Schools Chancellor David Banks announced a big win for families last month: Nine new schools in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx will open next fall.
These new schools offer the promise of what every NYC public-school parent dreams of: high-quality curricula, dynamic instruction, enrichment, college readiness and accessibility to families in their own communities.
As a parent of a rising sixth-grader with the grueling high-school application process ahead, I was thrilled about these new opportunities . . . until I read the implied fine print: Manhattan students need not apply.
Like countless other high schools, these will be out of reach because of an admissions policy that penalizes Manhattan students.
Why is receiving an admissions offer to a school that meets your child’s needs harder than scoring Taylor Swift tickets?
Here’s the problem: Students who live outside Manhattan have priority at high schools in their boroughs. They can apply to highly regarded schools, such as Francis Lewis HS, Forest Hills HS and Millennium HS Brooklyn and be given preference over kids from Manhattan.
But they also have the same chance of admission as Manhattanites at Manhattan high schools.
That’s because the reverse isn’t true for Manhattan families: Those kids are not given priority at most Manhattan schools over applicants from outside the borough.
It’s patently unfair. And the result is Manhattan kids have been increasingly squeezed out of appropriate high schools close to home, displaced by kids from other boroughs.
In 2021 and 2022, for example, a staggering 18% of middle-schoolers in my district, Manhattan District 2, got shut out of all 12 of their choices.
In 2023, the rate for D2 improved marginally to 13% but was still more than double the citywide rate of 6%.
And just wait until the class size law fully kicks in: It’ll slash thousands more seats at popular high schools, so even more kids will fail to get into any of their favorite schools.
How’d this happen? The decision to strip in-borough priority for families in Manhattan only came without warning during the pandemic, when former Chancellor Richard Carranza famously quipped: “Never waste a good crisis.”
Instead of working to improve struggling schools or create good, new ones, Carranza operated with a scarcity mindset: The number of thriving schools in New York would forever be limited.
Plus, he sought to make race and economic class his top priority, wrongly presuming all of Manhattan’s kids were “privileged.”
Carranza played musical chairs with admission priorities, toying with children like chess pieces and redistributing them around the city to a few high-demand high schools.
In reality, Manhattan has the second-highest number of NYCHA residents, beaten out (barely) by Brooklyn.
Many Manhattanites are first-generation immigrants with kids who are English language learners.
Others rely on subsidized daycare and school meals; 69% of Manhattan eighth-graders qualify for free/reduced lunch.
Carranza’s plan didn’t even work: Data shows that since the new rule, racial and socioeconomic diversity at the schools have barely changed.
Meanwhile, more Manhattan teens are forced to commute long, burdensome distances to receive an appropriate education.
Fortunately, Carranza is gone, but his misguided policy still lingers.
Restoring borough priority to Manhattan kids could cut commuting hours (and help relieve traffic congestion) without worsening diversity.
New York City, a center of innovation, need not adhere to a scarcity model; there can and should be enough good schools for all the kids, no matter where they live.
Banks seems to understand that. By enlarging the pool of excellent schools and revamping curricula, he’s poised to achieve true educational gains for students in all five boroughs.
Manhattan families are not asking for “special privileges”; we’re simply asking for the same admissions priorities that all other boroughs enjoy.
Students from the Lower East Side through East Harlem and into Washington Heights deserve schools that meet their needs, in their own borough.
Let’s end zero-sum policies that don’t add value to student outcomes.
No student should be forced to commute hours to a school that doesn’t even adequately match their learning needs.
Parents are optimistic that Banks may finally end the admissions musical chairs. Let’s give every child a seat at a local school that meets his or her needs, including those in Manhattan.
Lisa Marks is a NYC public-school alum, parent of three public-school students in Manhattan’s District 2 and a former teacher in the South Bronx.