How the mayor’s plan would transform specialized high schools
Under the mayor’s plan to move away from the Specialized High School Admissions Test, more than triple the number of Hispanic and black students who attended specialized high schools last year would have received offers to enroll, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office. And despite the dramatic shift in demographics, IBO found, student performance would remain high.
IBO conducted a report in February that looked at students’ demographics and prior academic performances to examine just who would have received offers for the 2017-2018 school year under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to scrap the SHSAT – the test currently used to determine admission to the city’s eight specialized high schools. The mayor’s plan would instead select the top-performing students from each of the city’s middle schools.
The mayor – who has received both political and parental pushback on the proposal – maintains that the plan would provide greater opportunity to traditionally disadvantaged youth.
Sarita Subramanian, a supervising analyst with IBO, supported these claims in her testimony at the New York State Assembly hearing on specialized high school admissions. While “roughly the same number of white students,” would have received offers under the mayor’s proposal, she said, five times as many black students and four times as many Hispanic students would have been tapped. And, though the number of offers made to Asian students would have been halved (compared to the high number of Asian students who ultimately attended), “they would still have comprised the highest share of offers.”