Name: NYC mayoral candidate Maya Wiley wants to end ‘discriminatory’ screens that got her own kid into a top school
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NYC mayoral candidate Maya Wiley wants to end ‘discriminatory’ screens that got her own kid into a top school

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As co-chair of the mayor’s School Diversity Advisory Group, Maya Wiley , the specialized high-school exam and all admission “screens” — calling them racially discriminatory.“There should be no discriminatory admissions policies, period,” Wiley, the mayor’s former in-house counsel and a civil-rights activist, told The Post.But as a parent, Wiley took advantage of selective programs, The Post has learned.Now running for mayor, Wiley sent her oldest daughter to Mark Twain Intermediate School for the Gifted and Talented in Brooklyn, a coveted middle school that cherry-picks high-performing students. It’s also one of the city’s most racially disproportionate — with 51 percent white kids.The teen then went to Humanities Preparatory Academy in Manhattan, a public high school with 83 percent Hispanic and black students, but one that screened incoming 9th-graders for good grades in core subjects, among other criteria.Wiley’s younger daughter spent grades 6 to 12 at Brooklyn Friends, a private school that currently charges $51,000 a year in tuition. Wiley and her husband Harlan Mandel, CEO of Media Development Investment Fund, are also donors to the school.It took weeks of requests and reminders for Wiley’s spokesman to finally disclose her personal educational choices. At a Jan. 26 candidates’ forum sponsored by the city principals’ union, Wiley described herself “as a parent who spent a total of 15 years” in the city school system, without divulging the schools she chose for her daughters.Her spokesman later said one daughter spent 10 years in NYC public schools, and the other five years.Asked about her family decisions, Wiley did not comment.Experts are not surprised. “When options are available, parents will take advantage of their privileges,” said David Bloomfield, a Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center education professor. “But those privileges are the problem, and should be eliminated.”Mayor de Blasio’s two kids attended selective Brooklyn middle schools. His son went on to Brooklyn Tech, a specialized high school, and his daughter to choosy Beacon HS in Manhattan. Yet Hizzoner has long tried to dismantle the specialized high school entry exam.Other mayoral candidates have put their own children in touted public programs or pricey private schools.“As a parent, it’s my job to figure out what’s best for my kids. But it’s the mayor’s job to look out for all kids,” Stringer told The Post. “I recognize that what the City is giving to my kids is not what it is providing to many others — particularly children of color.“As mayor, I’ll end the discriminatory status quo, where there are four times as many kids in gifted programs in District 2 in Manhattan as in District 12 in the Bronx.”Stringer says he would end “the absurd practice of testing 4-year-olds” for G &amp; T as well as the SHSAT for admission to specialized high schools, and use 7th-grade state tests instead.As a candidate, Morales opposes selective criteria and the SHSAT, saying through a spokeswoman: “Any screenings are the antithesis of increasing access and improving equality for all.”

As co-chair of the mayor’s School Diversity Advisory Group, Maya Wiley , the specialized high-school exam and all admission “screens” — calling them racially discriminatory.“There should be no discriminatory admissions policies, period,” Wiley, the mayor’s former in-house counsel and a civil-rights activist, told The Post.But as a parent, Wiley took advantage of selective programs, The Post has learned.Now running for mayor, Wiley sent her oldest daughter to Mark Twain Intermediate School for the Gifted and Talented in Brooklyn, a coveted middle school that cherry-picks high-performing...

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NYC mayoral candidate Maya Wiley wants to end ‘discriminatory’ screens that got her own kid into a top school

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