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WEEK OF JUNE MANIFESTATIONS OF POWER ◄ P.12
14-20 2018
ASIAN-AMERICANS ASSAIL SCHOOLS DIVERSITY PLAN EDUCATION Mayor has proposed elimination of test criteria for admission to specialized high schools BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
The 2019 city budget deal agreed to last week by Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council includes additional expense funding for the New York Public Library that officials say will help the system avoid making cuts to operating hours. Photo: Steven Strasser
PUBLIC LIBRARIES WIN CASE FOR BUDGET BOOST FUNDING New spending deal gives NYPL increase to maintain service amid rising costs
BY THE NUMBERS New York Public Library has:
BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
New York City’s public library systems received increased funding in the city budget for the coming fiscal year following a public campaign waged by library officials, who said the additional money is necessary to maintain current operating hours and programming, which have been threatened in recent years by rising costs. The budget hike requested by the city’s three public library systems
neighborhood branches research libraries in Manhattan annual visitors
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library cardholders
circulating items in the system’s collections
Asian-Americans have voiced robust objections to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to increase diversity in New York City’s specialized high schools, claiming the proposal to overhaul admissions at the elite institutions would unfairly and inordinately impact Asian-Americans. The mayor’s plan, unveiled last week, would modify admissions standards at eight of the city’s nine specialized high schools (including Stuyvesant High School and the High School for Math, Science and Engineering in Manhattan), where offers are currently determined solely by applicants’ scores on a three-hour exam. The mayor’s proposal calls for the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, to be eliminated, a step that would require state authorization. Under de Blasio’s plan, which has won the support of a number of elected officials and education groups, the test would be replaced with a new composite admission score based on students’ classroom grades and performance on state standardized exams. The top 7 percent of students at each middle school in the city would receive offers from specialized high schools. The plan is aimed at remedying persistent racial segregation in the specialized high schools, which are among the most selective and prestigious public schools in the nation. Black and Latino students make up
Opponents of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to overhaul admissions to specialized high schools held a rally at City Hall June 10. Photo: State Senator Marty Golden, via Facebook
I really disagree with the mayor on this. He could have started the conversation with the elected officials and the community and come up with a plan together to present to Albany.” Council Member Margaret Chin just 10 percent of the student body at specialized high schools despite comprising 70 percent of the population in the public school system as a whole. White and Asian students, by contrast, are overrepresented. The administration projects that the plan would drastically increase the number of black and Latino students admitted to specialized high schools Downtowner
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WEEK OF APRIL
SPRING ARTS PREVIEW < CITYARTS, P.12
FOR HIM, SETTLING SMALL CLAIMS IS A BIG DEAL presided over Arbitration Man has three decades. for informal hearings about it He’s now blogging BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereflect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice
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MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20
2015
In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS
The effort to help small seems to businesses in the city be gathering steam. Two city councilmembers, Robert Margaret Chin and Cornegy, have introduced create legislation that wouldSmall a new “Office of the within Business Advocate” of Small the city’s Department Business Services. Chin The new post, which have up told us she’d like to would and running this year, for serve as an ombudsman city small businesses within them clear government, helping to get through the bureaucracy things done. Perhaps even more also importantly, the ombudsman and number will tally the type small business of complaints by taken in owners, the actions policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s give us the first quantitative with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step fixing the problem. of for deTo really make a difference, is a mere formality will have to the work process looking to complete their advocate are the chances course, velopers precinct, but rising rents, -- thanks to a find a way to tackle business’ is being done legally of after-hours projects quickly. their own hours,” which remain many While Chin “They pick out boom in the number throughout who lives on most vexing problem. said Mildred Angelo,of the Ruppert construction permits gauge what Buildings one said it’s too early tocould have the 19th floor in The Department of the city. number three years, the Houses on 92nd Street between role the advocate She Over the past on the is handing out a record work perThird avenues. permits, there, more information of Second and an ongoing all-hours number of after-hours bad thing. of after-hours work the city’s Dept. problem can’t be a said there’s with the mits granted by nearby where according to new data jumped 30 percent, This step, combinedBorough construction project noise Buildings has data provided in workers constantly make efforts by Manhattan to mediate BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS according to DOB of Informacement from trucks. President Gale Brewer offer response to a Freedom classifies transferring they want. They knows the the rent renewal process, request. The city They 6 “They do whatever signs Every New Yorker clang, tion Act go as they please. work between some early, tangible small any construction on the weekend, can come and sound: the metal-on-metal or the piercing of progress. For many have no respect.” p.m. and 7 a.m., can’t come of these that the hollow boom, issuance reverse. owners, in business moving The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you as after-hours. soon enough. variances has led at the alarm clock The surge in permits
SLEEPS, THANKS TO THE CITY THAT NEVER UCTION A BOOM IN LATE-NIGHT CONSTR NEWS
A glance it: it’s the middle can hardly believe yet construction of the night, and carries on full-tilt. your local police or You can call 311
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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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— raising the proportion of admission offers to those groups from 9 percent to 45 percent. But any substantial change in student demographics at the specialized high schools would disproportionately impact AsianAmericans, who currently receive more than half of all offers.
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