We are NYC Asian parents turned activists to push back against laws and admissions rules designed to dismantle merit and discriminate against our children. We fight for merit and fairness in admissions, and we are not alone.
San Francisco Asian parents celebrated when three school board members were recalled in a landslide. They were provoked by the Board’s efforts to reduce the number of Asian students at the high-ranking Lowell School by changing admissions criteria from merit based to lottery and further incited by racist, derogatory remarks towards Asians by one a board member.
A federal judge in Fairfax, Virginia recently ruled that the new “holistic” admissions for Thomas Jefferson High School (the top STEM high school in the country) illegally discriminates against Asian students, and that the aim of the school board amounts to “racial balancing for its own sake.”
In Boston, there are pending lawsuits by parents against the city for revamping admissions which “increased the odds of Black and Latino applicants getting in while decreasing the chances of white and Asian applicants” and a lack of transparency on the process.
For Asian parents in NYC, tensions resurfaced in 2018 when former Mayor de Blasio attempted to eliminate the SHSAT, a race-blind exam that is the sole criteria for admission into NYC’s famed Specialized High Schools. The explicit goal of removing the test was to reduce the number of Asian students and admit more Black and Hispanic students in their place.
While the Mayor eventually conceded he “didn’t handle that right,” he and former Chancellor Carranza defiantly continued their crusade against merit and strong-armed their equity ideology with adjustments to middle and high school admissions by eliminating standardized state tests, using binary grades for report cards - even releasing guidance that class ranking should be based on “equity, motivation, and academic integrity” instead of grades despite public outcry.
Rebuilding and restoring the successful academic programs removed under de Blasio is proving to be a challenge. This year, Chancellor David Banks announced new screening criteria for high school admissions which is essentially a lottery. The “screening” criteria groups students with GPAs as low as 75 with those earning 99s into one lottery group. By rough estimates, more than half of all students qualify for this group. Considering more than 50% of students (pre-Covid) are below grade-level proficiency, the ability to teach advanced students evaporates with this de facto lottery because every class will have a wide range of proficiency.
While school officials use the excuse of covid disparities to impose these changes, the true intent was revealed at a forum when the Chief Enrollment Officer for NYC Schools shared that the DOE explicitly modeled the new admissions criteria to increase admissions for Black and Hispanic applicants by as much as 13%. “Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks are committed to bolstering access, and our admissions process for screened high schools will expand opportunity, especially for Black and Hispanic students.”
In the Thomas Jefferson High School ruling, Judge Hilton remarked “The Board’s policy was designed to increase Black and Hispanic enrollment, which would, by necessity, decrease the representation of Asian-Americans at TJ.” We ask ourselves - how is this any different in NYC?
As with changes in Fairfax and Boston, NYC’s new admissions policies were kept secret until announced in mid-January. Swift denouncement ensued from numerous parents and parent councils who had been demanding DOE engagement since Summer 2021 but was predictably ignored.
As Asian parents, we can’t unsee the parallels with what is happening across the country at these top high schools. We see our children in the crosshairs in a war on merit solely because these schools are majority Asian.
While there is little doubt admissions changes impact Asian students disproportionately, it does a huge disservice to all students. An op-ed by Queens sixth grader Kristina Raevsky speaks pointedly to the message it sends to kids―“what’s the point of studying if I have the same chance of getting into a good high school as a student with an 80 average?
With the Supreme Court taking up the Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard case on affirmative action, there is optimism in the air that these blatant anti-Asian admission policies may soon be coming to an end.
But here in NYC, many Asian American parents are anxious. Asian parents who supported newly elected Mayor Adams did so because of his promise to keep the SHSAT and expand the Gifted & Talented program, but he needs to take it further by maintaining high standards for academically-focused screened schools without unconstitutional racial balancing admissions.
It’s not too late for Mayor Adams to show that he is the mayor for all children; he should restore merit-based admissions based on ranked GPA’s and objective criteria to prove to Asian families that there isn’t a target on our children’s backs. It’s about time.
Amy Tse, Yiatin Chu and Jean Hahn are public school parents and leaders of PLACE NYC, an education advocacy group and co-founders of Asian Wave Alliance, a new non-partisan Asian political club in NY.
Commented