# data[].attributes.body
Does socio-economic class effect the schools' culture?

# data[].attributes.body
How does that affect your ablility to get in?

# data[].attributes.body
How many mid-high-income african american students got in?

# data[].attributes.body
How does coming from a low-income home affect your ablitity to get in?

# data[].attributes.body
Similar problems in elite schools in San Fransco and Boston

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Next fall, the freshman class at New York City's top public high school will include seven black students out of 895. NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with New York Times reporter Eliza Shapiro about the disparity.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Let's talk some numbers. Let's start with the number seven. That is the number of black students admitted to next year's freshman class at New York's elite public high school, Stuyvesant. How about 895? That is the size of the entire freshman class of that elite, specialized high school. Ten percent of the students admitted to New York City's elite public schools this year are black or Hispanic, even though black and Hispanic students make up nearly 70 percent of the city's public school system. Joining us now to talk about all these disparities is Eliza Shapiro. She covers New York City schools for The New York Times. Welcome.

ELIZA SHAPIRO: Thanks for having me.

CHANG: Can you explain how you even get into one of these top-tier public high schools in New York City?

SHAPIRO: Absolutely. So this test - there's a single, one-day high-stakes admissions test that you take sort of like the SAT on a Saturday morning. And if you score high enough on the test, you get a seat at one of the eight specialized high schools. Stuyvesant is the most selective and the most competitive of those eight.

CHANG: So what have been the explanations for why these stark racial disparities exist at these eight elite schools?

SHAPIRO: Yeah, so I think there's two things. The biggest issue here is test prep. We've seen the same debate with the SAT and ACT, certainly, in light of the college admissions scandal. There is a huge test prep industry in New York that prepares kids who are aware of the test to master it. So test prep is one. The other, which is related, is awareness. Some kids know about these schools from the minute they're in kindergarten. Some kids learn about the existence of the specialized high school system and the test to get into them a few months before they can sit to take the test.

CHANG: So people have been talking about reforming the admissions process for years. And now Mayor Bill de Blasio has this proposal on the table. Can you talk about what it is and what's been the pushback?

SHAPIRO: Right. I mean, this is easily one of the most divisive, most controversial issues in New York City right now. Mayor Bill de Blasio not only wants to get rid of this high-stakes test but replace it with a system that's modeled on a University of Texas-type system where you take the top performers in each city middle school and automatically offer them a seat at a specialized high school. There has been enormous pushback both from alumni of the schools who are concerned that getting rid of the test would water down the schools' sort of famed academic rigor.

And there has been a lot of concern from Asian-American families and community groups that say Asian-American students would lose access to about half of the seats that they currently hold in the specialized high schools. So many of these families feel the proposal will be discriminatory against Asians and potentially pits Asian-American families against black and Latino families in a city that is mostly minority.

CHANG: Are there other big-city school districts that do better at this?

SHAPIRO: It has been a big challenge for cities across the country. Boston right now is having a renewed debate about some of its most elite public schools. San Francisco has an elite public high school known as Lowell. That system is based on grades and test scores but still paltry numbers of black and Hispanic students. So New York is not alone in struggling with how to get more black and Hispanic kids into its most elite public schools.

CHANG: We've been hearing so much about disparities in access to top-tier education. I mean, you know, last week, the college admissions scandal dominated headlines. There's been this ongoing litigation over Harvard's treatment of Asian-American applicants. How would you say this story about New York City public high schools fits into this larger conversation we've been having?

SHAPIRO: I would say it helps raise the stakes of this debate. What we're really asking is who deserves admission into the best public schools in this country and the best, quote-unquote, "private universities?" And it just seems like that debate, which has always, of course, been a facet of American life, but it seems like that debate is accelerating. And the outrage on both sides about the Stuyvesant numbers and the specialized high schools is only going to expand that debate towards elite public schools beyond just institutions of higher education.

CHANG: That's Eliza Shapiro. She covers New York City schools for The New York Times. Thanks very much.

SHAPIRO: Thank you.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Freshman Class For NYC's Top Public High School Includes 7 Black Students Out Of 895

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Next fall, the freshman class at New York City's top public high school will include seven black students out of 895. NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with New York Times reporter Eliza Shapiro about the disparity. AILSA CHANG, HOST: Let's talk some numbers. Let's start with the number seven.

# data[].attributes.body
How does the amount of african american students in these courses affect other african american students decision to take the course?

# data[].attributes.body
What other factors go into the admissions process? Besides the test how do they decide who gets in and who doesn't?

# data[].attributes.body
How many of the students how took advantage of the help scored well enough to get in?

# data[].attributes.body
Are kids pushed/encouraged to take these classes early on?

# data[].attributes.body
What prevents African American students from taking these courses, as in external factors, such as income and home life? If there aren't external factors, what factors within the school prevent them?

