students (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
The public education system in New York City remains one of the most segregated and unequally resourced school systems in the country, reflective of segregation and inequality in other areas of our civic life.
That segregation is starkly obvious in our specialized high schools. In a city where two out of three public high school students are black or Latino, it is unacceptable that they comprise only 10% of the student body across all eight of our elite high schools.
Much has been made recently of Mayor de Blasio’s plan to eliminate the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, or SHSAT, from the admissions process. The plan is to replace it with a more holistic assessment of achievement based on students’ classroom grades, scores on state standardized English and math tests, and potentially other criteria yet to be determined. But the lack of diversity in our specialized high schools is not a function of the admissions process alone.
The city’s specialized high schools draw from just 21 of the nearly 600 public middle schools citywide. The two Brooklyn City Council districts that we represent factor into this discussion in important ways, and help us draw a path toward improvements to our school system and more diversity at our elite high schools.
Three of these 21 feeder schools are located in the city’s 43rd City Council District in south Brooklyn, with nearly a quarter of all students admitted to specialized high schools coming from School Districts 20, 21, and 22. The schools in these communities are exceptionally diverse, with a majority of students coming from first and second generation immigrant families -- white, black, Hispanic, and Asian alike.
District 16 in central Brooklyn, where schools are 77 percent black and 18.5 percent Hispanic, is a different story. There is not one feeder middle school in District 16, which decades ago had enhanced academics that sent hundreds of students of color to the specialized schools. In fact, until 2015, District 16 schools did not offer the advanced level courses and programming known as “gifted and talented.”
It took pressure from local elected officials forced the Department of Education to provide many majority-minority school districts access to the kind of enhanced academics that provide a pathway to the specialized schools. Despite representing over two-thirds of our public school population, black and Latino students make up only 27% of those enrolled in gifted and talented programs. But even now, the enhanced academics are poorly resourced.
To be sure, improving the admissions process to ensure greater diversity in our specialized high schools is critically important. Expanding access to a great education for minority communities already facing obstacles to their achievement is necessary if we are going to provide equality of opportunity for all New Yorkers.
High-stakes, standardized tests like the SHSAT are poor indicators of students’ potential for success. However, the test is not in itself the problem, and need not be eliminated in order to increase opportunity and diversity. But even with additional methods of assessment, the reality of unequal resources and underinvestment in certain schools would mean improving diversity at our elite high schools will still be a significant challenge.
When you consider that nearly 60% of the middle schools that sent students to specialized high schools were in districts that had gifted and talented schools that required a test for admission, it is evident how decades of unequal investment in enrichment for students of color might be the most significant contributing factor to the city’s problem of diversity in specialized high schools.
Barring state intervention, the students who receive a qualifying score on the SHSAT will continue to be those who have access to test prep and other educational enrichment that most black and Latino students do not.
Today, the National Society of Black Engineers offers test prep to youngsters in District 16 schools to prepare them for tests like the SHSAT. This programming should be expanded, not just to succeed on a test, but to teach how to succeed in life. We must give students enriching experiences that make them connect with learning and foster critical thought and engagement. And we have to do more to create parent awareness and interest in gifted and talented programming.
But it is not enough simply to offer gifted and talented programs and call it a day. The programming provided must be adequately resourced and targeted at the students who are currently underrepresented.
Our colleagues in the City Council agree that the city must restore the funding for enhanced academics in black and Latino communities. As recently as 1989, Brooklyn Tech, for example, was 51 percent black and Latino. As enhanced academics for high-potential students was eliminated in those communities, the percentages of students of color decreased to the point we are at today. We know students, whether in southern or central Brooklyn, can compete successfully if given the resources. They have done it before. They can do it again.
Ending the SHSAT without providing adequate funding and a commitment to educating all students equitably will do nothing to adequately resolve the lack of diversity in our schools, specialized or otherwise.
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Robert E. Cornegy, Jr. represents the Brooklyn communities of Bedford Stuyvesant and Northern Crown Heights in the New York City Council. Justin Brannan represents Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach and Bensonhurst in the City Council. On Twitter @RobertCornegyJr & @JustinBrannan.
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Note: this column has been corrected to reflect that in 1989, Brooklyn Tech was 51 percent black and Latino, not 67 percent as originally stated.
(photo via UCONN)
Imagine being in so much pain that you call 911. Imagine being transported a great distance by an ambulance, all the while in excruciating pain and scared about what might be going on inside your body. Imagine that when you arrive in the hospital, multiple people poke and prod you without telling you what they are doing and without your being able to tell them what you need.
All too frequently, this is the experience of people who are deaf within the United States medical system, because of a complete disregard for the regulations and guidelines set forth in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which mandate sign language interpreter services.
When former President George H. W. Bush signed the ADA 28 years ago last week, he said, “Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” The ADA requires systemic change in how America accommodates people with disabilities, yet more than a quarter of a century after the law’s enactment, pervasive “walls of exclusion” still exist.
New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) recently settled a complaint on behalf of a deaf person in New York City who was denied access to interpreter services at a hospital. It took over six years to resolve the matter, and the client continued to encounter countless similar experiences virtually every time she attempted to schedule an appointment with and visit a medical professional.
This individual is not alone – primary care doctors, specialists, dentists, mental health providers, nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities, and labs routinely deny interpreter services to people who are deaf. This systemic discrimination in the health care setting is illegal under the ADA and has been illegal for even longer in places like New York City, where there are strong state and city non-discrimination laws at play.
The lack of effective communication access is not unique to New York City. The Syracuse University College of Law Disability Rights Clinic also regularly litigates cases of healthcare providers refusing to offer sign language interpreters in upstate New York.
