De Blasio Considers Giving Up Fight To Scrap NYC's Elite High School Test, Push Diversity Into Admissions Process
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Days after conceding he didn't have a chance to be president in 2020, Mayor de Blasio appears to be conceding another fight involving his controversial position on the city's specialized high schools.
The mayor now says his administration will consider keeping the test that grants admission to New York City's eight specialized high schools.
De Blasio has repeatedly said he believes the test is the reason those schools are not diverse.
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This summer a bill backed by the mayor, that would scrap the admissions test, didn't even go up for a vote in Albany.
The mayor wanted 45 percent of the 5,000 seats to be held specifically for black and Hispanic students -- 20 percent of the seats reserved for low-income students starting in September 2019.
De Blasio's plan sent to Albany sought to replace the test with admission criteria based on middle school class rank and state test scores.
"The attempt we made to address it just was not effective," the mayor admitted.
"We have to come to grips with that and I have to take responsibility for that. We tried something that we thought would be fair and we thought would work and obviously it didn't and we have to come up with a new approach."
The mayor says they'll consider all ideas – which apparently now includes keeping the allegedly discriminatory test.
This year at Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School, out of the 895 freshman slots, seven were offered to black students and 33 to Latino students.
