It’s become a ritual, every year, for news outlets and pundits to express their shock at the minuscule number of Black and Latine students admitted to New York City’s oldest and most famous specialized high schools. “Small percentage of Black students given offers to NYC’s specialized high schools” was an amNewYork headline this year. Last year, the New York Daily News wrote: “Racial disparities widen in NYC specialized high schools.” Going back to 2018, The New York Times’ headline was “Elite Schools Make Few Offers to Black and Latino Students.” The number of Black and Latine students admitted to specialized high schools has not changed much in the past decade; yet every year, when the latest data are released, we are expected to be shocked all over again.
These headlines miss the story we should be telling. New York City Public Schools remain segregated. Black, Latine, and poor students, as well as students with disabilities, English-language learners, and students in temporary housing see different opportunities than their neighbors. The SHSAT and the complex, competitive admissions processes for middle and high schools compound historical patterns. Year after year, the numbers speak for themselves: our NYC school system is deeply inequitable and racially unjust.
Every student in the system deserves schooling that meets their needs and aspirations, whether or not they prepare for the SHSAT or game out a strategy for admissions. The mayor and the chancellor should be working to create schools and enrollment processes that support this goal. While this story breaks each year, this time we have the opportunity to do something different. Mayor Mamdani fought for an extension of mayoral control of NYC Public Schools despite grassroots opposition, and he can use that outsized power to put the system on a more equitable path. Here are some actions he can take:
First, Mayor Mamdani can implement multiple criteria for admissions at the five Specialized High Schools whose enrollment systems are not under state control. Multiple measures would better recognize achievement across New York City’s diverse middle schools. He can also lobby the state to return control over Brooklyn Tech, Stuyvesant, and Bronx Science to the city.
The mayor can invest in the high schools across the city that serve the majority of our students, including struggling small schools, large comprehensive schools that often feel like an afterthought, and Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. That investment should be monetary as well as human, and the city’s school funding formula should not provide less per pupil to any high school than it does to the specialized high schools. Institutions like Bryant High School in Queens and the Heritage School in Manhattan could thrive if we supported them as we do Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech. When the city concentrates exceptional programming, additional funding, and institutional prestige inside schools that systematically exclude Black, Latine, multilingual, disabled, and low-income students, it creates a self-perpetuating system. We first ration opportunity and then point to competition for that opportunity as proof that rationing is necessary. Our children should not have to win a contest to receive an excellent public education.
The system also needs better support for students from marginalized communities across the system. The few Black and Latine students at high schools like Stuyvesant have often felt unwelcome, and this in turn discourages others from applying. The mayor can ensure that all schools are taking measures to make their curricula and school cultures culturally relevant and sustaining, including building capacity to support English-language learners and students in temporary housing.
Finally, the mayor and his schools chancellor can work to simplify what has become an overwhelming admissions system, especially for high school and middle school; at the same time, they should bolster efforts at helping families learn about and apply to schools.
Mayor Mamdani sought and received enormous authority over New York City’s public school system through mayoral control. With that authority comes responsibility.
End SHSAT-only admissions at the five schools where the city has the authority to act, adopt multiple measures, invest the same extraordinary resources we associate with specialized high schools in neighborhood high schools across New York City, and make the system more welcoming and less complicated for students and their families.
We do not need another repeated headline next year. Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels have the power to be transformative and change the lives of young people through simple amendments to this policy.
Dr. Jonathan Greenberg is the parent of a high school student in NYC Public Schools (NYCPS), former president of the District 30 CEC, and a board member of the Education Council Consortium (ECC). Dr. Kaliris Salas-Ramirez is a parent of two NYCPS students, one of whom is in high school, president of District 4 CEC, and a former PEP member. Both serve on the Steering Committee of New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools.
This is so dumb. Lots of buzzy phrases with zero insight into the system itself. Do these authors even have kids in public school? Do they know that schools with high concentrations of the students they’re speaking about actually receive *more* money than Specialized high schools? Which funding is higher, per pupil, than any other large city in America. How, exactly, do we “support” Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech that is different from Bryant or Heritage? What do they consider “exceptional programming” and why do they assume kids who can’t pass the SHSAT could thrive in AP Astrophysics? What makes programming “exceptional” at these schools, other than the level of difficulty? Most laughably, how does the city install “institutional prestige”? Do the authors think a fairy godmother waved a wand and suddenly a struggling school turned into Bronx Science? What opportunity, exactly, is being “rationed”? Is it an “opportunity” to struggle or fail at a Specialized school? Because the data shows that the students who struggle the most are seated via the Discovery Program. Imagine if there was no cut-off at all. It is pretty telling that the authors equate an “excellent education” with high-level academics. And that they think students got there by winning a lottery instead of being qualified. Every student should have access to a school that meets their needs. A Specialized High School is not that school for every child.
