Metro

Andrew Yang: Admission to elite schools shouldn’t just be about tests

WASHINGTON – Presidential hopeful Andrew Yang said the high-stakes tests required for entry into New York City’s elite public high schools should not be the only requirement for admission.

“I think we should de-emphasize them. If they are going to be used and they should be used in conjunction with more holistic practices,” Yang told The Post.

New York state law mandates a standardized test for admission into Stuyvesant High School, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech among other elite public New York City schools.

The test has come under scrutiny by Mayor Bill de Blasio and others because black and Hispanic enrollment has fallen at the elite schools while Asian American enrollment has increased.

De Blasio had pitched ditching the admissions tests as the best way to resolve the disproportionate rate of white and Asian students gaining entrance to the city’s elite specialized high schools. But under pressure from Asian American politicians and others, de Blasio changed his tune.





Yang has a unique perspective on the issue: He used to run Manhattan Prep, a company that prepares students for standardized tests. And one of his education goals as president is to expand selective schools to more people, including Stuyvesant.

Speaking at the National Press Club Monday, the Post asked Yang about whether the standardized tests used for admissions are discriminatory.

Yang, the former test guru, spoke out against the tests and said they are poor measurements of human intellect or worth.

“We came up with the SAT during World War II as a means to figure out which kids we do not want to send to the front lines. And somehow now in America, every year is wartime,” Yang said, noting the tests shortchange kids’ ambitions.





“I believe that we overemphasize the standardized tests at every level in the United States right now and that it’s doing our kids harm.”

Yang grew up in the Hudson Valley and attended Somers High School. But after sophomore year, he earned admission to the Phillips Exeter Academy, the elite boarding school in New Hampshire.

Yang says that schools like Exeter, Harvard, Yale and Stuyvesant have the resources to expand, but don’t have an incentive to do so.

The false sense of scarcity has “warped parent and student behavior towards cutthroat competition” and driven “extreme, unhealthy, unethical, and even illegal behaviors. It is deranging our culture,” Yang says on his campaign website in calling for incentives for elite schools to admit more students.

“Artificial scarcity has been created at these highly selective academic resources in the name of institutional prestige,” Yang’s website continues. “It’s time instead to create opportunities for more American students.”





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