Although there are resources available in New York to hold medical professionals and other agencies accountable if they do not provide effective communication, these problems remain. The New York City Commission on Human Rights and the New York State Division of Human Rights have the ability to investigate and redress such discrimination, even where the individual wants to proceed anonymously. However, these mechanisms are not enough to prevent countless instances of discrimination against members of the deaf community who seek health care.
So if it is illegal, and there are mechanisms for redress, why does the problem persist?
It’s all about money and attitude. There’s a pervasive disregard in the health care profession for the importance of effective communication access for both provider and patient. As an anti-discrimination law, the ADA was intended to enact societal change. However, laws are often not enough – we need a shift in culture.
When deaf individuals speak out about not receiving interpreter services at medical offices, they are often told it is too expensive and providers are reluctant to pay for communication access. The problem is even more acute for solo practitioners than it is for large hospitals and medical practices with deep pockets. The medical community’s failure to budget and plan for this easily anticipated and legally required expense is unacceptable.
Those who speak out are also told they do not really need an interpreter as they can communicate through other means. This is unacceptable.
To require a person who is deaf and deprived effective communication access to seek change, continue to advocate until the change is made, file a lawsuit if the change is not made, and continue to prosecute the lawsuit until it is resolved, is not a realistic solution for creating a more accessible world. It unfairly places the onus on the deaf individual.
There are already models for how to pay for these services. A few years ago, the Monroe County Bar Association established a fund to help defray up to 50 percent of a member’s interpreter bill. Likewise, Title IV of the ADA, which mandates the establishment of a national telephone relay system enabling deaf people to communicate, is funded through a tiny fee collected from everyone’s telephone bill. For health care providers not affiliated with a large institution, a similar fund should be created.
Access delayed is access denied for members of the deaf community when they seek health care. We need creative funding, changes in attitude, and adherence to the law immediately to address this abhorrent situation.
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Michael Schwartz, Associate Professor of Law at the Syracuse University College of Law, Director of its Disability Rights Clinic, board member at Tangata Group, and a long-time deaf rights advocate; and Maureen Belluscio, Senior Staff Attorney, Disability Justice Program of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. On Twitter @NYLPI.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigning (photo: @Ocasio2018)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory seems to be misunderstood in a number of ways. First, it is hard to say that it was representative of Democratic Party supporters in the district. Suppose we measure the Democratic Party voters by Crowley’s vote total in the 2016 Congressional election, when he faced no primary opponent and a nominal general election foe (Crowley won 83 percent). The 2018 Democratic primary total -- 28,000 votes -- was only 19.0 percent of this amount.
Indeed, Ocasio-Cortez’s victory reflected the typical outcome of a restrictive voting system favored by the Democratic Party establishment because of its ability to turn out its patronage base. The decline of the patronage base has reduced the turnout of establishment-oriented Democrats while Bernie Sanders has shown the way for a progressive challenger to harness the internet and social media to turn out a base of followers. Thus, Ocasio-Cortez was able to turn the tables on the Democratic Party organization in a low turnout election.
Second, her margin over Crowley was 3,584 in the Queens precincts but only 542 in Bronx precincts. This suggests that her appeal was not primarily to the Latino working-class community but instead the Queens professional class. This thesis is further strengthened by looking at the voter turnout in each borough. In 2016, 66.0% of Crowley’s votes were from Queens whereas in the 2018 primary, 72.4% of the votes were from Queens. Again this is consistent with the Sanders movement.
Despite his principled commitment to working-class politics, Sanders’ message overwhelming resonated with the professional class and little with communities of color. Having a Latina candidate, however, was ideal given the district’s ethnic composition and the desire of Sanders’ supporters to demonstrate their commitment to both far-left politics and multiculturalism.
What happened in the 14th Congressional district certainly reflects the decline of the ability of centrist Democrats to appeal to the anti-Trump movement.
There is also a deeper dynamic at work. In the 1950s, fully one-third of all non-supervisory private-sector personnel were members of unions, giving the Democratic Party a pragmatic working-class base that led to centrist policies.
Similarly, the working class support enabled left-of-center parties in Western Europe and Israel to contest for power with pragmatic centrist policies. In and around 2000, Clinton (U.S.), Blair (U.K.), Schroeder (Germany), Jospin (France), and Barak (Israel) represented victories for this agenda. However, as traditional working-class jobs have declined, as union membership in the private sector has plummeted, this base has shrunk and so too has the support for centrist policies. In the U.K., this has caused a shift in the Labor Party to a much more leftist orientation and this is the direction the Democratic Party has moved in the U.S.; no longer centered around private sector workers but increasingly a party of the professional class and less affluent people of color.
Ocasio-Cortez’s victory crystallizes another important cleavage: the schism between an increasingly active anti-Israel stance among leftist Democrats and the pro-Israel stance of more centrist Democrats. The animus to Israel shown by Democratic Party leader Keith Ellison and candidate Bernie Sanders is amplified by her victory.
She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, which has as one of its platforms, support for the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement. Not only has Ocasio-Cortez not rejected this part of the platform, she has enunciated extreme anti-Israel positions and not shown support for a two-state solution.
How will centrist pro-Israel Democrats deal with this increasingly aggressive anti-Israel stance? Senator Gillibrand, in her courting of the left flank, has embraced Ocasio-Cortez as she did Women’s March leaders who embrace the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. However, given his unequivocal support for Israel and rejection of BDS, what will Senator Schumer do? If centrists don’t stand firm on the issue of Israel, it further exposes the demise of the traditional Democratic Party.
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Robert Cherry is Stern Professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center.
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Note: this article has been corrected with the intended French leader, Jospin.