I am a Black Student in a Specialized High School; We Need to Keep the SHSAT and Academic Screens!

City leaders want to take away driving forces of motivation for so many Black and minority students: screened schools. As a Black student from Queens, someone who knows Black neighborhoods, a current attendant of the famed LaGuardia Specialized High school of Performing Arts, and someone who benefits from the screened school system, I can say with full certainty that screened schools allowed me to pursue my dreams, where there were otherwise no options. Amidst all the chaos in the world right now, city leaders are making it more difficult for students just like me to get into the city’s specialized high schools. The same sentiment comes from countless others, real New Yorkers who know what the city needs.

It was only in the year when I started applying for high schools, eighth grade, that I fully discovered and understood the New York City High school application system, and that exactly seems to be the problem. The lack of African Americans and other minority groups is a consequence of the astounding lack of information given to students in minority and underfunded neighborhoods. When looking around at my Black friends and classmates, a great many of them did not know or understand the requirements for the city’s top high schools, despite themselves meeting even more than the requirements. While anti-screening opposition actively aims to delegitimize testing, grades, and school performance as criteria for application, it ignores the fact that it is precisely these qualities and skills which propel Black and POC students to academic excellence and distinction. Now is not the time to be taking away screened schools, schools that help minority children.

Go out into the depths of Queens and Brooklyn, or up to upper Manhattan and the Bronx, to find that countless schools in this city do not adequately prepare middle schoolers and lower-level students for the high school application process. Eliminating screening will not stop the inadequacies within the current system, it will only add convolution to the system. If the system is unjust now, then students will not face any more equity after the screening is taken away. If city leaders really wanted to help these underfunded neighborhoods, then they would put funding into these underprivileged areas. We need to help people directly. Students need to be aware of the high school application process in middle schools. The amount of times I have heard “If only I knew about these schools sooner” from Black students is appalling. In my own middle school, I received nothing but a 10-minute assembly, which was never followed up for students that missed it. I needed to do lengthy personal research for any questions I had about the application process.

I will never forget the difficulty with which I had to scour information about my current high school, La Guardia. Whatever happened to the Discovery program that was designed to help disadvantaged students like me? Where and what are the funds that go towards low-income neighborhoods? There are students who, in addition to already living in poverty, attend overcrammed classes with limited resources, struggle to pay for school supplies and even necessities. Why is it that the city leaders act surprised when these same students are unaware of how to apply to these screened schools? As it stands now, city leaders would rather eliminate the factors that made specialized high schools so great as opposed to directly helping the neighborhoods and students that they claim to be looking out for.

It was not with closed eyes that I observed the anti-screening argument. Those opposed to screening aim to uproot testing, grades, attendance, and heavens knows what else to stop it. If these factors are removed from specialized, excelling and talented school admissions then what do screened schools judge by? The answer is nothing; these radical groups aim to get rid of screened schools completely. New York’s specialized and advanced schools have been beacons of hope for students in my exact place for generations. The teaching, the students, and the greatness that I witness in my school constantly, even in a digital learning environment, is inspiring. My Black and POC friends that attend the city’s other specialized high schools impress me just as much with their goals, ambitions, and learning. These same factors are exactly what created these schools in the first place.

There are countless minority students that study YEARS in advance for high school application exams and work tirelessly to perfect their grades for applications that they know are a source of incredible opportunity. Minority students just like myself worked so hard in tutoring centers with proven track records like Kweller Prep to keep grades up and do whatever we could to learn about the school application process, and this hard work cannot be erased. Can you imagine what it feels like to dream of wanting to engage in a rigorous and advanced learning environment that has built success for decades only to find that some group aims to destroy your dream schools?

In cities across the United States like Detroit and Cleveland, the privatization of schools is creating a segregated school environment, the likes of which have not been seen since the Jim Crow days; the situation is entirely different in New York. There is a reason why the eight specialized high schools in New York City have earned their legacy, and that is because New York City’s screened school environment is completely unique. Few other places, if any, can offer such a generous selection of advanced PUBLIC schools that are attainable to students from every trickle of society.

Powerful anti-screening city leaders like Rachel Noerdlinger, former Chief of Staff to New York’s First Lady, send their own children to schools ranging in prices upwards of 60 and even 70,000 dollars. Millionaires with no understanding of common human plights and struggles participate in performative activism just so that they could look like progressive makers of change and reform. Even when money is not a topic of conversation, people like New York City Mayor De Blasio, who actively put out and support anti-screening and anti-testing policies, have children of their own that attended specialized high schools. Why is local government intertwined with hypocrisy and outright selfishness?

What is there to strive for when the city’s success tickets for passionate and hardworking students disappear? How can there be groups striving to end such a symbol of strength and motivation for minority students? There is no greater wish in my mind than to share my experience with other hardworking Black students just like me. The greatness and brilliance that these schools manage to produce, is something that I have the gift of seeing daily. As someone who is already looking forward to upcoming College Applications, my position in a specialized high school is secure. I write not for myself, but for the future generations of New York City public school children. I write to be a voice for minorities. I write to speak for those who cannot themselves represent underfunded neighborhoods. I write to keep the integrity of these schools and their names. I write on behalf of the students of the New York City.

Leo is a 16-year-old who attends LaGuardia High School. He was born and raised in Queens, New York.