City schools keep churning out black and Latino kids who can barely read or do math — yet the lefty race-obsessed political class cares only about meaningless “integration” and applying quotas at elite high schools.

First, Nikole Hannah-Jones dropped a New York Times essay blaming segregation for public-school failures visited upon her daughter, the very same critique she offered before she bungled the girl’s education.

Cue the bogus-reform blob’s rush to demand formal plans to integrate a system where only 15% of kids (and falling) are Anglo whites, leading to last week’s Hannah-Jones-hosted town hall that dragged schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels for instead trying to focus on teaching.

This week, ex-Chancellor David Banks hosted a live podcast forum demanding an end to merit-based admissions at the city’s specialized high schools.

Pandering to the excuse-makers, Banks claimed he urged then-mayor Eric Adams to ditch the test-in standard for five elite schools — but Adams refused to cave.

But why obsess about a few specialized high schools while turning a blind eye to the nearly 60% of black kids in city schools who can’t even read or do basic math?

Somehow, redistributing school placements on the basis of skin color must come first.

This is nothing but a low distraction from the hard truth: fixing NYC’s failing K-8 schools requires real, long-term work and commitment that will take years to bear fruit.

That timeline is far too long for race-hustling elites and politicians desperate for a quick headline.

So they push fast (fake) fixes instead, such as scrapping merit-based tests and everything else that can expose how many minority kids the system is failing to educate.

They don’t dare call out the powerful teachers union and the progressive-claptrap crowd that have actually ruined public education.

That would be pointing the finger too close to home.