There's a lot of dissatisfaction with the race-blind test-based admissions that result in disparities in admissions between ethnic groups [1]. A significant portion of people want equality of outcome. Especially how the article writes:
> The city should also redesign its competitive high school admissions process to ensure that high schools reflect the racial and economic make up of their boroughs, the panel found.
It does sound an awful lot like racial quotas (or, "outcome base goals" is I think the more contemporary term). But that's the view of equality that many people have.
Ultimately, I'm not sure if this will result in real desegregation. Even in schools that are desegregated on paper, students are internally segregated by academic capability. A Seattle HS principal explains his perspective here [2]. Students studying AP calc aren't studying with the ones doing geometry. Same with AP ____ classes. But that's a harder problem to solve, and politicians feel pressured to deliver something to their constituents.
There is some interesting research on the effectiveness of race-blind vs quotas: Parag Pathak has written about this specifically (some are on NBER). Joshua Angrist also has a few good papers on education.
From what I have read, race-blind is less effective than quotas in terms of achieving stated aims of policy...but I am not sure what this actually means given that: the exact goals of policies are often not clear, it isn't clear why race-blind doesn't work as well (given that it is often focused on socioeconomic disadvantage), etc.
Definitely an interesting topic though as it is so amenable to research. My common-sense instinct, as a non-American with nothing at stake, is that this is playing with fire.
> The city should also redesign its competitive high school admissions process to ensure that high schools reflect the racial and economic make up of their boroughs, the panel found.
It does sound an awful lot like racial quotas (or, "outcome base goals" is I think the more contemporary term). But that's the view of equality that many people have.
Ultimately, I'm not sure if this will result in real desegregation. Even in schools that are desegregated on paper, students are internally segregated by academic capability. A Seattle HS principal explains his perspective here [2]. Students studying AP calc aren't studying with the ones doing geometry. Same with AP ____ classes. But that's a harder problem to solve, and politicians feel pressured to deliver something to their constituents.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/nyregion/black-students-n... Stuyvesant isn't impacted by this proposal, but this article offers a good portrayal of what I'm referring to.
2. https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/microcosm-of-the-...