When Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a change in the way students are admitted to the city’s most elite public high schools, he was surrounded by dozens of enthusiastic students, union leaders and elected officials, amid signs proclaiming “All Kids Deserve a Chance.”
Noticeably absent were representatives from one group that would be heavily affected by the change: Asian-Americans, whose children dominate those schools.
“This cliché of, ‘If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu’ really felt like it rang true,” said Congresswoman Grace Meng, a Queens Democrat and graduate of one of the schools, Stuyvesant High School, who was not invited to the event last month. “I don’t think with any other community if there was such a large impact or sweeping change, they would not have been consulted or brought into the discussions.”…