A single entry test for the NYC specialized high schools has to be reformed

This page has long defended the single-test admission system for the city’s elite high schools. As glaring racial disparities persist in their student populations despite efforts to get more students of all backgrounds to prepare for the test — in a public-school system that’s 73% Black and Latino, about 10% of offers just went to students of those backgrounds — there must be a change.

We do not make such a shift lightly, nor would we ever want Specialized High Schools Admissions Test-based admissions replaced with an entry mechanism that devalues merit. Those who have benefited from SHSAT admissions are not privileged elites; mostly Asian-American immigrant youth, they and their families have played by the rules and excelled. Bravo to them.

But properly designed, merit-based admissions are based on multiple measures of academic achievement. Reducing conceptions of standout performance to a single exam oversimplifies achievement and has the pernicious side effect of disadvantaging thousands of talented students who don’t test as well. It’s not as though Black and Latino can’t ace the test; they can and in some cases do, especially when access to test prep is democratized.

The point is made more clearly when elite high schools are compared to elite colleges. No top-tier university — not Harvard or Yale or MIT or Michigan or Cal Berkeley — admits students based on SAT or ACT alone. Understanding that excellence and potential are complicated, they instead weigh tests alongside grades, essays, extracurriculars and other factors. They also understand that building a diverse student body is a high value in and of itself.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected soon to hamstring colleges from using race as an admissions factor. We’d hope that if and when that happens, colleges turn toward class-based affirmative action. In any event, they must not give up on judging students by more than their test scores — and the closely interrelated objective of assembling student bodies that expand the circle of opportunity to people of many backgrounds.

New York City high schools should learn the same lesson.