Chancellor of schools Meesha Ross-Porter on Thursday called for the end of the special high school entrance exam, while new admissions data said that Asians once again dominated the controversial test.
While offering a minimum number of offers to black and Hispanic students, Ross-Porter called the current single-trial entry format “unacceptable.”
Asians included 53.7 percent, Whites 27.9, Hispanics 5.4 and African-Americans 3.6.
“I know from my 21 years as a teacher that far more students in our specialized high schools can succeed, if only given the opportunity,” she said in a statement with the results. “Instead, the continued use of specific high school admission tests will repeatedly yield the same unacceptable results, and it is time for our students to be fairly represented in these schools.”
But the current format supports – especially those representing Asian city groups – Ross-Porter’s characterization.
“What’s unacceptable is the targeting of a particular group” activist Wah Wah Chin said. “Especially with everything we see on the streets of this city. It is unacceptable that Asians are stating that they do not belong to these schools despite their hard work. “
Examination critics call this a narrow measure of student ability and argue that additional metrics should be introduced into the admissions process.
They also argue that single-test systems benefit families of means with better exam preparation resources.
Ross-Porter’s predecessor, Richard Caranaja, failed to advance the current format with Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2019.
While 70 percent of all city students are black and Hispanic, they only accounted for 9.4 percent of special high school acceptance for the following year.
Kaliris Salas-Ramirez of Community Education Council 4 said the exam should be scrapped.
She also argued that most Asian applicants do not gain admission through the test and that the format “maintains a system that discredits the Asian community.”
The testers say that it is a color measurement, which has made some of the country’s most famous academic schools.
Others also noted that many immigrant Asian groups living in eight schools come from low-income backgrounds rather than privilege.
At Stuyvesant High School, considered the city’s major educational stronghold, Asians made 65 percent new proposals. Whites were 20 percent and Hispanic in second place, 2.7 percent.
According to DOE data, only 8 out of 749 proposals – or one percent – went to black students.
Ross-Porter insisted that Albany should repeal the law that mandated the test.
He said, “The state’s law requires the city to be tempted, it should be repealed so that we can find a more equitable way forward, together with our communities, and correct for all our children”.
Some have called for the examination to be outright, while others have suggested combining it with other measures.
Meanwhile, the Department of Education said a glitch made it impossible for some parents to open the admission email on Thursday and they were working to fix the issue.
One applicant’s mother said, “It has been quite painful.” “It never ends. You think they can at least get the email right.”
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