A ‘big deal’ or not enough? What to know about the diversity recommendations de Blasio just embraced

A ‘big deal’ or not enough? What to know about the diversity recommendations de Blasio just embraced: Chalkbeat

Despite the soaring rhetoric, the suggestions the city has pledged to adopt don’t come with precise integration goals, changes to any enrollment policies, or a timeline for seeing results.

Mayor Bill de Blasio endorsed a series of recommendations offered by the city’s School Diversity Advisory Group, an announcement that top city officials — and even some integration advocates — heralded as a triumph.

“Today’s a big deal,” Chancellor Richard Carranza said, noting the city had accepted virtually all of the advisory group’s 67 recommendations. It “represents the systemic change that we’ve been yearning for,” said Mark Treyger, chairman of City Council’s education committee.

But despite the soaring rhetoric, the suggestions the city has pledged to adopt don’t come with precise integration goals, changes to any enrollment policies, or a timeline for seeing results.

The initial recommendations made by the advisory group, released in February, did not address some of the most explosive issues — including gifted and talented programs or academic screening — that advocates say are essential in addressing segregation. The education department’s latest announcement sidesteps those issues, too.

Instead, the city has pledged to push schools to be more representative of their surrounding districts and boroughs — with the goal for schools to eventually match citywide demographics. That is a more aggressive target than the city’s previous diversity goals, which experts said were extraordinarily modest. Officials also announced Monday that five additional districts would receive $200,000 each in grant funding to begin the process of crafting hyper-local integration plans.

Some school integration advocates who were part of the diversity advisory group said those efforts represent an important milestone.

“This is more policy that’s been implemented than anywhere in the country I’ve seen voluntarily,” said Matt Gonzales, who supports school integration work through the nonprofit New York Appleseed. “This is a critical step.”