Who Finds Out About Summer Test Prep Can Depend on Race

Cecily Robinson teaches two different groups of students in two different academic settings.

She teaches primarily black and Latino students she teaches at a charter school in the Bronx during the academic year and primarily Asian students at an enrichment center, A+ Academy, during the summer. Robinson has found that there’s a huge divide when it comes to information about the test that determines admission to specialized high schools — and that it seems to fall along racial lines.  

“Students here, they already know what specialized high school they want to go to. It’s like no option — it’s like my sister went to this specialized high school, my cousin,” Robinson said. “They have examples of who went there.”

That isn’t the case among her students in the Bronx.

“Can it be done? Can my kids, and I say my kids, have the same achievements? Yes. But it’s knowing where to start.”

Tai Abrams operates a company called Admission Squad whose mission is to get more African-American raise the low numbers of black students who get into specialized high schools. Abrams credited her alma mater, Bronx Science, with paving the way for her to Duke University and then to Wall Street.

She said specialized high schools were often a ticket to good colleges and careers but she thought not enough black alumni  share their experiences with their wider communities.

“Once a family has successfully navigated the process, each family has to find it out for themselves all over again,” she said.

Abrams began offering test prep in 2011 and heard many students tell her they didn’t know about the specialized high school admissions process.

Seven years later, she said, not much has changed.

”‘Oh man, I didn’t know!’ And I’m like how are you guys still not knowing? It doesn’t make sense. It’s all over the news. So there is a gap there.”

The gap extended beyond the disparities in the education system which sees more black students attending lower-performing schools to include what students might face at home, like for example, single-parent homes.

“When you have one person having to go to work, who is that person that’s able to go to PTA meetings, show up in school, get the information needed?” Abrams asked. Unless a grandparent or another adult can step in, single parent families are at a disadvantage when it comes to navigating the complex process of high school admissions, which can require not just tests but also school tours, auditions and interviews.  

Abrams said most of the students in Admission Squad’s summer program came from two-parent homes.

“If if it wasn’t for having a dual-income household, I would not be able to afford it at all,” said Auressa Simmons who enrolled her daughter Anaiyah.

On top of the tuition for the summer program, she and her husband pay for a van share that takes Anaiyah to her summer classes.

In contrast, Melissa Doyle is just tuning into the high-school admissions process for her eighth-grade son. She attended a recent session in the Bronx about the specialized high schools.

“I didn’t even know  that they had to take the, what is it, the S-H-S-A-T test,” Doyle said. If her son decides to take the entrance exam in October, he’ll be competing against students who spent years preparing for it.