I am a Black Student in a Specialized High School

City leaders want to take away driving forces of motivation for so many Black and minority students: screened schools. As a Black student from Queens, someone who knows Black neighborhoods, a current attendant of the famed LaGuardia Specialized High school of Performing Arts, and someone who benefits from the screened school system, I can say with full certainty that screened schools allowed me to pursue my dreams, where there were otherwise no options. Amidst all the chaos in the world right now, city leaders are making it more difficult for students just like me to get into the city's specialized high schools. The same sentiment comes from countless others, real New Yorkers who know what the city needs.

It was only in the year when I started applying for high schools, eighth grade, that I fully discovered and understood the New York City High school application system, and that exactly seems to be the problem. The lack of African Americans and other minority groups is a consequence of the astounding lack of information given to students in minority and underfunded neighborhoods. When looking around at my Black friends and classmates, a great many of them did not know or understand the requirements for the city's top high schools, despite themselves meeting even more than the requirements. While anti-screening opposition actively aims to delegitimize testing, grades, and school performance as criteria for application, it ignores the fact that it is precisely these qualities and skills which propel Black and POC students to academic excellence and distinction. Now is not the time to be taking away screened schools, schools that help minority children.

Go out into the depths of Queens and Brooklyn, or up to upper Manhattan and the Bronx, to find that countless schools in this city do not adequately prepare middle schoolers and lower-level students for the high school application process. Eliminating screening will not stop the inadequacies within the current system, it will only add convolution to the system. If the system is unjust now, then students will not face any more equity after the screening is taken away. If city leaders wanted to help these underfunded neighborhoods, then they would put funding into these underprivileged areas. We need to help people directly. Students need to be aware of the high school application process in middle schools. The amount of times I have heard "If only I knew about these schools sooner" from Black students is appalling. In my middle school, I received nothing but a 10-minute assembly, which was never followed up for students that missed it. I needed to do lengthy personal research for any questions I had about the application process.

I will never forget the difficulty with which I had to scour information about my current high school, La Guardia. Whatever happened to the Discovery program that was designed to help disadvantaged students like me? Where and what are the funds that go towards low-income neighborhoods? There are students who, in addition to already living in poverty, attend overcrammed classes with limited resources, struggle to pay for school supplies and even necessities. Why is it that the city leaders act surprised when these same students are unaware of how to apply to these screened schools? As it stands now, city leaders would rather eliminate the factors that made specialized high schools so great as opposed to directly helping the neighborhoods and students that they claim to be looking out for.

It was not with closed eyes that I observed the anti-screening argument. The opposed to screening aim to uproot testing, grades, attendance, and heavens knows what else to stop it. If these factors are removed from specialized, excelling and talented school admissions then what do screened schools judge by? The answer is nothing; these radical groups aim to get rid of screened schools completely. New York's specialized and advanced schools have been beacons of hope for students in my exact place for generations. The teaching, the students, and the greatness that I witness in my school constantly, even in a digital learning environment, is inspiring.

My Black and POC friends who attend the city's other specialized high schools impress me just as much with their goals, ambitions, and learning. These same factors are exactly what created these schools in the first place. They are special kids with special needs.

Countless minority students study YEARS in advance for high school application exams and work tirelessly to perfect their grades for applications that they know are a source of incredible opportunity. Minority students just like myself worked so hard in tutoring centers with proven track records like Kweller Prep to keep grades up and do whatever we could to learn about the school application process, and this hard work cannot be erased. Can you imagine what it feels like to dream of wanting to engage in a rigorous and advanced learning environment that has built success for decades only to find that some group aims to destroy your dream schools?

Powerful anti-screening city leaders like Mayoral Candidate Maya Wiley sent her daughter to the highly screened Mark Twain Middle School in Brooklyn. She then sent her to a pricey $70,000 per-year private boarding school for high school. The choices she makes now for minorities are not at all the same ones she made for her daughter. How is that supposed to make us feel? Millionaires like Maya Wiley with no understanding of common human plights and struggles participate in feigned performative activism just so that they could look like progressive makers of change and reform.

NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza's daughter attended Lowell, a screened high school known as the "Stuyvesant" of San Francisco. She then graduated from USC. NYC Mayor De Blasio's son attended Brooklyn Tech, a specialized High School and his daughter attended Beacon. De Blasio's son then graduated from Yale an Ivy League and his daughter from Santa Clara, a private top university in California. Even when money is not a topic of conversation, people like New York City Mayor De Blasio, who actively put out and support anti-screening and anti-testing policies, have children of their own that attended specialized and screened high schools.

Why are politicians claiming they want to fight for equity too often intertwined with hypocrisy and outright selfishness? Even DOE Chancellor Josh Wallack, himself Harvard-educated with two higher degrees, sent his son to ICE, a highly screened Manhattan middle school the same year he was busy unscreening District 15 schools in Brooklyn. Why didn't he send his son to any school he unscreened?

Then there is Brad Lander, who is on a mission to unscreen middle and high schools while his daughter attends BARD with a 2.5% acceptance rate. Before that, she attended screened District 15 Brooklyn Middle schools. Would she have attended unscreened schools? She never once did, so I guess we will never know.

Richard Carranza's former Deputy, Cheryl Watson-Harris, landed both her kids' seats in screened schools in late August, bypassing any application process. Her daughter walked right into IS 87, the Christa McAuliffe School while her son cruised right into Mark Twain Middle School for the Gifted, without so much as a simple talent or interview. Every single other student had to apply, but her seats for her kids were gifted to her. What lessons are these so-called leaders teaching black students like me?

I gave up my entire summer to study for the SHSAT. I went through hundreds of hours preparing for auditions and I proudly earned at a seat at the specialized high school I now attend.
What is there to strive for when the city's success tickets for passionate and hardworking students disappear? How can groups be striving to end such a symbol of strength and motivation for minority students? There is no greater wish in my mind than to share my experience with other hardworking Black students just like me. The greatness and brilliance that these schools manage to produce, is something that I have the gift of seeing daily.

In cities across the United States like Detroit and Cleveland, the privatization of schools is creating a segregated school environment, the likes of which have not been seen since the Jim Crow days; the situation is entirely different in New York. There is a reason why the eight specialized high schools in New York City have earned their legacy, and that is because New York City's screened school environment is unique. Few other places, if any, can offer such a generous selection of advanced PUBLIC schools that are attainable to students from every trickle of society.

As someone who is about to embark on college applications, my position in a specialized high school is secure and my education will soon be complete. I write not for myself, but the future generations of black and brown New York City public school students. I write to be a voice for minorities. I write to speak for those who cannot themselves represent underfunded neighborhoods. I write to keep the integrity of these schools and their names. I write on behalf of the students of New York City.

Leo Glasgow is a 16-year-old who attends LaGuardia High School. He was born and raised in Queens, New York.