Green Party Candidates Call to Desegregate NY Schools - Oppose De Blasio’s Plan

Scrap Standardized Tests and Screening - Make All Schools Diverse with Gifted-Quality Curriculum for All

Howie Hawkins and Jia Lee, the Green Party’s gubernatorial ticket, will hold a news conference in front of the NYC Board of Education on Friday, July 20th at 1:oo PM to call to desegregate all New York Schools.

Earlier this week Hawkins called for statewide action to resolve the problem of high levels of child lead poisoning, which has been a major problem in New York City.

Lee, a NYC public school teacher and recent candidate for UFT president, will call to end the racial, class, and academic segregation in public schools. The Green Party candidates advocate the scrapping of standardized tests to screen students into selective schools, as such tests serve to reproduce segregation.

The Greens note that De Blasio’s proposal to change the admissions criteria to the eight most selective high schools from a single standardized test to the enrolling the top 7% from every middle school won’t end race, class, or academic segregation because it starts in kindergarten. The Greens’ better solution is to improve the quality of in all schools, including access to enriched programs. 39% of NYC high schools have no college-prep math and science curriculum.

Jia Lee noted that “We are asking the wrong questions. It is not a question of making competition for a limited number of seats for a quality education more fair. The question is: Why is a quality education a limited resource? Standardized tests were designed in the first place in New York City to keep the upper-class white students segregated from the other classes and ethnic groups. It is still used today to segregate and divide us from each other."

Hawkins added, “Why are we segregating little children and tracking those from disadvantaged backgrounds away from a good education? Why is there no second chance for late bloomers? What about the kid who is homeless like 10% of NYC schoolchildren are on any given day? The whole system of screening and segregating needs to be scrapped. Every child should have access to a gifted-quality education.”