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In keeping with the logic of Mayor de Blasio and his school chancellor, who both believe that a good solution for black and Latino minorities to get ahead in school is simply to eliminate the standardized test to get into New York’s toughest academies, why not do the same with the La Guardia school for the performing arts? Let’s forget about auditions and portfolios and try to even the number of boys who are admitted since only 26% of the student body is currently male. Why give priority to talent if you believe that intelligence and discipline, as reflected in the ability to ace a standardized test, are not essential pre-requisites for advanced academic work And why not insist that Asians are proportionately represented at La Guardia even if they don’t express as much interest in music and art. Or that girls, who currently account for only 40% of Stuyvesant are similarly favored to even their quota there.
Community activists argue that the discrimination against minorities is economic as much as racial but this is belied by the very population that is so well represented at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science – how many people know that the minority with the highest poverty rate in our city is Asian? Just as you can’t put the cart before the horse, you can’t pretend that by eliminating the screening for those who have the capacity to do advanced work, others will absorb it magically once they are in the company of advanced students The standardized test is the fairest prognosticator we have of student achievement, certainly more than subjective references from past teachers or even report cards from schools that may inflate their grades to enhance their own reputations and obscure their failures.