Thread by @RossBarkan

On the SHSAT: it's an issue that gets oversimplified and has been bungled, start to finish, by City Hall.

Is it a great system? No. Standardized tests are but one measure and they're often flawed. I personally don't like them. SHSAT critics however have to understand the uproar

First: critics of the SHSAT, to make it seem more politically "correct," often paint it as a problem of white over-representation in specialized high schools. It's not. It's an Asian-American over-representation, relative to the overall school population.

This Asian-American class is *not* privileged is any traditional sense. They are people of color. Many of them come from poor, immigrant backgrounds where parents don't speak English as a first language.

I campaigned in these neighborhoods all last year. That is the reality.

The system, however, is clearly flawed. Specialized high schools should not have such a low number of black and Hispanic students. What do we do?

We can add metrics to the test, do away with the test, or create more specialized high schools. All have their pros and cons.

We could also move away from a system of tracking students, creating pressure cookers around a select number of schools, and really, really try to make neighborhood schools better. We have to de-segregate schools. None of this is easy.

Having spoken with a lot of Asian-American parents and activists during my campaign last year, I understand their anger. City Hall never consulted with them. They feel, because they are succeeding on a test, they are a "problem" that needs correcting.

It's a bad situation.