An education panel approved a contract Wednesday night for a digital entrance exam to the city’s specialized high schools after it reignited an equity debate over using a single test to admit students.
Progressive members of the Panel for Educational Policy had been reluctant to greenlight the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), following years of stubbornly low rates of Black and Hispanic student enrollment. The city twice delayed a final decision and held a town hall on the contract while trying to secure the votes.
Under state law, the SHSAT is the sole means of admissions to eight high schools, including Stuyvesant High School, the Bronx High School of Science, and Brooklyn Technical High School. Fourteen panelists voted to approve the contract for a vendor; two rejected it. Four members abstained from the vote.
“I’ve heard the comment that if we were to defeat this contract, we would really cripple the incoming freshmen class, and that’s not a position I would feel comfortable with,” said Gregory Faulkner, the panel chair at Sunset Park High School in Brooklyn. “However, I do think it’s important that we not let this be the end of this conversation.”
“It is clear that there are problems. When you look at the percentages of Black and Latino students who enter the school, it is problematic,” Faulkner said.
The contract with testing giant Pearson will cost $17 million over five years, with options to extend the agreement by up to two years. By next application cycle, Pearson will create and administer a digital version of the SHSAT, though paper exams will still be available for students with disabilities who need accommodations. During the contract period, the test is expected to become an adaptive — giving students questions based on how they performed on the exam so far.
The SHSAT is the latest in a series of tests to move onto the computer. The SAT, Advanced Placement and New York state tests have all transitioned online in recent years, or are in the process of doing so.
“We as a panel have not seen a model of this test,” said Jessamyn Lee, who represents Brooklyn parents on the panel. “We are being asked to radically change the way your students take this test and the testing experience of students to come — sight unseen, just taken on faith.”
Close to 100 parents and children spoke in support of the contract during the meeting, fearing a failure to approve the vendor could leave the elite high schools without freshman classes in the coming years. Families defended the test-only admissions process as a merit-based way of selecting students — and blamed the school system’s ability to prepare students, and not the test itself, for disparate outcomes.
“Everyone can excel on this test,” said Lisa Marks, a parent of three public school students and co-president of the group Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum Education, which launched a petition with about 5,000 signatures. “And to think otherwise is to show the bigotry of low expectations.”
A handful of speakers against the contract were met with boos and hecklers who shouted “wrong!” “misinformation!” and “liar!” Throughout the meeting, which lasted roughly five hours, the panel chair had to ask parents to respect one another and follow the example set by children in the room.
Out of 25,700 eighth-graders who took the SHSAT last year, just over 4,000 students received offers, admissions data show. Fewer than 5% and 8% of offers for specialized high schools went to Black and Hispanic students for this fall, compared with more than a quarter and a half of white and Asian students, respectively.
Several hundred more students are accepted to the specialized high schools every year through a program for test-takers who just missed the score cut-offs.
“I’ve heard people say that, you know, the problem is not the test; the problem is the system,” said Tom Sheppard, a Bronx parents representative on the panel and a Brooklyn Tech alum. “Guess what? It is possible for more than one thing to be true.”
“There is a problem with the way that K to 8 runs, but you cannot convince me that a test is fair when it produces those results,” Sheppard added, pointing to the low number of offers made in the Bronx. “The test is working exactly how it’s designed to work.”