# data[].attributes.body
How does this affect the comfort of african american students in applying to these schools, if at all?

# data[].attributes.body
What's the likelyness that an african american student will have an african american teacher?

# data[].attributes.body
Student to teacher ratio: 22:1

# data[].attributes.body
How many teachers are african american?

# data[].attributes.body
6.6% in gifted and AP classes are african american students.

# data[].attributes.body
Does this make students less likely to seek help?

# data[].attributes.body
72% gap in proficiency level

# data[].attributes.body
1:13 teacher to student ratio

# data[].attributes.body
What is the likeliness of an african america student having an african american teacher?

# data[].attributes.body
Does having limited role models of their same race affect comfort level in school?

# data[].attributes.body
5% of teachers are african american.
20% of students are african american.

# data[].attributes.body
If African American students are't applying, why aren't they?

# data[].attributes.body
How many of the original applicants where african american?

# data[].attributes.body
27,521 applicants took the exam. 4,798 scored high enough.
2,450 asian americans (51.3
1,368 white (28.5)
316 hispanic (6.6)
190 african american (4)

# data[].attributes.body
How many students who are african african kids applied and took the test?

# data[].attributes.body
Is the standarised test biased?

# data[].attributes.body
How many low-income african american students got in?

# data[].attributes.body
How many kids are comfortable applying?

# data[].attributes.body
Were the students comfortable with the test?

# data[].attributes.body
How many students took advantage of the help?

# data[].attributes.body
Are Asheville City Schools an unwelcoming and racist community? Are the things that are happening in the NYC magnet schools happening in Asheville?

# data[].attributes.body
Expanding gifted/talented classes in low-income neighborhoods could help close the gap, by providing opportinues for african americans.

# data[].attributes.body
Racism within the student population, claimed by current and former students.

# data[].attributes.body
How does Discovery camp differ from test prep and why should it work better?

# data[].attributes.body
Access to free test prep and test during the day has no effect on admissions numbers.

# data[].attributes.body
If the school is self-segregated, how does that affect the minority students?

# data[].attributes.body
Unattractive because of lack of diversity?

# data[].attributes.body
Instable housing leads to many mental and physical health problems, especially for children.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Emily Peiffer
Eviction is more than a forced move. It's a destabilizing event that can send a family into a cycle of financial and emotional turmoil, affecting their current and future prospects for residential stability.

Attention around evictions has grown largely because of the work of Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City and founder of the Eviction Lab, a team that created the first national dataset of court eviction filings and judgments dating back to 2000. In the community data they could access, Desmond's team found nearly 900,000 eviction judgments in 2016. Households headed by black women were most commonly affected by evictions.

The database has illuminated a hidden crisis plaguing many US communities, from small rural towns to large urban areas. And it has sparked a discourse among local leaders searching for ways to tailor proactive solutions to their communities and bring their eviction rates down.
Where evictions fit into the greater housing affordability problem
Evictions are a more visible part of a broader residential instability and affordability problem. The inventory of low-cost rental housing continues to shrink, and wait times for rent subsidies sometimes last decades. Only one in five low-income renter households who needs federal rental assistance receives it.

Affordability problems are affecting the broader rental market. More than a quarter of renters, or 11.1 million renter households, are severely cost burdened, meaning they spend more than half their income on rent. And the number of affordable and available units is far less than the needs of extremely low-income households.

"Rental assistance is underfunded. It shouldn't be surprising that eviction is a problem given that there are so few resources to support people when they're in crisis," said Martha Galvez, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. "Evictions are a component of the larger affordability problem and lack of affordable housing in general."

Other potential contributing factors to evictions (which vary depending on state and local laws) include a lack of legal protections for renters, nuisance laws that can adversely affect victims of domestic violence, and sudden financial shocks that can result in families being unable to pay their rent.
The consequences of failing to take a proactive approach

The aftermath of an eviction can affect all aspects of a family's life. Families might lose their belongings if their possessions are dumped on the street, they might struggle to find good housing with an eviction filing on their court record, they might need to move to a less safe neighborhood, and kids might need to switch schools midyear. Evictions can also put people's employment and mental health at risk.

Residential instability can be especially traumatizing for children, with stress having wide-reaching consequences, including on their educational achievement. When children whose families receive housing subsidies live for longer periods in subsidized housing, those children see lower incarceration rates and higher pay as adults.

"The insidious part of instability is that it comes at a kid from so many different levels-in terms of stress on their parents, losing basic resources, and then losing their home," said Gina Adams, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. "It's this very core thing of stability of place, where you'll be sleeping or eating. Housing instability crashes every support system a kid could have."

When families struggle financially, so do their communities. The financial health of a city is closely intertwined with that of its residents. Financially healthy residents are better able to weather difficult times, are less likely to need city supports and services, and can contribute more to the local economy by supporting property, sales, and income taxes.

