Why try to “fix” the SHSAT?  Isn’t the issue of the fact that only about 30% of Black students read at grade-level?

The above question is a common, yet incorrect argument.  That some demographics “in aggregate” are not prepared enough to do well at specialized high schools.  Hence the test weeds them out.

The argument is confusing descriptive statistics that describe demographics, with an individual student’s potential.  In other words, it fails to consider that within that 30% of black students who perform at grade level, the top percentiles perform comparatively to the top percentiles of the roughly 60% Asian and White students who perform at or above grade level.

It’s a stretch, but with all else equal there should be twice as many Asian students at Stuyvesant than Black students, taking proficiency into account alone.  But instead, we have close to SIXTY times.  And that’s 2x versus 60x.

The use of the SHSAT is an access problem and a rigor problem.  It’s not just a rigor problem, as the original question implies.  The SHSAT exam limits individual high-performing students’ access to highly sort after resources.  In other words, even a school that has never sent a student to any specialized high schools may unknowingly have a student that deserves admittance to Stuyvesant.  But without specific attention to SHSAT prep, that child will never make it there.