Yes, this is sad. My child is a product of the specialized High School’s and is doing very well. I am very familiar with these programs and I can tell you they may as well close the schools if they do this.
There are various Honors programs throughout the NYC public school system. Some of my kids school mates from Junior High didn’t score high enough in this test to make the specialized schools and ended up in them instead. I had 4 years to compare the work and results, the Non-specialized schools are good as well, but they run a trophy for everyone program. Everyone got great grades, in the specialized program everyone earned good grades. I could go on, but it’s pretty obvious where it goes from here...
I suspect these schools were the only way for white and Asian parents to safely put their children in public schools; if they fill them with those under-represented populations (under-represented because their cultures place little value on education) then many of those original parents probably have to leave NYC.
my kid goes to Hunter; EARN grades is the operative phrase
dumbing down the test is tragic and harms the children