Cities are struggling to keep up with the cost of providing homelessness services to residents, and they miss out on utility bills and property taxes when families are no longer in a home. In Miami, for example, family financial insecurity that leads to eviction and unpaid property taxes and utility bills is estimated to cost the government between $13 million and $31 million annually.

"It's certainly a better investment to help somebody stay in their housing than let them become homeless," said Mary Cunningham, vice president for metropolitan housing and communities policy at the Urban Institute. "Once somebody experiences homelessness, it's really expensive to public systems in terms of cost of shelter and services, and it's expensive for the people it affects in terms of losing their belongings and having to start over. We want to do everything we can to make sure people have help to stay in their housing."

The Eviction Lab hasn't released national data on the median cost a family owes to the landlord that results in them getting evicted, but it did find the median amount owed was $686 in Richmond, Virginia. Desmond has said that people in other cities are often evicted for just a few hundred dollars.

"In some cases, cities are spending tens of thousands of dollars per person [for homelessness services, unpaid utility bills, and unpaid property taxes]. Wouldn't it make sense to make sure people don't become evicted in the first place?" said Diana Elliott, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. "Cities are spending so much money after the fact, when it would be a better investment to spend the money earlier in the process and keep families and communities more stable and see a better return on their money."
Tactics to help solve the eviction crisis
Strategies to tackle the eviction crisis should focus on helping renters avoid falling behind on their rent and reducing the risk of eviction if they do.

"I do not think there is a once-and-for-all solution that does not involve some kind of government or philanthropic assistance to households that are trapped in the cycle of eviction or threatened by eviction for the first time," said Corianne Scally, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute.

One way to reduce the risk of eviction is to add and retain rental housing that low-income families can afford. That might mean changing the rental subsidy system to regulate rents or offer universal assistance to the lowest-income households, or pairing land-use reforms with increases in rent subsidies.

Even modest personal savings can help families become more financially stable and avoid eviction. Urban Institute researchers have found that families with as little as $250 to $749 in savings are better able to weather temporary income drops and are less likely to be evicted or miss a housing or utility payment.

"When we look at the relationship with family financial health measured by savings and debt and outcomes that matter for cities (such as eviction and the ability to pay rent or mortgage), we find increased financial health associated with decreased evictions, fewer missed housing payments, and a greater ability to pay utility bills," said Signe-Mary McKernan, vice president for labor, human services, and population at the Urban Institute.

Cities can improve their residents' financial health through broad-based strategies from workforce development to affordable housing and through programs and policies that focus directly on residents' financial health. These focused approaches include helping residents save through savings programs with incentives, integrating financial and savings interventions into existing programs and platforms, and providing financial coaching and counseling.

But those long-term solutions don't help families facing eviction now. No community has enough rental options that people can afford, and more than one-third of US families have less than $250 in savings.

When families fall behind on rent, emergency assistance programs can help them pay the past-due balance to prevent eviction. Because eviction rules and risks vary, local jurisdictions should tailor solutions specific to their residents' challenges, said Leah Hendey, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute and codirector of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership.

Legal assistance for low-income renters-either through expanded legal aid resources or a right to counsel-can also improve outcomes for renters and reduce evictions.

A New York City Office of Civil Justice survey found that tenants in housing court who received an attorney from a legal aid provider were twice as likely to keep their home, compared with tenants who did not receive one.

In 2017, New York City passed legislation guaranteeing legal representation for low-income tenants who face eviction, the first legislation of its kind in the US. And last month, San Francisco voters approved a measure providing a lawyer for every city tenant facing potential eviction.

"Policy changes have been coming down the pipeline over the past few years, and there is some momentum growing where jurisdictions recognize that if they want to have an inclusive city, they need tenant protections and antidisplacement strategies, and protection from eviction is crucial," Cunningham said.
Maya Brennan, Kimberly Burrowes, Veronica Gaitán, David Hinson, Jerry Ta, John Wehmann, and Daniel Wood of the Urban Institute contributed to this feature. Photo by Vincent Noel/Shutterstock

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why We Need to Stop Evictions Before They Happen | How Housing Matters

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Emily Peiffer Eviction is more than a forced move. It's a destabilizing event that can send a family into a cycle of financial and emotional turmoil, affecting their current and future prospects for residential stability.

# data[].attributes.body
How do kids find out about these schools? They don't... according to students.

# data[].attributes.body
Low-income students may face many challeges, such as eviction and inadequate support at home.

# data[].attributes.body
Gap in Asheville City Schools

# data[].attributes.body
Is there a racial gap in schools across the country?

# data[].attributes.body
If you don't know about the test until later you may not have the time to fully prepare.

# data[].attributes.body
If your family can not afford test prep, that may put you down a step, compaired to the other students.

# data[].attributes.body
"Fewer than 7 black students admitted to NY's most selective high school."