By Kayla Morgan
De Blasio has proposed changes to admission process.
The SHSAT, an exam administered since the 20th century, has shaped the middle school to high school transition of New York for years. However, Mayor De Blasio believes the transition should take a different route.
Opposers to the SHSAT believe that it is racially biased as nearly 70 percent of public schools are made up of black and Hispanic students, yet they only receive 10 percent of specialized high school offers.
Many experts and advocates have formulated plans to diversify the schools by putting more action into the Discovery Program, an initiative that offers admission into specialized high schools for students who scored just below the lowest cutoff score. By next year, the De Blasio administration will only accept kids into the discovery program who are from schools where the majority of the students are in poverty. Because these schools would be dominantly black and Hispanic, the De Blasio administration believes it will ease the segregated climate and boost the Black and Hispanic population. This is different from the previous admission that only evaluated a student’s socioeconomic background. A discipula in class lV, Rayna Zia, who attended the discovery program stated, “ [the discovery program] isn’t helping promote diversity, as most of it is primarily Asian and white. If they want specific attention on a race then they should continue their aim.” This is evident as 64 percent of students admitted into Discovery are Asian. However, their black counterparts make up 18-20 percent of admitted discovery students. However, not everyone believes these new regulations will do their job. Disculpa from Class lV, Mita Crane, stated, “I don't think it will diversify the school anymore than the old system did. There are a lot more kids going to schools with 60% or more of the students in poverty than kids who are actually poor or come from a different country... by opening the discovery program to so much more people, it will be difficult to get into. The kids that get into the discovery program are likely to still be upper class, privileged, and not need that opportunity.”
Beside the discovery program plans, there have been many other actions introduced that would completely change the admission into a specialized high school. An initiative was introduced that would replace the SHSAT with an admission process that only admits students with high academic ranks in their middle school and high statewide test scores. Many people have disagreed with these new terms, because they believe most students accepted won’t be able to keep up with the par and difficulty of attending a specialized high school.
“The Specialized High School Admission Test isn’t just flawed — it’s a roadblock to justice, progress, and academic excellence….Can anyone look the parent of a Latino or Black child in the eye and tell them their precious daughter or son has an equal chance to get into one of their city’s best high schools,” Mayor De Blasio stated in an op-ed published on Chalkbeat in May 26th.
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