Elite New York High School Admits 8 Black Students in a Class of 781

With a number like 781 you're going to get some variations on acceptance, along with the fact that it's hard to provide opportunities for folks to excel and test people... and not get acceptance demographics that don't match the community as a whole.

>During the last four decades, Black and Hispanic enrollment at these schools has plummeted as Asian representation has soared. The numbers stand out in a public school system in which 42 percent of students are Hispanic, 20 percent are Black, 19 percent are Asian and 16 percent are white. (Three percent of students are multiracial or Native American.)

It's not like they're only accepting white people or anything like that ... it seems to be about who can test well to get into the school.

Reminds me of my wife's local school district who decided that "too many" black students were being refereed to get special services, physical therapy, extra help in the classroom. They thought it might make them look racist ... so they unofficially discouraged putting "too many" black kids into that system.

IIRC, the percentage of Black students admitted to elite public schools was 10% in 1975.

What happened in the last 50 years to move that number down by a factor of 10 - literal decimation?

When I attended Stuyvesant there were more than eight black students in my class. But that was many years ago, before the school moved down to FiDi.

The problem, IMNSHO, isn't Stuyvesant (or Bronx Science/Brooklyn Tech/etc.). The problem is that too many primary schools in NYC fail to adequately prepare their students for secondary education.

No old white guy sits around accepting/rejecting applications for the Specialized High Schools. Rather, it's the cold, hard numbers from the Specialized High School Admissions Test[0].

That so few black students are admitted is an clear indictment of the NYC public schools' level of segregation and lack of preparation for secondary school in predominantly black neighborhoods.

This isn't just poor quality education/lesser quality teachers in many schools, but also a lack of participation from parents/communities forcing the schools to be more rigorous.

It's disgusting, and as I mentioned, we're doing worse WRT primary education for poor folks than we were in the 1970s and 1980s. For shame NYC! For shame!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_High_Schools_Admis...

Can't even see what school it is to look up some stats without an account. Lame.