By Susan Edelman April 13, 2019 | 10:09pm
Mona Davids, president of the NYC Parents Union, agreed.
“Because de Blasio and Carranza have such racist low expectations for black and Hispanic students, they feel they have to lower the standards for our children. They are the racists,” said Davids, who is black.
Carranza is “attempting to use the race card to cover up the failures of New York City’s K-12 school system,” she said. “We have hundreds of thousands of high school students who are not reading, writing and doing math at grade level, and that is criminal.”
NYC schools Chancellor Richard Carranza is stifling the debate on student diversity by tarring parents as racist when they protest his controversial proposals, white and black parents told The Post.
“It has a chilling effect on parents speaking out. Some are afraid of being branded ‘racist’ or ‘privileged,’ which they feel is the narrative coming from way up high,” said Leonard Silverman, a lawyer, PTA president and father of three kids in Manhattan public schools.
Since Mayor de Blasio brought him on a year ago, Carranza, in tweets, community forums and interviews, including with The Post, implies that opponents of his push to abolish the SHSAT exam for specialized schools and other admission criteria are blind to their own bias.
Supporters praise Carranza’s candor as courageous, but some parents who question his stances find him intimidating.
Irking Carranza at a Brooklyn public meeting last month, Artemis Lekakis, a member of the Community Education Council in District 20, a parent advisory board, asked whether city officials knew what scrapping the SHSAT “would do to the reputation of those schools once the quality of the student body is changed somehow.”
“As a man of color,” Carranza shot back. “I’m going to call you on your language. The coded language that we use, where we’re ‘diluting’ these schools because we’re giving more opportunity to a wider array of students, is highly offensive.”
A white dad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was outraged that Carranza had suggested Lekakis, an assistant US attorney, was biased against black and Hispanic kids.
“If they say you’re a racist, you have to come back and say, ‘No, I have a right to demand high standards,’” he said. “Both white and black parents need to have the cajones to say, ‘You’re dumbing down our schools.’”
Mona Davids, president of the NYC Parents Union, agreed.
“Because de Blasio and Carranza have such racist low expectations for black and Hispanic students, they feel they have to lower the standards for our children. They are the racists,” said Davids, who is black.
Carranza is “attempting to use the race card to cover up the failures of New York City’s K-12 school system,” she said. “We have hundreds of thousands of high school students who are not reading, writing and doing math at grade level, and that is criminal.”
A black mom of bi-racial kids in Brooklyn’s District 15, which this year eliminated academic entry criteria in its middle schools, said she and other parents — including those who had hailed the diversity plan — are enrolling their kids in charter and private schools “that don’t have to be bullied by Carranza.”
“I am showing my white privilege. Isn’t that ironic?” she joked.
A white Brooklyn mom with immigrant, blue-collar roots is pulling her fifth-grade daughter out of the DOE to attend a Catholic school.
“I am tired of Carranza telling me I have to apologize for white privilege and that my kid doesn’t deserve to go to the best school because of the color of her skin.”
“If you’re white, you’re bad — that’s how they make me feel sometimes,” her 11-year-old daughter told The Post. “I just want everyone to be treated equally.”
Matt Gonzales, a member of the city’s School Diversity Advisory Group and a director of New York Appleseed, which advocates for integrated schools, said such parents prove Carranza’s point about deeply-rooted attitudes of “racism and white supremacy.”
“When you’ve experienced invisible privilege, equity can feel like oppression,” he said.
DOE spokesman Will Mantell said, “The chancellor calls it like he sees it, and New Yorkers appreciate that. He knows you can’t fix the inequities in our school system without talking about them, why they exist, and how to break them down. Silence isn’t an option.”