How sad is it to call yourself doctor and to pose as public school subject matter expert, but to have so little understanding of school funding formulas… Specialized high schools receive significantly less per student than other HS in NYC. They get a paltry boost from “portfolio funding” (that some non SHS get as well). Students there sit in large classes, often 30 + students, with a majority of low income students.
As for asking for simpler admissions to alleviate the burden for students and families: it’s precisely what the SHSAT offers: one test, anonymous, taken during the school day and at their school for students in public middle schools and on weekends for the others. Minimal disruption, no Byzantine rubrics, no sorting by zip code. You get one offer, or none. No waitlist game. We need more SHSAT seats for those who want simplicity and don’t have the time or resources for the HS application nonsense imposed to NY public school families.
Clearly these schools aren’t the right fit for the authors’ kids, but the good news is that there are 400 other HS to choose from.
Are these writers Millennials? “I want institutional prestige! Gimme!” hahahaha. How do they think an institution becomes prestigious? The only rationing is in the quality K-8 education and programs that begat diversity in specialized schools in the past. Take those away, it’s no wonder more kids of color aren’t passing the test. But no…it’s got to be the test’s fault. [Eye-roll]
Are these writers Millennials? “I want institutional prestige! Gimme!” hahahaha. How do they think an institution becomes prestigious? The only rationing is in the quality K-8 education and programs that begat diversity in specialized schools in the past. Take those away, it’s no wonder more kids of color aren’t passing the test. But no…it’s got to be the test’s fault. [Eye-roll]
This is ridiculous. We already have many solid, high achieving schools that offer multi-tier admissions criteria – we don’t need to tweak admissions for a handful of schools simply because some people don’t like the demographics. The SHSs (particularly Stuy, BxSci, HSME) are specifically for students who have accelerated STEM backgrounds and wish to pursue STEM focused careers, which frankly a test is the best measure of assessing a student’s knowledge. If we want to racially or demographically right size the entire NYCPS this you might as well say performing arts schools like LaG need a special essay to get more boys in because the vast majority of them are 70% female. These are also elite schools – why aren’t we putting a microscope on SMS or LaG? Perhaps make the auditions more “subjective” to get certain races in as LaG is still majority white.
The answer is simple – don’t mess with the test. Improve K-8 education. Create more accelerated classes and programs (yes, G&T, another program these so called activists hate on).
Honestly, talk to any parent in Harlem, East New York, Bronx – they want to send their kids to LOCAL, rigorous schools within their own community (which is why so many attend charters). Even NHJ wasn’t comfortable sending her daughter to a school with too many whites/Asians. I honestly don’t get these people’s obsession with having everything racially balanced. There are only 16% white kids in the NYCPS!
Another pearl-clutching op-ed that does nothing to address the REAL problem of why Black and Hispanic kids can’t score as well as Asian and White kids on the SHSAT. Great idea to pull the 5 schools not legally mandated out of the SHSAT and try something different. No mayor has had the guts to actually do that. But, the TEST is not and never way the actual issue. The inferior elementary schools combined with a culture issue where Black and Hispanic communities do not prioritize things like reading at the pre-k level. Those are HARD fixes and no one, not the talking heads, not the politicians, certainly not the Board of Ed have any stomach for actually addressing the serious issues at the level they need to be addressed at. When a parent can be stupid enough to send a kid to school with gummy worms and takis as “breakfast”, this is the kind of level of change we’re looking at. Pre-K parent education and engagement. Stop talking about the test as the problem and get serious about REAL issues. Otherwise you’re just jerking off into the wind.
The authors complain about the complexity of NYC’s high school application process. On this point, they’re right: navigating 700 high school programs is no easy task for parents. Some schools require auditions, others administer on-site tests and essays, and a few ask students to videotape themselves responding to prompts. Then there’s the added uncertainty of lottery numbers and admissions priorities based on income and ZIP code.
The SHSAT, by contrast, is refreshingly straightforward: take a three-hour, race-blind and income-blind test of math and ELA. Score high enough, and you earn a seat. No lottery. No subjective evaluations. No navigating a maze of admissions criteria.
The authors are also patently wrong about funding. Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech receive about $12,000 per student—less than half the citywide average of $23,000. Bryant High School receives $20,000 per student, while Heritage High School gets $26,000. That’s more than double what the Specialized High Schools receive. So much for the claim that these schools enjoy lavish funding.
What is this obsession with attacking the eight schools that exemplify the best of NYC public education? Families are leaving our public schools, half our students still can’t read at grade level, and New York is poised to strip away what little accountability remains by eliminating the requirement to pass high school exit exams.
Instead of dismantling the schools that work, perhaps the authors should ask why so many other schools are failing to deliver the same level of academic excellence—and what it would take to give more students access to it.
“Every student in the system deserves schooling that meets their needs and aspirations.” NYC has hundreds of high schools. Are you saying kids can’t find a school that meets their needs because 8 of them use a test? Wouldn’t your energy be better spent elsewhere? Why are people so obsessed with these schools, as if somehow they are the answer to the system that is failing 99% of our kids.