New York City’s eight specialized high schools — including Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Dante de Blasio’s Brooklyn Tech — are the crowning symbols of our public-school system. To be admitted, students have to pass a rigorous entrance exam.

Turns out, minority kids are not passing the exams in numbers proportional to their population. So pols are offering their usual condescending solution: lower standards.

Legislation in Albany, backed by the teachers union, would change admission criteria from a merit-based exam to a formula that would include other factors, such as grade point average and attendance.

Still, it’s crystal clear what our elites mean when they claim the exams are “biased” against black and Latinos: They’re really saying they don’t believe these kids can pass.

We don’t believe that for a moment.

After all, other minorities pass. Asians account for half the students at our specialized high schools, more than triple their population. Which suggests that instead of seeking to lower the bar for all, pols ought to be looking to raise black and Latino achievement.

Other New York City schools are already doing just that. Take Regis High School, an all-scholarship Catholic school that also requires applicants to pass a tough exam.

Years ago, Regis established its REACH program to give extra academic help for underprivileged minority children from sixth to eighth grade.

Today, 20 percent of Regis students are black and Hispanic, and 100 percent of Regis graduates go to college.

Regis proves you don’t have to choose between diversity and excellence. And the best charters show the same thing: Black and Hispanic kids can excel when challenged.

George W. Bush nailed the problem in New York back in 1999 when he complained about “the soft bigotry of low expectations” in too many US public school systems.

Our answer: Give black and Latino children a way to escape failing public grade schools — and their entrance to high-performing high schools won’t be such a problem.