Contesting Merit |
In May, Salma, a U.S.-born Bangladeshi-American sophomore at Stuyvesant High, was asked what she thought of the SHSAT. The reason that Stuy is Stuy, she replied, is that we re the smart kids who do well on tests. . . . I think that s one of the reasons that everyone in Stuy thinks the SHSAT should be there, because if the test wasn t here, what s the point of Stuy then? What s the point of even being here?
If it weren’t for standardized tests, I would never have gotten out of Idaho. Now I’m beginning to think it might have been a mistake to leave. But I did ultimately meet LWJ and that’s a plus. His sky high score on the entrance exam got her dad out of a Bronx tenement – he went to Bronx Science – and without that I suppose I never would have met her. Standardized tests are one of the few way kids from non-elite backgrounds can get elite educations.