Execs boo$t elite-HS test prep for minorities

A group backed by business titan Ronald Lauder is ramping up its fight to preserve the specialized high-school admissions exam.

Along with former Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons, the Bronx Science graduate is putting up an additional $500,000 to renew and expand a test-prep tutoring program for African-American and Hispanic city kids.

The two men launched Education Equity Campaign last year to counter calls to scrap the singletest admissions structure at the eight schools.

Education Equity, which also counts civil-rights activist Kirsten John Foy as a backer, has asserted that minority students are capable of doing well on the exam if given the resources to do so.

The group said 31 of the 197 kids enrolled in its first tutoring program scored high enough on the test to land spots for specialized high schools in the next academic year.

That 15 percent admissions rate was four times higher than the overall rate for black and Hispanic test takers, according to the group.

With the new donation, the program will now serve roughly 400 kids next year, the group said.

Education Equity is also promoting legislation that would provide free citywide tutoring for the exam.

“While we continue to work with the City Council on passing universal test prep, we’re building on last year’s success by enrolling twice as many Black and Latino students in proven test prep courses this summer,” Lauder said.

“Graduating from the Bronx High School of Science was one of the greatest days of my life, and I want to give every student in our city the chance to experience the power of a world-class education.”

Last year, the city’s specialized campuses were 62 percent Asian, 24 percent white and 9 percent black and Hispanic.

Critics assert that basing admissions on a single exam is a narrow measure of ability that elbows out black and Latino students. They stress that the system benefits families with the time and resources to properly prepare kids for the test.

John Chandler of Harlem enrolled in last year’s Education Equity tutoring program and will enter Stuyvesant HS next year as one of its few black students.

“After months of hard work, I completed 31 practice tests and countless hours of studying to make my dreams a reality, and I am so happy more students will have the opportunity I had thanks to this great program,” he said.

The DOE has called the singletest system “inherently flawed” and argued that its own expansion of exam-prep opportunities has not adequately boosted diversity.

I want to give every student in our city the chance to experience the power of a worldclass education.

Ronald Lauder (left)