Its not only NYC. In Fairfax County, they established a math/science high school about 20 years ago called “Thomas Jefferson” after the great thinker, inventor and President. It is currently ranked the best secondary school in the US. That, of course, is not enough. It is a perceived “problem” that 80 percent of the students are Asian (Americans of Chinese, Indian or Korean background) who got there on testing and merit. I really don’t care if 100 percent are Asian if they earned their spot so be it; these are our future physicists and mathematicians whom the US economy needs to advance and prosper. So, the School Administrators have their knickers too tight and are now insisting on a random choice approach for student selection so the “proper” racial mix of the county is accounted for. In other words, there is no reason for these kids to work and study to get there, it will be all chance which makes no sense but then again, neither do most educators today.
Some time ago I dated a woman who was a Radcliffe grad.She told me that a classmate of hers,who was Vice Chancellor of Admissions at Harvard,told her that were it not for their affirmative action admissions policies every Freshman class there would be made up entirely of Asians and Jews.