Next City: Students Say NYC’s Public School Admissions Process is Flawed. Here’s What They’d Do Instead
Leanne Nunes joined the fight to integrate New York City’s schools — among the country’s most segregated districts — as a 14-year-old student. Throughout high school she worked with other New York City students to address why public schooling is so unequal, particularly calling attention to an admissions process that resulted in the city’s best-performing public schools enrolling dwindling numbers of Black and Hispanic students.
Now she’s preparing to go to college as that admissions process — developed over the last 20 years in New York City — has more or less collapsed. After COVID-19 hit, the metrics that long dictated school admissions, including attendance, grades, test scores and sometimes interviews, promptly disappeared as schools shuttered.