Bangladeshi families prep for controversial specialized high school exam

About 40 middle school children—all but one from Bangladeshi immigrant families in the Bronx—sat quietly inside a stark classroom at Khan’s Tutorial in Parkchester on a Sunday afternoon in September. Barely audible from the upstairs classroom were the sounds of children playing at a nearby park as the 12 and 13-year-olds reviewed fractions, greatest common factors and least common multiples.

Still, for Rafsan, one wrong answer meant there was room for improvement. Parents said they can spend up to $4,000 for the year-long tutoring program.

Asian Test-Prep Centers Offer Parents Exactly What They Want: ‘Results’

At GPS, as with its competitors, one of the most popular courses focuses on New York City’s Specialized High School Admissions Test, an entrance requirement for eight of the city’s nine specialized high schools. (LaGuardia High, a performing-arts school, has an audition system.) Less than 20 percent of eighth graders who take the exam clear the minimum score needed to get into a specialized school, including — at the most competitive end — Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School.