Opponents of school desegregation argued in 1977 that “either we have to lower the standards for everybody so the special nature of the schools would disappear, or we would have to allow these students to be subjected to failure.”
It is eerie how today’s opponents repeat these same arguments. This argument assumes that black and Hispanic students are unable to achieve at high levels because they don’t have access to SHSAT test prep. On the contrary, there is no evidence to support the idea that multi-measure admittance will diminish the quality of any of these schools. These arguments are tired dog-whistles to racist assumptions and entirely grounded in efforts to preserve access to these institutions for the few.