Comrie wants more opportunity — Carranza’s just finding jobs for cronies
Kudos to state Sen. Leroy Comrie for coming up with a serious plan to get more black and Hispanic kids into the city’s best high schools: by adding opportunity, not undermining excellence.
This is yet another blow to flailing Chancellor Richard Carranza, who’s been pushing the Legislature to do just the opposite.
Everyone agrees: Something’s wrong when so few black and Hispanic kids score high enough on the race-blind exam for entrance to Stuyvesant HS, Bronx Science and the city’s other selective high schools.
But the answer pushed by Carranza and Mayor Bill de Blasio, getting rid of the Specialized High School Admissions Test, amounts to destroying the elites in the name of racial justice — everybody loses.
By contrast, Comrie would create more winners. The Queens Democrat’s bill would:
- Create 10 new specialized high schools.
- Establish a commission to evaluate the city’s middle schools (which now fail to prepare black and Hispanic kids for the test) and recommend improvements.
- Invest in free SHSAT prep for every city sixth and seventh grader, while setting up an outreach program to boost black and Hispanic participation in that test-prep.
- Require every eighth grader to take the SHSAT, unless the parents opt out.
- Mandate a real Gifted Talented program in every city school district.
Even with Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn) sponsoring the bill in the Assembly, it will be tough to get this passed before the end of session, but it’s sure worth a try.
Not that anything is stopping de Blasio and Carranza from doing most of it on their own. But the mayor, ever since his rushed hire of Carranza, has been backing his chancellor’s divisive approach.
As Susan Edelman reported in Sunday’s Post, reform City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) and several other city politicians have fired off a letter warning: “If Chancellor Carranza continues to divide this city, then someone who can unite this city and provide a quality education for all should replace him.”
The letter also flags Carranza’s cronyism, an issue that’s grown even more serious in the days since Holden wrote it — because new Susan Edelman scoops have exposed even more outrageous hires:
- Abram Jimenez earns $205,416 as “senior executive director for continuous school improvement” to oversee a staff of 40. Eight years ago, he had to quit a California assistant principal job after he and the principal were slammed for mismanaging student funds — taking cash from the kids clubs to spend on gifts for employees, luncheons and other expenses.
- Mario Trujillo gets $142,000 to “provide customer-service expertise and training.” His last job: communications manager for Disney Cruise Line and Adventures by Disney. Indeed, he’s worked for Walt Disney World since 2008. That raises eyebrows even with progressive experts, like veteran teacher Peter Goodman, who notes, “The DOE is not in the entertainment business.”
It was just Saturday that we asked if all Carranza’s loud ideologizing is just a mask as he milks the system to help his friends.
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One thing’s clear: Carranza cares a lot less about delivering for New York’s neediest kids than Leroy Comrie and the lawmakers who’ll support his bill.