Time to erase ‘unreliable’ HS test, says chancellor

Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, in a fervent Saturday address, reiterated his call for an end to admissions tests at the city’s eight specialized high schools.

Carranza (photo inset), speaking at the weekly National Action Network event in Harlem, squeezed in a few shots at President Trump while advocating a change in the city’s educational status quo.

“There’s a question to be asked,” said Carranza, who took over as chancellor April 2. “Either black and Latino students cannot, because of biology, genealogy . . . be successful in schools. Or perhaps the policies and the regulations need to change. They need to change.”

Carranza noted that fewer than 10% of the students admitted to the city’s specialized high schools are black and Latino despite constituting 70% of the student body citywide, and cited the Specialized High School Admissions Test as the primary reason for the disparity.

“We’re the only city in America that requires a single test for admission to a public school,” he said. “So I’m asking the question . . . ‘Is that OK?’ I’m asking the question, ‘Is that justice for our kids?’ ”

Mayor de Blasio supports abolishing the admissions test as well, although backers of the current system cite the test as merit-based for all students.

Carranza argued that too much attention is focused on a single test rather than a student’s body of work.

“You have brilliant black and Latino students . . . if they don’t do well on that test, given one day, for one time period, for one opportunity, if they do not do well they don’t get the opportunity,” said the chancellor, who derided the current system as “neither reliable or valid.”

Carranza, who came to New York from Houston, closed by asking the parents of students to join the fight for change.

“We must be warriors for our children, not for the status quo,” he said.