For at least a decade, many educators and elected officials have been lobbying intently for the elimination of the standardized test students take to get admitted to the City’s specialized high schools, such as Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High School, and Brooklyn Technical High School.

 

The publication of admission rates to such schools, broken down by race, has fueled an ongoing debate between parents of Asian-American and White students who broadly support the use of the test as an objective, fair and, generally, unbiased way of determining admission, and some parents of Black and Latinx students who say the test is culturally biased.

 

Recently, Black and Latinx students, who make up about 70 percent of the population of the City’s public schools eligible to take the test, have been offered less than 10 percent of the available places in the City’s specialized high schools, based on their test scores. Asian-American students, who make up 16 percent of the population of those public schools, have been offered 54 percent of the places based on their test scores.

 

Meanwhile, White students, who make up 15 percent of the students eligible to take the test, have been offered 28 percent of the available places based on their test scores. The statistics, supplied in a recent Chalkbeat article are fodder for the racial and ethnic antipathies that all-too-often characterize relations among the City’s racial and ethnic groups.

 

Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter has stressed that having a single standardized test as the sole criterion to determine admission to specialized schools discriminates against Black and Latinx students.

 

Is it fair that Asian-American students be deprived of reaping the rewards of having excelled in the standardized test? Eliminating the test as the criterion for admission would be a slap in the face to both the Asian-American parents and to the Asian-American students who have worked hard to excel at them.

 

Many parents of Asian-American students have education as their major focus, and scrimp and save, sometimes with limited means, to send their children for supplemental schooling over weekends. This commitment to weekend schooling sometimes goes on for years. Yes, I personally know Asian-American parents who have dragged their children out of bed on Saturday mornings for this supplemental schooling.

 

Isn’t it fair, objectively speaking, for parents and students who “go the extra mile” to excel, to be rewarded in a society that is supposed to be merit-based? It is objectively wrong to decrease the percentage of Asian-American students in specialized high schools, in order to achieve some sort of quota?

 

Just as it was wrong to deny Jewish students, admission to colleges, based on their backgrounds in the 1930s, it would be unfair to deny Asian-American students, admission to specialized high schools based on their race.

 

At a time when discrimination and prejudice against the Asian-American community in society is rampant, how could we deny Asian-American students that which they would otherwise have achieved?

 

As the proud father of sons who graduated from Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant High School, should I belittle their achievements just because I did not pass the standardized test to gain entrance to one of these specialized high schools?

 

The standardized test required for admission to Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and six other specialized high schools is, like it or not, the most objective measurement that could be used for the purpose for which it is intended.

 

Admitting students based on class rankings is, on its surface, less fair because schools vary greatly in terms of course level difficulty and course requirements.

Another admissions option, teachers’ portfolio assessments, is also unfair because such assessments vary greatly from one teacher to another.

 

Our society will always be unequal in terms of opportunities for students. Standardized tests are the best option, even if many students who underperform on such tests, including students of all races, religions, and ethnicities end up being deprived of admission, and even if they would be an asset to these schools.

 

Total fairness can never be achieved, but we shouldn’t create a new layer of unfairness through our efforts to achieve a greater degree of fairness. In the case of the specialized high schools, changing admissions criteria would result in more unfairness, rather than more fairness.

 

Editor’s Note: This op-ed was written by the author in June.