Parents fight de Blasio effort to change elite school admissions
Parents opposed to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious plans to overhaul admissions standards in the city’s elite high schools are battling the mayor on two fronts.
A group of parents held a press conference outside Christa McAuliffe Intermediate School in Dyker Heights on Friday to denounce de Blasio’s plans. They were joined by Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican who represents parts of Bay Ridge and Staten Island. Malliotakis is a member of the Assembly Education Committee.
The mayor has publicly stated that he is looking to increase diversity in the specialized high schools so that more African-American and Latino students can gain admission. But Asian-American parents charged that the changes he is pushing would unfairly hurt their kids, who currently make up 62 percent of the students in the top schools. African-American and Latino students make up 68 percent of the overall student population of the city’s schools, but just 9 percent of the population in elite high schools, according to the Department of Education.