I think De Blasio and Carranza would like to institute quotas based on race, as that is the only method to drastically change the demographics of these exam schools to fully 70% Latino and Black as their stated goal. Unfortunately for them, such a direct approach would not survive a legal challenge. Of course, if they truly want to help these two particular minority groups, then they would propose actual substantive changes to educational services rendered during K-8 so that a higher number of these students can meet the cut-off test scores. Oh, wait - Carranza doesn't believe we should "segregate" students based on test scores! It's always helpful to use emotionally loaded words (even if used inappropriately) if you are trying to gain public support and intimidate thinking adults into silence. Personally, as a parent of cognitive outliers who are also high achievers, I have fought so many battles for the appropriate grouping of students based on test scores just so that my kids can get a semi-appropriate education.
Obviously, De Blasio and Carranza want popular support and they will get it, at least in NYC. Asians are a relatively small minority in NYC so it would easy to give up their votes. They have also historically been less vocal politically so really a great choice of vicims/scapegoats. I just "love" their sloppy confounding of social-economics with race. It would be helpful to see detailed stats on the racial and income correlation of students in these elite exam schools. If 60% of Stuyvesant is low income and 74% are Asian, then clearly most of these Asian students are poor. I would venture to guess that more than 60% of these Asian students are poor based on my personal college experience. There were quite a few Stuyvesant students at the Ivy I attended and all the Asian ones I knew were poor as the wealthy Asians tended to live in nearby places like Long Island or Scarsdale. I think one reason that these exam schools are so overwhelmingly Asian is partly due to NYC Whites gravitating toward private schools.
