NY due for specialized-school reckoning: pol

An influential state politician is warning that an overhaul of the city’s specialized-high-school admissions process is inevitable.

State Sen. John Liu (D-Queens), chairman of the Senate’s New York City Education Committee, told a group of parents last week that while City Hall’s push to scrap the current single-test admissions process is “racist” against Asians and a “dumb idea,” changes are unavoidable because of chronically low black and Hispanic enrollment.

“I don’t think the SHSAT is going to be eliminated,” Liu told the crowd of roughly 100 parents, referring to the Specialized High School Admissions Test, which is currently the sole admissions determinant for the city’s top public high schools.

“I personally do not believe it should be eliminated,” Liu said.

But low black and Hispanic enrollment at the eight elite campuses will inevitably compel a “political solution” to the controversial issue, Liu said Thursday in Manhattan, at the inaugural meeting of new parent activist group PLACE.

“In the end, there is going to be some kind of change,” he said.

Currently, 60 percent of specialized high-school students are Asian, 24 percent white, and 10 percent Hispanic and black.

The lack of black and Hispanic students has become “so bad and so unacceptable,” Liu said.

But proposed remedies by Mayor de Blasio and schools Chancellor Richard Carranza have amounted to political theater, charged Liu, who is an alum of Bronx Science HS, one of the elite eight schools.

“The only plan they have put forth is the elimination of the SHSAT, which I don’t think is going to fix the problem,” Liu said. “It was just smoke and mirrors. If they did that, they can say they did something.”