Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice today released The Next Step: Prioritizing Equity and Recovery in NYC High School Admissions, urging New York City to implement desegregative reforms urgently needed for middle and high school admissions. Currently, New York City lags behind other major cities that have adopted pandemic-era reforms and made admissions to selective high schools significantly more equitable. The report makes recommendations to improve New York City schools at a time when the NYC Department of Education (NYCDOE) has yet to announce high school admissions policies for 2022-2023 or beyond.
The Next Step provides NYCDOE with a policy roadmap and calls for three substantial reforms that can be implemented in this moment and provide building blocks for a more equitable future.
- First, a permanent end to middle school screens.
- Second, a requirement that high schools “opt-in” to screening together with mandatory equitable admissions priorities.
- Third, significantly enhanced supports for students and families—with dedicated funding—for the admissions process.
The report also calls on the Mayor and NYCDOE to dedicate time and resources to overhaul the City’s high school admissions system by 2022-2023 and stands ready to partner with the City in this process.
Dora Galacatos, executive director of the Feerick Center, states: “In this third school year of the pandemic, we know that the NYC middle and high school admissions process cannot return to ‘business as usual.’ The Mayor and NYCDOE are responsible for creating an admissions process that serves the needs of all students—particularly those most impacted by COVID. There is no way forward without elevating equity and permanently overhauling exclusionary screens for selective admissions.”
More About The Next Step: Prioritizing Equity and Recovery in NYC High School Admissions
The Feerick Center is the convenor of the NYC High School Application Advisory Committee (HSAAC). HSAAC members include service providers, advocates, and researchers who meet regularly with NYCDOE officials to improve admissions policies and practices. The Next Step is a report of an HSAAC subcommittee (Subcommittee) and follows the Subcommittee’s first report of May 12, 2020, Public Schools, Public Oversight: Principles and Policy Recommendations During COVID-19 and Beyond. NYCDOE adopted several key Subcommittee recommendations, including pausing middle school screens and centralizing and standardizing high school admissions for improved transparency. NYCDOE also eliminated geographic priorities for high school screened programs. The Center and Subcommittee laud these important steps toward making high school admissions more equitable. The reforms, however, fell short—NYCDOE did not adopt any affirmative priorities for marginalized students.
“Rubrics” or admissions guidelines set out the criteria that selective screened programs evaluate for ranking student applicants. Data revealed the segregative and exclusionary impact of screened admissions definitively well before the crisis. Now, even proponents of screening must acknowledge the inherent unfairness in screening students for admissions based on their so-called academic achievements like attendance, grades, and test scores during the height of the pandemic.
Read The Next Step.
