A Brooklyn Tech student for the test

Mayor de Blasio this week called for doing away with the Specialized High School Admissions Test, one that I and my fellow students at Brooklyn Tech — and, a few years ago, de Blasio’s son, Dante — had to pass to win entry to what has proven to be a grueling but rewarding education.

The mayor argues that it is unfair that so few students in specialized high schools are African-American or Latino, who comprise almost 70% of students in the school system overall.

Would I, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, prefer that I were going to a high school that included more African-American and Latino students? Of course, since the interaction with students from around the city and from all ethnic and racial groups brings me in contact with people whose life experiences are in some ways so different — and, of course, in some ways not so different at all — from mine.

But I also know that every one of my classmates, of whatever race or ethnicity, earned his or her way in through the test. And I know that students from every community have the potential to succeed on the test, and in the schools, if given the tools to do so.

The problem is not the test itself, but that too many youngsters in neighborhoods like mine don’t get the access to enhanced academics and test preparation I was able to get because a math teacher at my middle school, Lenox Academy in Canarsie, saw me as having high potential.

That teacher saw my high grades, and high scores on state standardized tests, and hooked me up with a STEM Pipeline program operated by the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation starting in sixth grade.

I had to send in my transcripts and write an essay, and I, along with four other Lenox Academy students, was admitted to the Pipeline program, which state legislators have urged the city to expand.

We spent the summer of sixth grade doing engineering projects, building Rube Goldberg-type machines and learning architectural design. And we were linked to mentors who began a process of test preparation, work that continued into seventh and eighth grades.

We took practice tests that served as a diagnostic tool identifying areas where we needed more work, and saw to it that we got help in those areas.

Four of us in the program eventually took the Specialized High School Admissions Test and were admitted to Tech. (The fifth moved to Atlanta.) I am now finishing my junior year here, majoring in engineering and preparing for a senior year I know will be consumed by applying for college, where my current plan is to major in electrical engineering, and maybe marketing or business.

The mayor should move ahead with his proposal to expand the Discovery Program, which allows students from disadvantaged backgrounds who just miss the cutoff score a chance to take enhanced coursework over the summer after the eighth grade and earn admission to the schools. One of my Lenox Academy middle school classmates did just that. Discovery students do just as well as those who made the schools based on their score alone. And I applaud Bronx state Sen. Jamaal Bailey, even if he is a Bronx Science graduate, for proposing the creation of a pre-Specialized High School Admissions Test exam to be given in sixth grade, to offer high-potential students the opportunity to find where they may have deficiencies they can work to correct before the eighth-grade admissions test.

It is a sad fact that too many high-potential students in Canarsie and other minority neighborhoods don’t even know about the specialized schools, let alone the Specialized High School Admissions Test. The benefit I gained from a teacher who went out of her way to see my potential, and guide me to a program that could help me develop my skills, is the kind of commitment we need to see across the city.

That is where the city should be investing to identify high-potential students from African-American and Latino neighborhoods at a younger age and prepare them for the test and the school.

Brooklyn Tech and the other specialized schools are not for everybody, but for those who can do the work, they offer an unparalleled education and a pathway to college and success. Those students exist in every neighborhood.

Instead of ending the test, let’s find them and give them every opportunity to get here.