Posted on May 24, 2018

Schools Chief Carranza Blasts Admission Screening as Tool of Segregation

Jillian Jorgensen and Ben Chapman, New York Daily News, May 23, 2018

New schools Chancellor Richard Carranza on Wednesday ripped the city’s practice of screening students for admission to public schools.

Speaking to the crowd at an event to trumpet admissions to city 3-K programs, with Mayor de Blasio also in attendance, Carranza surprised onlookers by criticizing the use of admission screens.

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“Why are we screening kids? Why are we screening for admission? And that’s a question that I’ve posed to my colleagues out in the field as well,” said Carranza.

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Carranza, 51, the son of Mexican immigrants, is a veteran educator who took the city’s top schools job after de Blasio’s first choice rejected the role.

He came with some baggage, including a $75,000 sex discrimination suit his former employers at the San Francisco Unified School District settled.

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Last month, he took to Twitter to share a RawStory recap of a raucous Upper West Side school meeting at which white parents spoke out against controversial plans to integrate some of the neighborhood’s middle schools.

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Nearly one-third of city schools use admissions screens and they are widely believed to be a contributing factor in classroom segregation.

CUNY and Brooklyn College Education Professor David Bloomfield said removing admissions screens would likely lead to more diverse schools.

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