Nearly 30,000 city students will sit for the Specialized High School Admissions Test this weekend and next Wednesday — despite Team de Blasio’s best efforts to the contrary.
Not that Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Richard Carranza have given up — and we’re not just talking about the technical “glitches” that panicked kids and parents who this week found it impossible to learn when and where they were to take the exam.
The SHSAT is the entrance exam for admission to the crown jewels of the city school system: Stuyvesant HS, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech and five newer selective high schools.
The mayor and chancellor have demanded for years now that it be abolished, with Carranza sneering about an “epicenter of privilege.” Never mind that the schools are majority-minority, with more than half of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches.
(And why, then, did the city shift to an online-only test-registration process? Progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders regularly rail against the “digital divide” that they say disadvantages low-income households.)
The Legislature — even with Democrats in firm control — has refused to even consider killing the exam. But that hasn’t stopped de Blasio from making big changes: He has greatly expanded and “reformed” the Discovery program, which for decades offered a second chance to kids who’d almost made the cut for the elite schools.
Starting with the class admitted from this year’s SHSAT, a full fifth of elite-school seats will be reserved for Discovery graduates — which reduces the number of seats for kids who actually pass the exam.
City Hall has also rejiggered the rules for who qualifies for Discovery, in an apparent effort to drive down the number of Asian-Americans — though the change also excludes low-income blacks and Hispanics who don’t happen to attend high-poverty middle schools. How equitable is that?
Department of Education spokesman Will Mantell says the glitches are fixed, and students can even register in school Wednesday to take the exam that day. Count that as one victory for fairness, amid de Blasio’s ongoing war on educational excellence.