Asians would be affected if NYC drops gifted school programs

New York City's public-school system is the nation's largest and among the most segregated.

A new report has produced recommendations to desegregate the system in which black and Hispanic students make up nearly 70 percent of the 1.1 million students.

Perhaps the most controversial recommendation is ending all current elementary school gifted-and-talented programs. In 2018, Asians had the highest rate of enrollment in the programs at 40 percent.

The report by a panel of education experts and community leaders appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city's school chancellor acknowledged that its recommendations could lead to some departures of whites and Asians from the system.

Among the recommendations issued on Tuesday is ending most screened admissions for elementary and middle schools, reducing screening for some high schools. It also recommends redrawing school-district lines citywide to "fully integrate" them within 10 years.

There were 15,979 children enrolled in gifted-and-talented programs in 2018, according to the Department of Education (DOE), and nearly 75 percent of the students were white or Asian.

"If New York City loses students to private schools or families move to other locations, it will become even more difficult to create high-quality integrated schools that serve the interests of all students," the ¬report said.

Vanessa Leung, of the Coalition for Asian-American Children and Families, and a member of the report's committee, said she supported the recommendations.

The status quo enables "systemic harms against black and Latino students and communities but also ignores the barriers faced by many within the Asian- Pacific American community," she told a press conference when the report was issued. "For decades, increasingly exclusionary admissions practices make it challenging for a vast majority of Asian students to navigate the system for their families and themselves."

But Peter Koo, a member of the City Council representing Flushing, Queens, that has a large Asian population, urged the mayor to reject the proposal, saying it is "scapegoating success".

"I wholeheartedly condemn the report calling for the elimination of NYC's gifted-and-talented programs," Koo said in a statement given to China Daily. "Increasing diversity and expanding access to higher education should not mean scapegoating success."

"These classes are coveted by many students and parents throughout the city and need to be expanded if anything, not eradicated. Yet, instead of working to increase access for students in underserved communities, this proposal seeks to completely remove all opportunities to an advanced education," he said.

The mayor has the authority to implement the report's recommendations because he controls the city's education department. On Tuesday, he said he would study the report's recommendations.

Not included in the report are the city's eight most elite high schools that admit students based on a single standardized test score and have diversity issues but are under the partial control of the state.

Those schools include the three most prestigious ones that regularly send students to Ivy League universities — Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech and Bronx Science.

Asian students receive the largest number of admission offers to the schools.