As pressure builds on specialized high school admissions, the Council's own SHSAT bills haven't had a hearing

Calls are growing for Mayor Zohran Mamdani to change how students get into the city's eight specialized high schools, Gothamist reported. Former Schools Chancellor David Banks and former First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright were set to host a live podcast taping Tuesday at Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church focused on admissions changes, with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams expected to attend.

The numbers driving the debate: Black students received 3.5% of the roughly 4,000 specialized high school offers last school year, and Stuyvesant admitted three Black students, according to Gothamist. Asian students received 56.5% of offers.

Two Council members, Lincoln Restler of Brooklyn and Nantasha M. Williams of Queens, sent Mamdani and Chancellor Kamar Samuels a letter proposing wider admissions criteria. "The segregation that exists across our entire public school system is unacceptable," Restler told Gothamist. A Mamdani spokesperson, Jenna Lyle, said the administration's focus is "making sure every child in New York City has access to an excellent education."

State law makes the Specialized High School Admissions Test the only factor for admission to Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech. The city uses the test for the other five schools too, so the near-term debate is about those five, which the city can change on its own.

For families with children in middle school, any change could affect how their applications are judged as soon as next year.

What our records add

Williams' resolution to repeal the state law has waited 271 days. Res. 167, from Williams, calls on Albany to repeal the Hecht-Calandra Act and let the city use a holistic admissions process for specialized high schools. Its co-sponsors are Restler, Althea V. Stevens and Farah N. Louis. It was introduced Jan. 29 and referred to the Committee on Education, with no hearing since.

A second Williams resolution (Res. 294), introduced Feb. 12 with Stevens and Louis, supports a state bill that would let designated specialized high schools set their own admissions standards. It also has had no hearing.

Other members have filed bills that keep the test but widen access to it:

• Int. 608, from Rita C. Joseph, would require the Education Department to plan for giving the test on a school day. It has 15 sponsors, including Phil Wong, Susan Zhuang, Frank Morano and Yusef Salaam.
• Int. 546, from Oswald J. Feliz, would require a plan to offer test prep to all middle school students.
• Int. 485, from Sandra Ung, would require a plan for a pilot after-school test prep program.

All three are in the Education Committee and none has had a hearing. That committee has 55 pending items, 36 of them older than 180 days.

The issue has come up at hearings. At the Education Committee's June 24 hearing, Zhuang said there are not enough Black and Brown students in specialized high schools, and argued the city should expand gifted and talented programs in elementary and middle schools rather than eliminate them. At a March 23 Education Committee hearing, Majority Whip Kamillah Hanks noted that Staten Island students commute long distances to specialized schools and pressed for a performing arts high school on the island.

What's next

Restler and Williams are waiting for a response to their letter. Mamdani has said his administration is working on the "building blocks" of an education plan, Gothamist reported. Any change to the test-only rule at Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech would need Albany. No specialized high school bill is on an upcoming Education Committee agenda; the committee's schedule is on our meetings calendar.