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When it comes to the specialized high schools, I think folks really need to do some self-reflection about why they are so invested in a single-test for admission, even when knowing that tool excluded nearly all black kids from a public school in a system that is a quarter black.
Imagine going to high school for 4 years, studying hard, excelling in the most rigorous classes, doing well on state exams, but when it came to college, you were told none of that matters. Your admission hinged solely on a single test that covered many things never taught in hs.
No college admits students based only on a single test score, because colleges understand that is a ludicrous way to assess the worthiness of students.
You could have never did homework, never studied, gotten terrible grades, bombed state tests, not showed up nor participated in class, but because you crammed for the SHSAT, you earn a spot over a student who worked hard every day but scored a few points off on SHSAT.
It makes no logical sense for people to argue that admitting students based on a history of excelling academically both in courses and on state tests is somehow diluting quality and is somehow rewarding underachievers and students who did not work hard. It is the opposite.
No other specialized high school in the country admits students based on a single test. No private high school admits students based on a single test.
That we cling to this in this hyper-segregated and grossly unequal city even as it excludes most black kids speaks to our long history of adapting systems so as to exclude black children from the best educational resources under the guise of race-neutral policy.
How many of you who so passionately defend this test want all colleges to start using this same standard?
We also really need to challenge this notion of the "deserving" v the "undeserving" student. A child should not have to, on top of his normal homework/school activities, spend months and months cramming for a test over things not taught in public school to access a public school.
I think we far too often forget that we are talking in such disparaging ways about middle-school children, 13-year-olds, who we say are unworthy of these schools and will somehow taint their classmates all over a single test score. It is, in a word, disgusting.
How many of these SHSAT defenders are also claiming Harvard's academic standards and learning environment are diluted because it does not rely on a single test for admissions?
One day I am going to also break down the convenient use of Asian Americans to justify systems that exclude black children, but not today.
