Mayor of NYC seeks to reduce number of boys in specialized high schools

Article here. Excerpt:

'Mayor de Blasio’s plan to eliminate the Specialized High Schools Admissions test will hurt boys. Models project that if he succeeds in replacing the SHSAT with a grade- and state-test-based quota system, the percentage of boys at the Specialized High Schools will plummet from 54% to 34%, in a city where boys make up 52% of the student population.

That is at least 1,000 fewer seats for boys each year.

While the mayor’s plan to change admissions is explicitly designed to boost the number of black and Hispanic students, it has also disingenuously been sold as a blow for gender equity, since girls now hold slightly less than half the seats at Specialized High Schools.

No mention is made of the fact that boys are woefully underrepresented at the other top screened high schools in the city, nor is it acknowledged that in New York City, and nationwide, boys lag girls in all the important positive educational matrices — grades, graduation rates, college matriculation. Boys trail girls across socioeconomic and ethnic lines, and the poorer and more disadvantaged the community, the clearer the disparity.'