Diversity Lags as Students Are Matched With City Schools

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS MARCH 8, 2017

… Despite a push to increase the number of black and Latino students at the city’s most competitive high schools, the specialized schools, the number of those students who were offered seats for the fall was essentially unchanged from last year, according to the department.

Entry to eight specialized high schools is based entirely upon a single standardized test, and the schools have long been criticized for the demographic makeup of the students who are admitted. Only about 10 percent of offers from those schools were extended to black and Latino students, though those students make up about 68 percent of the school system.

… Nonetheless, the number of offers made to black and Latino students went from 530 last year to 524 this year.

From the New York Post:

Asian kids dominate admission to city’s elite high schools

By Selim Algar March 8, 2017 | 10:13pm

Once again, Asians kids dominated the annual stampede for admission to the city’s eight elite high schools for the upcoming academic year, according to newly released Department of Education data.

Of the 5,078 jubilant eighth-graders who received acceptance letters this week — out of 27,853 total applicants — 52.5 percent were Asian, the DOE reported on Thursday.

White students lagged well behind their Asian peers, comprising just 28 percent of those who passed the ultra-competitive process.

Hispanic students comprised 6.5 percent of the total and black kids just 3.8 percent. Multi-racial applicants made up 1.3 percent of those admitted and 7.4 percent were of unknown background, according to the data. Native Americans registered 0.5 percent of the total.