NYC schools abandon meritocracy

For most Americans, which high school their children attend is a pretty basic decision. They either send their children to the school designated by where they live (Smallville students from Smallville Middle School move on to Smallville High School) or they send them to one of a few private schools in their area, typically religious schools such as Our Lady of Grace of Smallville. Not so in New York City, where a combination of woke politics and 2022-style fairness leaves one wondering how much we really hate our children.

Until two years ago, NYC’s high school system, which was similar for middle schools, had a very few specialty high schools at the top, including Stuyvesant High (STEM), Bronx High School of Science, and LaGuardia High School of Music, Art, and Performing Arts (The FAME! school; grads include Nicki Minaj, Al Pacino, and Timothée Chalamet) allied with the Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts.

Each had specific requirements for attendance; the former two had an entrance exam, which produced a rank-order entrance list irrespective of grades and other factors. The schools were hypercompetitive and ended up racially tilted toward white and Asian students (in a recent year, only seven black students got into Stuyvesant, out of 895 spots).