arrow Dianne Morales greets a new volunteer at Jackson Heights Greenmarket on Sunday Cindy Rodriguez / Gothamist
Dianne Morales had a cold. Not COVID, she’s fully vaccinated, but when she arrived at the Jackson Heights Greenmarket on Sunday, acutely aware that this was a pivotal moment in the mayor’s race and for her candidacy, she was battling congestion and a slight sore throat. So she did what we’ve all learned to do: she wore two masks and proceeded with caution.
Dressed in a white shirt, linen blazer, and black pants, she elbow-bumped and chatted with prospective voters and volunteers, posing for pictures and listening to the issues that mattered to them. Her stump speech, which she delivers at campaign events like this one, is as much about making a case for her own candidacy as it is about broader involvement.
Only 8 Black students admitted into elite NYC public high school
Mayor de Blasio has called for state legislation to replace the admissions exam. Bill de Blasio’s new education boss, Chancellor
Meisha Ross Porter, is speaking out following reports that only a tiny percentage of Black and Latino students had been admitted into the city’s elite high schools.
Per Department of Education data, Black and Latino kids made up only 9 percent of the total admission offers to elite schools like Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science, down 11 percent from last year, per
New York Times. Out of the 749 available freshman seats at Stuyvesant, only eight Black students received offers. Only one Black student was accepted into Staten Island Technical High School, out of 281 spots, according to the report. Over half of the 4,262 offers for the 2021 school year went to Asian students.
Eight Dead After Man in Truck Mows Them Down in NYC Screaming Allahu Akbar
A man driving a Home Depot rental van mowed down pedestrians on a bike path in Tribeca, New York City near the Freedom Tower. It appears that the truck deliberately went on to a bike path, perhaps twice. It might have gone on to the path in the 40’s, left and got back on to mow people down in the downtown area near Stuyvesant High School.
After crashing into some cars, the truck came to a halt and that’s when the driver got out screaming Allahu Akbar over and over, according to some reports, while waving harmless weapons, Fox News reported. Witnesses say it was deliberate.
Like so much else in New York City during the past eight years of the de Blasio administration, we have actually taken two steps backward when it comes to curing the dearth of minority students in specialized high schools like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech.
In a school system whose total enrollment is 41% Latino, 26% Black, 16% Asian and 15% white, the specialized high schools have grown disproportionately Asian and white over the past years.