a mother, she believes her daughter would get into a strong middle school through selective admissions. But as a teacher, she worries many of her students aren't prepared for more severe choices. "I want them to be pushed but don't want them to fail," she said.
Screened(筛选的)admission has led to enrollment disparities(差异)by income and race. About 70% of the district's white students clustered at three top-performing, low-poverty middle schools last year, including M.S.51, Math & Science Exploratory School and New Voices, according to state data. At two lower-performing schools, by contrast, nearly all students were poor and Hispanic. Andrew Robertson, a District 15 parent, said the proposal would equalize the playing field. "The people so frightened by the concept are the modern-day version of people worried about civil rights," he said.
