An Inconvenient Test

Anewly released study confirms that the admissions test for the city’s elite high schools reliably IDs kids likely to succeed at them. Yet Mayor de Blasio still wants to scrap it — to boost diversity. Kudos to Chalkbeat for forcing the city to release the 2013 Metis study, which reviewed data from eighth-graders who took the Specialized High School Admissions Test from 2005 to 2009.

Researchers wanted to see how well the scores predicted kids’ GPAs and their Regents and Advanced Placement results in their first two years of high school. The data, they found, showed a “strong positive predictive relationship between the SHSAT and high school academic achievement.”

That is, the test is a useful tool to ensure that the city’s eight elite schools (Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, etc.) are a good match for the kids they accept.

Which is why Team de Blasio refused to release the study until Chalkbeat demanded it under public-access laws: It shows that de Blasio’s plan to scrap the SHSAT in favor of other admissions procedures would wind up sending less-well-prepared kids to these schools — at the expense of students for whom the schools are more appropriate.

A Department of Education aide poohpoohed the study, claiming it “misses” kids who do worse on the test yet still stand “an excellent chance of being successful.”

Uh, no: The study showed clearly that kids who do worse on the SHSAT are less likely to do well at the schools.

Hizzoner’s goal is purely to change the schools’ racial balance: Though blacks and Hispanics are nearly 70 percent of publicschool kids, they’re just 10 percent of the top schools’ populations.

Problem is, the test itself is race-blind. The only way to get more black and Hispanic kids qualified for the top high schools is to improve their elementary and middle schools. But that’s much harder than simply ditching the exam. For starters, it means taking on the unions that run the schools.

Once again, de Blasio wants the credit for caring about the city’s disadvantaged but can’t be bothered to do the hard work to truly make a difference.