Mayor Bill de Blasio indicated for the first time Wednesday that he’s open to keeping the admissions tests for the city’s elite public high schools, in a major departure from his previous position that the exams must be eliminated to diversify the student bodies.
“The attempt we made to address it was just not effective and we have to come to grips with that and I have to take responsibility for that,” the mayor told a group of ethnic and community reporters at a City Hall roundtable.
De Blasio said he believes that removing the test is “the single best way to resolve” the disproportionate rate of whites and Asians at leading city schools, such as Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan.
But, he admitted, “Some would argue there’s a way to do it while keeping the test and you have to have that dialogue too.”
He added, “We’re going to start over and listen to everyone and listen or something that will give us progress. The one thing I can’t live with is the status quo.”
Reps for the city’s Dept. of Education did not immediately comment, but in an April interview with The Post de Blasio’s Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza blasted the 1971 state law that created the test.
“Anyone who is supporting that law — you are supporting a racist law,” Carranza said at the time.
New Yorkers on all sides of the debate were quick to comment on the mayor’s flip flop.
“He’s a wimp,” said parent advocate Leonie Haimson.
“In one of the few education instances where he’s right, de Blasio should stand firm on his opposition to the SHSAT and fight,” she said, using the acronym for the exam’s official name– the Specialized High School Admissions Test.
Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center education professor David Bloomfield agreed with Haimson that de Blasio’s recent remarks show his weakness as a leader.
“He saw he had a losing hand and folded,” Bloomfield said.
“The mayor is right that this was mishandled from the start. But to compromise on a demonstrably flawed assessment is disappointing,” Bloomfield said. He said that one of the alternate proposals to add subsidized test prep for underrepresented minorities is, “A poor measure of giftedness based more on tutoring than talent.”
Community Education Council president Maud Maron was pleased by the mayor’s new tune.
“This is what so many parents have been arguing for. Maybe Bill de Blasio is finally listening to more stakeholders,” Maron said.
But Chinese American Citizens Council of Greater New York president wasn’t so sure that his members will be happy with the new approach.
“I don’t think we counted at all in his estimation,” Council President Wai Wah Chin said of New York’s Asian community.
“We’ll see how this evolves from here,” she said. Asian students predominate at the city’s specialized high schools.