For years, the low representation of Black and Hispanic students in New York City’s most selective public high schools has ignited debate over race and segregation in the largest school system in the United States — and this summer appears likely to be no different.
On Thursday, the Department of Education announced that Black students received 3 percent of acceptance letters to the eight elite schools, known as specialized high schools, while Hispanic students were offered just under 7 percent of all spots. Both figures were a slight decline from last year.
At Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, the most selective of the specialized schools, eight of the 781 offers this spring went to Black students while 27 went to Hispanic pupils. Asian students were offered 509 spots, and white students were offered 142. (Another 95 seats went to teenagers who identify as multiracial or whose background was unknown.)
The specialized schools educate about 5 percent of the city’s high school students. But they have long been viewed as a ladder into the nation’s top universities for students from immigrant households and low-income families.
During the last four decades, Black and Hispanic enrollment at these schools has plummeted as Asian representation has soared. The numbers stand out in a public school system in which 42 percent of students are Hispanic, 20 percent are Black, 19 percent are Asian and 16 percent are white. (Three percent of students are multiracial or Native American.)
School integration has waned as a political issue in New York in the last five years. Still, the issue — including candidates’ stances on the specialized high schools — could emerge as a sticking point for some voters in this fall’s crowded general election for mayor.
Most years, the admissions numbers are shared with the public by mid-June, when classes are still in session.
But Mayor Eric Adams’s administration significantly delayed this year’s release. The announcement from the school system did not include a comment from city officials on the figures, nor did it address the timing of their disclosure.
Nathaniel Styer, a former spokesman for the city’s Education Department during the Adams administration, wrote on social media in early July, “They should’ve had this data out at least a month ago.”
Students are admitted to the schools based on a single entrance exam that tests their mastery of English and math, and pupils sometimes spend months or even years preparing for the test.
Just over 4,000 students received acceptance letters for the fall semester after nearly 26,000 eighth-graders took the exam last fall. Black and Latino students made up more than 44 percent of all test-takers.
Another highly competitive specialized school, the Bronx High School of Science, made 21 offers to Black pupils and 55 to Hispanic students, in a freshman class of 738, down from a combined 97 offers last year.
Some of the schools admit less homogenous freshman classes: Roughly 18 percent of seats at Brooklyn Latin in Williamsburg went to Black and Hispanic students.
Starting next fall, students will take a digital version of the entrance exam for the first time. Some test preparation organizations have expressed concern that the shift could worsen inequality and place students who are less proficient with technology at a disadvantage.
During Bill de Blasio’s second term as mayor, public school families in New York were embroiled in a pitched debate over the eight schools and whether their admissions system perpetuated segregation.
Mr. de Blasio outraged many parents by proposing to replace the entrance test with a system in which students’ acceptance would be determined in part by their middle school class rank. Black and Latino students would have made up more than 40 percent of enrollment, but Asian students would have lost about half their seats. The plan failed.
Over the last seven months, the Trump administration has cracked down on integration efforts in public schools, investigating admissions practices at institutions that have been accused of discriminating against Asian American students to favor other racial groups.
Zohran Mamdani, the winner of the Democratic primary for mayor and an alumnus of the Bronx High School of Science, said in a 2022 questionnaire that his own education helped him understand “just how segregated” the city’s public schools were. He said he backed integration measures such as abolishing the entrance exam for specialized high schools.
But during his mayoral campaign, Mr. Mamdani — and most other candidates — rarely spoke about the test. He has moved away from his call to eliminate the admissions test and has said he would support an independent analysis to determine if the exam is biased.
Other candidates have dramatically shifted their stances. During the de Blasio administration, Eric Adams, who had long opposed the entrance exam, likened the specialized schools to “a Jim Crow school system.”
Since becoming mayor, Mr. Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent, has not sought changes to the admissions system, or pursued integration efforts more broadly.
His schools chancellor, Melissa Aviles-Ramos, said at a recent City Council hearing that while integration has often been “portrayed in the media in Black and white terms,” the “one-dimensional portrayal simply doesn’t reflect the demographics of our city in 2025.”
Like the specialized high schools, classes for the city’s elementary gifted and talented students have attracted scrutiny for their low enrollment of Hispanic and Black children, though many parents argue the programs are crucial opportunities for high-achieving pupils to receive accelerated coursework.
Mr. Adams added a small number of new seats in classrooms for gifted and talented students. The city also replaced a single high-stakes admissions test — which children took at age 4 — with a system in which prekindergarten teachers nominate students to enter a lottery.
Since the change, the percentage of Hispanic students enrolled in kindergarten gifted classes doubled, to 16 percent, in 2023 from 8 percent in 2020, according to Trevonda Kelly, the system’s chief enrollment officer. The number of Black students rose to 14 percent, from 4 percent, during the same period.
Ms. Kelly acknowledged that the Education Department was grappling with “feedback from educators and families who are not in love with the lottery” — which could pose a challenge for the winner of the November election.
Troy Closson is a Times education reporter focusing on K-12 schools.
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