POLITICS: NY public-school families fear activists will nix admissions test for elite high schools

Public school families are once again feeling a sense of dread — fearing the city won’t OK a contract for the Specialized High Schools Admission Test, which would leave their kids in a lurch about getting into those schools.

Of the 700 high-school programs the city offers, anti-merit activists have singled out the eight high schools that use the SHSAT as the sole criteria for admissions (and that have produced 14 Nobel Prize winners) as primary targets.

They’ve raised red-herring “concerns” about digitizing the exam and the cost of the contract with Pearson (a mere $3 million per year or $113 per student), forcing the city’s Panel for Educational Policy to postpone votes on it twice.

Now, 30,000 seventh-grade families — many low-income and first-generation Americans — may become collateral damage, despite the trend in higher education to bring back standardized testing.

This recalls what happened when the PEP voted on the Pearson contract to administer the Gifted & Talented admissions test in January 2021, amid COVID.

Anti-merit activists aggressively goaded the panel to vote it down, even though it’s been used successfully since 2008 to identify students who’d benefit from an accelerated elementary-school program.

Instead, pre-K teachers who’d only known their students for a few weeks decided who got in, resulting in nearly 84% of students being recommended in 2022 (versus 24% when the G&T test was used in 2019) for a program that had typically offered seats to 3% of applicants.

Now, with mixed ability students, G&T teachers struggle to maintain a truly accelerated classroom, to the detriment of all students. 

History may be about to repeat itself, with the PEP poised to vote on the SHSAT contract on Dec. 18.

One added complication: State law requires that “admissions to the [specialized high schools] shall be solely and exclusively by taking a competitive, objective and scholastic achievement examination.” 

That is: There is no other way under the law to seat the freshmen at these schools in September 2026.

Yet, hostility to the SHSAT puts that in jeopardy.

And families are understandably dealing with the anxiety.

What a nightmare.

Proclaiming “merit” a dirty word, radical politicians and a small group of activists (many of whom have or have had children attend a specialized high school) have already changed education in the city for the worse.

Last year, just 46.8% of high-school students were proficient on the Algebra Regents, a whopping 9-point drop from 2023.

Even with the influx of 50,000 migrant families with children since 2023, enrollment is down 100,000 from 2019.

While admissions changes are not the sole reason for the enrollment decline, they are intense motivators.

Facing hobbled G&T programs, lower graduation standards, the loss of honors classes and potential enrollment caps at popular schools due to class-size reduction, middle-class families are not incentivized to stay in the system — or the city.

Kindergarten enrollment is down a staggering 14% citywide.

Districts 2 (Manhattan) and 15 (Brooklyn), both in the spotlight for polarizing admissions policies, lost 19% and 18% respectively in their 2023-24 kindergarten enrollment. 

The Adams administration has managed to slowly claw back some stability, predictability and trust with New York families.

Parents appreciate Mayor Adams’ positive changes: increasing transparency by releasing admissions lottery numbers, giving the 32 school districts autonomy in middle schools’ accelerated programs and admissions and at least nominally preserving G&T. 

Yet voting down the SHSAT contract would be a major blow.

One PEP member boasted about intentionally “creat[ing] a problem” for the Department of Education to force it to focus on inequities by nixing the contract.

Yet that would jeopardize opportunities for 30,000 students and their families.

Many of these kids have already begun studying for an exam they understood would take place in October 2025. 

The DREAM program that offers free SHSAT prep for low-income and underrepresented students in seventh and eighth grade is set to begin in three months.

If the Pearson contract is not approved, the DOE will somehow have to find another exam (yes, it will still be an exam) that complies with state law, while robbing students of the time and resources to prepare. 

Parents will be paying close attention, especially in the context of next year’s mayoral election.

Yearly anxiety about the SHSAT is a constant reminder that public education is tenuously tethered to political winds.

Without guaranteed access to a high-quality, appropriate public education, the city will see a revolt from families when they vote at the ballot box . . . or with their feet.

Yiatin Chu and Lisa Marks are co-presidents of PLACE NYC.