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In my video I was trying to explain what the diversity crisis in specialized high schools look like. I made two pie charts to help my fellow peers visualize the lack of diversity in these elite schools. In the pie chart that represented NYC public high schools as a whole, most of the students were Black and Hispanic. On the other hand, the pie chart that represented The Bronx High School of Science revealed that Blacks and Hispanic make up less than 10%. Furthermore, Asians and Whites dominated in Bronx Science.
I also explained Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to fix this problem. He proposed to remove the SHSAT, a test that students are required to take to get accepted into a specialized high school. Mayor de Blasio also proposed to have the Discovery program, a program that lets students who scored just below the cutoff score on the SHSAT obtain a seat in a specialized high school, target Blacks and Hispanics. Mayor de Blasio’s reasoning behind these proposals is that the SHSAT is racist and favors Whites and Asian over Blacks and Hispanics. However it’s these proposals that are racist as they clearly favor Blacks and Hispanics. This video is related to my analytical paper because both are related to the SHSAT and specialized high schools. My paper also talked about the diversity crisis and Mayor de Blasio’s proposals to fix this issue. I also included other possibilities as to why the diversity issue exists in specialized high schools.
Through both assignments I learned that regular high schools and specialized high schools in New York City are basically segregated. Blacks and Latinos are underrepresented in specialized high schools and the gap is pretty huge. In addition, I learned that more Asian families than White families are protesting against the removal of the SHSAT. This is probably due to the fact that the gap between Asian representation in regular schools and specialized schools is the biggest. Thus more Asians will be affected than Whites when the SHSAT is officially removed. This proposal is racist and offensive to Asians. In fact, the SHSAT is what gave Asian minorities, like me, a chance to get better education. When the high school application results came out, no other schools besides the specialized high schools accepted me. Despite the fact that I had a 93 GPA in both 7th and 8th grade, regular high schools couldn’t offer me a seat because of my medically excused absences. It was because of the SHSAT that I was able to receive a good quality education.