It’s More Than Admissions: Rethinking NYC’s High School Diversity Problem

Earlier this year, New York City’s public high school admissions process, long known for its complexity, wrapped its third year of major policy change since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Calls for more diversity and equity have played a critical role in driving these changes. Black and Hispanic students are consistently underrepresented within New York City’s most selective high schools, despite comprising the majority of the city’s public school population at large. The fight to alleviate this disparity continues, no matter the contention that stands in the way.

In September 2022, city schools Chancellor David Banks announced a new set of changes to high school admissions criteria. These changes included a tight cutoff for priority consideration at some of the city’s top schools (i.e., schools that screen students for academic merit and strong attendance records). Eighth graders vying for these coveted seats needed to have ranked within the top 15% of their seventh grade cohort (either within their school or citywide) and have earned a grade point average of 90 or above (out of 100 for students prior to high school). This is a notable shift from 2021’s criteria, which required students to have a grade point average of at least 85. Under this previous policy, 60% of applicants qualified for priority consideration; by comparison, city education officials estimated that just 20% would qualify under the latest standards.

One could argue that these changes signify a compromise. Critics were quick to scorn the more lax GPA requirements implemented in 2021, claiming that they undermined the efforts of consistently high-achieving students. Meanwhile, proponents of the reform welcomed the ease of restrictions and the pathway to access it provided for students from minoritized backgrounds. With a return to more stringent but still somewhat flexible guidelines (the 2021 policy also included a discounting of students’ state exam scores and attendance records in the evaluation process, a practice that appeared to have been carried over this past year), the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) devised a strategy that allows for a shift further away from the status quo while also considering the concerns of people on both sides of the aisle.

But did it work? For the most part, no. A more detailed report of all the schools in question is not yet available, but for the city’s specialized high schools, the institutions that grant admission based solely on one’s score on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) just under 10% of seats in the 2023 ninth grade class went to Black and Hispanic students. This is far below their white and Asian peers, who received 27% and 53% of offers, respectively.

The 2022 reforms were a step in the right direction, but there is a lurking factor upholding the unwavering racial disparities within New York City’s selective high schools: the academic preparedness, or “merit,” of applicants. The thinking underlying New York’s meritocratic process is typical of those of its kind: there are many schools to choose from, but only a small percentage are among “the best,” so, naturally, the “best” students should be chosen to attend them. This is what’s seen as fair, but considering the larger context, it does not always pan out that way.

In a school system marred by historic inequality, not all students are granted the opportunities and resources to earn “the best” status. Other recent admissions trends reflect this disparity. Data from the 2020 application cycle show that Black and Hispanic students were admitted to the city’s 27 highest-performing screened schools at almost half the rates of white and Asian students. Specifically, while 9.2% of white students and 8.6% of Asian students who applied to these schools were offered spots in the incoming class, only 4.4% of Black students and 4.9% of Hispanic students who applied were accepted.

Data from the city’s specialized high schools again paint a similar picture. Only about 9% of seats available in the 2021 and 2022 incoming ninth grade classes were offered to Black and Hispanic students, a figure eerily resembling the numbers reported for this year’s class.

These trends are disheartening, but no data of any kind should be considered in isolation. Differences in school quality during and preceding eighth grade, along with disparities in the availability of educational resources in general, make Black and Hispanic students less likely to stand out academically to selective high schools, greatly lowering their chances of admission. Because of this, the years leading up to the application process must undergo better reform to achieve a more profound level of equity.

To be fair, some progress was made under the previous policy. Compared to 2020, the aforementioned 27 highest-performing screened schools saw a sizable increase in Black and Hispanic admission during the 2021 cycle, with acceptances among these groups jumping from 28% to 40% of all offers made. But with the current limitations within the admissions policy being in effect, such progress could be short-lived. The solution, then, is not a tougher numbers game—raising the bar on admissible GPAs, but rather a new strategy to ensure that more students from underrepresented groups are able to reach the cutoff in the first place.

Moving forward, school improvement should be at the heart of reform efforts. There are many high-performing middle schools that predominantly serve Black and Hispanic students, but the problem is that these schools are an underutilized resource. Though it is important to highlight the issues, we cannot neglect the fact that some schools in underserved communities consistently boast academic outcomes that exceed local trends. If these schools have built educational models that help underserved youth defy the odds and close achievement gaps, then the onus is on the Chancellor and NYCDOE to tap into that pipeline of success and find a way to disseminate them to lower-performing schools that serve similar populations.

Countless resources can be leveraged to inform this work. The NYCDOE should call for an expansion of New York University’s research on equity issues within the city’s schools by conducting a study of high-performing middle schools where the majority of students come from underserved communities. This study would identify common practices within these successful schools. The NYCDOE could then organize district-based convenings to facilitate partnerships between these schools and their lower-performing peer institutions to create and implement improvement plans that can attain better outcomes while also being responsive to each school’s unique needs.

As this process unfolds, the Department would take on a solely supervisory role. It would provide general guidelines and offer resources as needed, but otherwise the bulk of this work would be the schools working together to determine the best path forward. Past reforms have relied on strict top-down initiatives (which typically have limited success) and rash school closures (which interrupt students’ academic lives and do not guarantee better outcomes). An alternative approach is vital because it aims to centralize the perspectives of those the new reforms will directly impact. To do otherwise would be a display of disregard for the expertise and deep self-knowledge that these schools possess and would rob all parties involved of the opportunity to collaborate as strategically and intentionally as possible.

Quality education should be readily available to all students, not an elusive resource only granted to a select few. With Black and Hispanic students consistently having more difficulty in accessing New York’s top high schools, the middle school experience—not the admissions process itself— needs a major overhaul to better live up to the city’s ideal of opportunity for all. All students, regardless of who they are and where they’re applying from, should be entering the process having had robust academic experiences and the chance to envision their full potential as high school scholars. The NYCDOE must let its most impacted middle schools take the lead at making change so that this can become reality.

---