Corey Johnson Backs Push To Scrap NYC's Elite High School Test

NEW YORK — City Council Speaker Corey Johnson added his name Thursday to the list of public officials who want to abolish the controversial entrance exam for New York City's most exclusive public high schools.

Johnson, a Democrat, called for abolishing the Specialized High School Admissions Test in an op-ed for Chalkbeat, saying the decades-old state law that mandates its use is "based on racism."

"I support the success of all communities, which is why I believe the single test admissions process used to gain admittance to our eight test-based specialized schools must be abolished," Johnson wrote. "This is not a decision I make lightly, but I believe when tackling tough issues, we must make decisions based on fact, not on emotion or politics."

The speaker also wants the city to establish more "elite" high schools separate from the eight specialized schools that currently use the test as their sole basis of admission. That would allow the Department of Education to test new admissions schemes without the state's go-ahead, Johnson said.

News last week that only 506 black and Hispanic students were offered seats at the test-based specialized high schools revived the heated debate over how to better integrate them. A majority of the 4,798 students who received offers are Asian, according to DOE data.

Johnson joined Mayor Bill de Blasio in calling for an end to the test, which is required by a 1971 state law. Experts say the city could act on its own to use different admissions standards for the five specialized schools not named in the state law.

While Johnson did not address those five schools, he wrote that creating more "City-designated elite high schools" would add thousands of seats, allowing the city to avoid reducing space "for any community."

De Blasio's push to scrap the test has received significant pushback from Asian-American parents. A group of them joined a December lawsuit over the mayor's plan to expand the so-called Discovery program, which offers specialized high school seats to students who just miss the cutoff score.

Johnson noted the "broad consensus" among educators and others that students' crucial educational decisions should not depend on a single test score. Many colleges have downplayed the importance of standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT or removed them from admissions decisions altogether, the speaker wrote.

Aside from scrapping the test and creating more elite schools, Johnson said the Council will consider several pieces of legislation to improve school diversity, including one that would create a task force to recommend new admissions criteria for the specialized high schools.

Several other public officials have decried the racial imbalance at the prestigious schools but stopped short of calling for an end to the exam.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — an alumnus of Brooklyn Technical High School, one of the test-based schools — says the test should stay but the city should also expand its programs for gifted and talented students and access to test preparation.

"For some students, eliminating the SHSAT could possibly be beneficial — but for this student 30 years ago, or thousands like me now, it would shut us out," Williams wrote Wednesday in the New York Daily News. "There are thousands of students who, whether because of learning disabilities, challenges at home or a myriad of factors, do not demonstrate their potential in a classroom setting."