New York’s Elite Public High Schools Have a Diversity Problem. And Other Cities’ Don’t Look Much Better.
Last Friday was “match day” for New York City’s eighth graders, when they found out whether they’d been admitted to one of the city’s elite high schools. And not shockingly, the numbers were appalling when it came to diversity.
There are nine of these selective high schools in New York City. At eight of them, students take a test to get in, and at one—La Guardia High School, which specializes in the performing arts—students must audition. Of the schools that “test in,” black and Latino students will likely make up no more than 4 and 6 percent, respectively, of the student populations next year. Yet across the city, those two groups make up 70 percent of the public school population.
