Only 1 in 90 Students Offered Place At Stuyvesant High Is Black

TRIBECA, NY — The elite Stuyvesant High School offered just 10 seats to black eighth graders for the upcoming school year, according to admissions data released on Wednesday.

In total, just over 4 percent of the admissions offers for Stuyvesant seats went to black and Latino students.

The admissions offers at Stuyvesant and eight other speciality high schools in New York City indicate a continued dearth of diversity at New York City's most competitive high schools, which often serve as a proxy for the broader debate about integration in city public schools.

At Stuyvesant, generally considered the most competitive public high school in New York City, just 10 black students were offered admission to the freshman class next year, and 27 Latino students were offered seats, according to city data. Of the total of 902 offers released, black and Latino student comprised just four percent of offers.

In total, black and Latino students make up nearly 70 percent of the city's school-age population.

Admission to Stuyvesant and and seven other competitive high schools is determined by the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test. This year, of the 28,300 eighth graders who took the test, about 20 percent of testers were black and about 23 percent were Latino.

"While we have made significant progress in helping students and families through the high school admissions process, we know there is a lot more work ahead in order to achieve excellence for all our students and schools," outgoing schools chancellor Carmen Fariña said in a statement.

This year's diversity numbers are almost identical to last years. In 2017, Stuyvesant offered seats to 13 black students and 28 Latino students.

"We continue to pursue a set of initiatives to increase diversity at Specialized High Schools," the city's education department said in a statement.

The city promised to expand outreach efforts to get more students enrolled in an after school program that prepares students for the admissions test, and to increase the number of schools where students can take the admissions test during the school day.

At the nine specialized schools citywide, 4.1 percent of offers went to Black students and 6.3 percent offers went to Latino students. Asian and white students received the majority of offers to these schools.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that 907 students were offered spots at Stuyvesant this year; the correct number is 902. Patch regrets the error.

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