A new study from the Independent Budget Office suggests a wide income gap favoring the wealthy when it comes to admissions to the city’s elite public high schools.
But there’s less to those numbers than meets the eye. At any rate, they certainly don’t justify what is sure to be a more aggressive push to lower those schools’ admission standards.
The IBO, using data from the 2012-2013 school year, found that students in the elites — including Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech and Bronx Science — are more likely to come from the top 40 percent of neighborhoods in terms of family income than students in non-elite schools.
Admission to eight of the nine schools is based solely on a rigorous entrance exam, and critics say wealthier students, whose families can afford pricey tutors, have a leg up.
Maybe they do, but the IBO figures don’t paint an accurate picture of the disparity.
For one, they only look at Census tracts, not the actual students. And even by IBO figures, nearly a third of students in the elites come from the 40 percent of neighborhoods with the lowest median income, compared with 55 percent in other schools.
Moreover, as Larry Cary, president of the Brooklyn Tech alumni association, points out, 50 percent of the students at the elite high schools qualify for free or subsidized lunches, an income-based benefit.
In contrast, he notes, of the eight highest-performing other high schools that use the lower standards the critics endorse, only a third of students qualify for lunch subsidies.
The biggest roadblock to meeting entrance standards at the elite schools isn’t income — it’s the failure of the city’s K-8 schools to adequately educate students.
Give kids a way to escape failing schools, and they’ll have a far better chance of meeting the challenges of high standards.