Recently the nation was rocked by the admissions scandal at the University of Southern California (USC), one of the country’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning. Affluent families have been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to administrators, coaches and advisors to have their children’s entrance into USC guaranteed. Nothing about this is new, the phenomenon of wealthy families  securing  advantage for the next generation has existed since the accumulation of wealth itself began.

The very concept of exams, standards and qualifications were designed to ensure that the 19^th century institutions of  formal education would outperform the previous era’s informal apprenticeships and guilds in producing workers for the industrial age. The highly coveted specialized high schools of NYC – Stuyvesant, The Bronx  Science High School and  Brooklyn Technical High School were all modeled as “manual training” schools for boys, in the early part of the 20^th century. Even into the latter part of the century mandatory machine shop classes were a part of the curriculum. The original purpose of these schools was to produce all male entrants into the  industrialized American workforce of the day.

In 1972, it was determined that an entrance exam would be the only means of entrance into these schools – eliminating any form of nepotism or corruption weighing in on admissions. Of course the impact of socio-economics on who passes or fails the exam can’t be ignored. Even considering those factors, Black student admissions remained at a respectable number until the turn of the 21st century. It wasn’t until under the board of education came under mayoral control just after the turn of the century, and gifted and talented programs were removed from the local school district level; that the performance of Black and Latino children on the NYC SHSAT began to rapidly decline.

The dismal performance of Black  & Latino children on the SHSAT, doesn’t reflect the inadequacies of the exam in properly gauging gifted students, but instead the failure of public primary education, politicians on both sides of the aisle and even a judicial system that was unfairly criminalized Black & Puerto Rican families specifically in this state for decades.  As an a means of redress, the mayor and schools chancellor have proposed a system that automatically guarantees placement to the top 20% of junior high school graduating classes. Many educators fear that this plan will disproportionately benefit a largely white, gentrifying class of families who have been laying down roots in what were once referred to as “Negro-Puerto Rican” neighborhoods, where the drama of a drug war, deindustrialization and divest in education & housing played out across three decades.

Nonetheless, changing the standard for specialized high school admissions to some other besides a standardized test will not better prepare black students to compete in college or beyond, but will only serve to obscure the current divestment from their communities. It’s neither fair nor productive to alter the admissions standard. Instead the right response is to fix the public school system – restore gifted and talented programs in local districts, with the standard for entrance also being determined by that local district’s performance. The sooner we adjust for socio-economic differences in a child’s life the better, waiting until entrance into an elite high-school is too late.

Blandon Casenave is a Brooklyn Tech Alumni, and President of the Harambee Educational Support Foundation.