Elite NYC School Offers To Black, Latinx Students Drop Even Lower

NEW YORK CITY — Fewer Black and Latinx students will walk into the city's specialized high schools next year, according to newly-released Department of Education data.

Preliminary results from the SHSAT — a state-mandated test to get into a specialized high school — show Black and Latinx students accounted for 9 percent of offers. Those students received 11 percent of offers last year and 10.5 percent in 2019, according to the DOE.

The decline is more stark in individual schools' data — Stuyvesant High School, for example, had just eight Black students admitted.

Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter blasted the test for screening out diverse students. She said they will "thrive" in the city's specialized high schools.

"Instead, the continued use of the Specialized High School Admissions Test will produce the same unacceptable results over and over again, and it’s far past the time for our students to be fairly represented in these schools," she said in a statement. "The State law that requires the City to administer the exam must be repealed so we can partner with our communities to find a more equitable way forward, and do right by all of our children."

Many education advocates have long-criticized entrance exams as perpetuating segregation in the city's schools.

Typically, admissions offers for Black and Latinx students are extremely low. But amid the coronavirus pandemic, fewer 8th grade students took the test and even fewer Black and Latinx students received offers.

About 23,500 students took the test, according to data. Of those, 4,262 received offers from a specialized high school based on their scores.

Black and Latinx students received 153 and 231 of those offers, respectively.

Asian students received 2,288 offers, or about 54 percent of all offers. White students accounted for 28 percent of offers.