The misplaced focus on New York City's selective high schools
The time and energy that Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Richard Carranza are devoting to revamping admissions for New York's eight selective exam-based high schools are misplaced. Those institutions provide a unique and valuable service that drives excellence and upward mobility. Leaders should instead focus on how the city’s black and Hispanic students are failed by Gotham’s other 1,700 schools, and how the exam schools' diversity problem is exacerbated by the lack of policies that would bolster those kids' achievement.