“What’s Going On With New York’s Elite High Schools?”
“I Wanted to Attend a Specialized High School. Imposter Syndrome Almost Stopped Me ”
“Chicago’s Most Marginalized Students Have Almost No Shot of Getting Into CPS’ Elite Schools”
These are just a few of the headlines that give a glimpse into the controversy surrounding the elite public high schools that exist in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and throughout the country. These schools have often come under fire for further perpetuating racial segregation: their student bodies generally have a smaller proportion of students of color than their overall school districts.
Efforts to reform the admission processes at selective enrollment schools are enmeshed in the larger controversy. Admissions often have been based, in part, on student test results. Critics argue that test-in policies serve as a disproportionate barrier for Black and Latino students, and hence the tests help to perpetuate unrepresentative enrollments. Those opposed to the removal of admission tests often point to declines in academic performance if schools shift to an alternative process, such as a lottery. Preliminary data from San Francisco’s Lowell School, which experimented with such a shift, offers some support to these concerns: Lowell saw a three-fold increase in students receiving non-passing grades following the transition to a lottery-based admissions process.
While fears for lowered academic performance might not be unfounded, the facts remain that Black and Latino students are significantly underrepresented in these schools, and that there is a gap in the scores achieved by Black and Latino students compared to their White and Asian counterparts on the admissions exams. Is there a path to make admission (and education itself) more equitable, less connected to racial or socioeconomic status?
As a graduate of one of these selective enrollment schools, and as someone who has benefited from their research programs, enhanced budgets, and vast alumni networks, I am incredibly proud of the education that I have received. Nonetheless, I am also cognizant that I have been the recipient of an incredibly exclusionary education, one that elevates the chosen few who get in, but does nothing to uplift and support the students at the neighboring, non-selective schools. The systemic issues that produce widespread academic achievement gaps and school segregation won’t be changed by removing admission exams for selective schools.
Changing to a lottery-based admission system does nothing for most of the students that this “solution” is attempting to help. It does not decrease achievement gaps or improve the schools that most public-school students will continue to attend. These schools often have little in the form of a support system to help students who may have fallen behind in middle school, and few resources earmarked for such support. The debate over the admissions methods into selective enrollment schools is almost a distraction, taking time and money that could better be used to raise the performance of non-selective enrollment schools.
The long-term solution lies in our communities, by addressing inequities from pre-school on. The solution involves increasing access to and improving marketing for tutoring and counseling programs – including those run by the New York Public Library aimed at selective admission exams and processes. This approach also includes investing in seventh and eighth-grade teachers to help them support the students who might be interested in selective admission schools. The more comprehensive path involves equitably distributing resources among schools and making sure that all students have the support they need to succeed academically. Schools themselves can be more open to sharing resources with students from other schools, as sometimes happens with science labs and extracurricular activities.
Parents are particularly key figures in assuring student educational success. Parents need easy methods of becoming educated on high school admission processes, perhaps through resource fairs. Informed parents lead to better support for their students, and improved classroom performance.
Admission exams are not the problem and eliminating them is not the solution. The long running, rampant problem is underfunded and under-resourced schools that have failed their students long before high school. Without the proper investment in educators, in parents, and in students themselves, removing an admissions exam serves as a performative but ineffective gesture to address the striking issues of segregation and academic achievement gaps.