Will Zohran Mamdani Kill the Best Thing About New York City Public Schools?
The city's specialized high schools are one of the lone bright spots of its struggling public school system.
With Zohran Mamdani projected to win the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, his slate of socialist-influenced policies, from city-owned grocery stores to a rent freeze, are one step closer to reality. Mamdani's socialist agenda won't stop with housing policy or the minimum wage. It will also hit America's largest public school system and aim to kill the best thing about it.
While New York City schools are routinely criticized for overspending, underaccountable teachers' unions, and general dysfunction, the city's group of selective high schools is a consistent bright spot. Eight schools, including Mamdani's alma mater, Bronx High School of Science, admit students through an exam. The schools give talented students from all over the city the ability to escape chaotic local schools and receive an education at some of the top public high schools in the country.
However, the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), which is the test used to admit students, has long come under fire for what critics say is a racial bias. That's because Asian students overwhelmingly perform best on these tests. In 2023, for example, over two-thirds of the students at Stuyvesant High School (widely regarded as the best of the eight high schools) were Asain. However, this framing is reductive. It's worth noting that Asians have the lowest median income of any racial group in New York City. And, contrary to the popular vision of magnet schools being comprised of upper-middle-class white and Asian students, New York's selective high schools are economically diverse; 50 percent of Stuyvesant students are economically disadvantaged. At Bronx Science, it's 52 percent.
But that hasn't kept politicians from attacking the schools as segregated, and the SHSAT as racist. In 2018, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) called the high schools a "monumental injustice." He attempted to survert a state law protecting the SHSAT, but the admissions change has so far been tied up in a legal battle.
Over the years, Mamdani has stated that he would also attempt to ditch the admissions test. "As a graduate of Bronx Science, I have personally witnessed just how segregated New York City public schools are, especially our specialized high schools," he said in a 2022 interview. "I support measures to integrate our public schools and fully fund our education system, including the abolition of the SHSAT."
Last month he made a similar statement, saying that "My administration will focus on addressing the root educational causes of this segregation by implementing recommendations from the 2019 School Diversity Advisory Group's at elementary and middle schools across our city and support an independent analysis of the Specialized HS exam for gender and racial bias." The recommendations he mentions argue in favor of eliminating elementary school-level gifted and talented programs, and placing a moratorium on new test-in high schools.
While it's reasonable to be troubled by the disproportionate lack of black and Hispanic students at specialized high schools, it's important to remember that ditching a test that reveals entrenched inequalities does nothing to ameliorate them. Further, the city already has a program to allow low-income students who barely missed out on admissions to still attend specialized schools with extra study during the summer, which seems like a fair way to balance merit with concerns that students with fewer resources may miss out on admissions.
Getting rid of a merit-based opportunities metric can't close persistent achievement gaps between ethnic groups. Instead, it will deprive talented students—low-income students whose parents can't afford private school in particular—of the ability to attend a school with similarly talented peers, while making it harder to identify how and why other students are struggling.
