From the New York Post:
NYC’s school diversity plan could lead to another ‘white flight’
By Karol Markowicz September 29, 2018 | 12:59pm
In a push to improve diversity at District 15 middle schools in Brooklyn, Mayor de Blasio last week approved a plan to remove admission standards at all of them.
In liberal Park Slope and the surrounding areas, the news was received with mixed reactions. Those against the plan were quoted anonymously in various news outlets, lest they somehow appear to oppose diversity. They had seen what happened to Upper West Side parents who were named and shamed in articles when they opposed proposals for their schools.
The announcement of the changes featured some blatant doublespeak. “The District 15 middle-school diversity plan will remove screens from all middle schools and will prioritize 52 percent of sixth-grade seats for students from low-income families, English-language learners and students in temporary housing.” Got that? They will remove screens and replace them with other screens.
The removal of standards won’t just be academic. Schools that previously focused on music or the arts will no longer be able to audition students. Students who have dedicated their lives to learning to play the cello will be in classes alongside kids who have no interest in the arts at all. …
One Park Slope dad told me he sees the move as a “prelude to breaking up the specialized high schools.” He added that the plan would “put the academically struggling kids in schools where ‘magic dirt’ makes kids smarter.” …
The final diversity plan for District 15 lays out the history of the middle schools in the district. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, white people mostly opted out of the public middle schools. Once screening such as testing, grades and other factors were introduced, parents returned to public schools in the area.
A rare demographic success story has been the increasing white births in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Births to white mothers have grown from about 28% of all births in NYC during the Crack Era to 33% in 2014. In part this is due to a lot of white people figuring out ways to get their kids into a decent public school so they aren’t looking at dropping $30k on private schools per child. In De Blasio’s second (and last) term, his new Mexican-American school superintendent is trying to drive out white parents.
It should be an interesting battle.
