In an attempt to appeal an earlier district court preliminary injunction decision plaintiff lawyers argue that the Discovery Program is somehow racist.

It should be noted that…

• …that the Discovery program was started in the 1960s and predates the SHSAT exam and Hecht-Calandra itself.
• also, the Discovery program was reserved roughly 15% of offers in 1971.
• and that it was the express legislative intent of Hecht-Calandra to give the mayor unlimited control over the level of offers in the discovery program.
• and past mayors have increased and decreased discovery when they felt like.

Here is the MP3 Audio: Christa McAuliffe Intermediate School et al
v. Bill de Blasio, Richard A Carranza

Below is the unofficial transcript. Circuit 2, Docket 19-550

19-550-cv_Christa_McAuliffe_Intermediate_School_et_al_v_Bill_de_Blasio_Richard_A_Carranza

BRIEF FOR AMICI CURIAE NYC LAB MIDDLE SCHOOL PARENTS’ ASSOCIATION; THE PTA OF PS/IS 119, THE GLENDALE; EAST SIDE MIDDLE SCHOOL PARENTS TEACHERS ASSOCIATION; PS 130M PARENTS ASSOCIATION and MNS/PTA, INC. IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS – Dennis Saffron

brief_for_amici_curiae_nyc_lab_middle_school_PSIS_119_Glendale_east_side

Mandate

Panel affirms lower court ruling.

mandate01

PTAs:

NYC LAB MIDDLE SCHOOL PARENTS’ ASSOCIATION
https://www.labmiddleschool.com/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=185511&type=d&pREC_ID=371966
Screened D2 school

THE PTA OF PS/IS 119, THE GLENDALE
https://www.facebook.com/PSIS119PTA

EAST SIDE MIDDLE SCHOOL PARENTS TEACHERS ASSOCIATION
https://www.esms.org/

PS 130M PARENTS ASSOCIATION
http://ps130pa.blogspot.com/

Discussion

This point of fact is very misleading.

But in recent years before this current expansion, it was quite small and schools with high cutoff such as Stuyvesant and Bronx Science did not participate at all. As a means to accomplish these racial goals, the mayor and the chancellor required each specialized school to set aside 20% of their seats in each incoming class for Discovery students

Plaintiff Keiser

This is very misleading, but not technically inaccurate. Stuyvesant did set aside as high as 15% of its offers for discovery program students in 1970.

This means, 15% of Stuyvesant offers went to students who just missed Stuyvesant’s own student score cutoff. This is exactly what the discovery program was designed to do. And also, these Discovery offer numbers were set for some unknown span of time in New York City’s history. The Department of Education alone knows exactly how long though.

But we do know that Past Mayor Bloomberg ( and maybe others before him ) reduced these Discovery Program offer numbers. In the case of Stuyvesant, to ZERO. Personally, I believe mayor Bloomberg and his Chancellor did not want underrepresented minorities at these schools.

The discovery program has always been under the direct stewardship of the mayor. In fact, that was a sticking point during Hecht-Calandra’s negotiations. Assemblymember Hecht hinted at their legislative intent when he mentioned to the governor that the law would not pass until legislatures felt that the mayor had 100% control of the Discovery program.

I doubt the legislature would imagine that the 50 years later the mayor of New York City would be defending the city from a lawsuit for doing just that. Returning discovery program levels to historic levels.