https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/an-american-dilemma-stuyvesant-high-school/
This article in the New York Times is getting attention, understandably. It highlights an old, painful issue, involving “merit,” race, and ethnicity. The headline over the article is “Only 7 Black Students Got Into N.Y.’s Most Selective High School, Out of 895 Spots.”
That high school is Stuyvesant. As the Times reports, students get into such schools “by acing a single high-stakes exam that tests their mastery of math and English.” This leads to racial and ethnic outcomes that are deemed undesirable. At Stuyvesant, 74 percent of freshmen next year — call it three-quarters — will be Asian.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio, among others, has called for the scrapping of the entrance exam and the overhaul of the admissions process. I have a memory, from 2001. Indeed, via the power of Google, I will quote the Times:
Contending that standardized college tests have distorted the way young people learn and worsened educational inequities, the president of the University of California is proposing an end to the use of SAT’s as a requirement for admission to the state university system he oversees, one of the largest and most prestigious.