Should NYC’s Specialized High School Test Come in Other Languages? Manhattan Parent Council Says No

A Manhattan parent council debated—and rejected—a resolution earlier this month urging New York City’s Education Department to translate the admissions test for the city’s eight coveted specialized high schools into languages other than English.

The resolution, which failed by a vote of 5-3 in the Community Education Council for Manhattan’s District 2, was only advisory and would not have shifted the city’s existing policy.

But it sparked a public discussion about an aspect of the exam that’s gotten comparatively little attention, and it raised broader questions about the dearth of English-language learners in the specialized high schools, which include Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.

“There’s definitely underrepresentation of [English learners] in these schools,” said Gavin Healy, a council member who co-sponsored the resolution following a story from Chalkbeat highlighting the barriers for newly arrived immigrants seeking admission to specialized high schools. “This has been an ongoing problem.”

Last school year, just four of the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in the eight specialized high schools, or 0.03 percent, were classified as English learners, according to city data. That’s in a school system where roughly 148,000 students, or 16.3 percent of the population, are learning English, a share that’s been growing as the city absorbs tens of thousands of migrant families.

The exam, which is enshrined in state law as the sole entry criterion for the specialized high schools, is currently offered only in English, though students still learning the language can get glossaries with translations of key terms and extra time on the test.

The city Education Department didn’t respond to a question about the CEC 2 resolution, but previously told Chalkbeat they believe that translating the test into other languages would violate state law mandating the use of a single, standard exam for admissions to the specialized schools.

Translating the exam would “risk making test questions either easier or more difficult, which would compromise the validity of comparable scores across exams,” a department spokesperson said.

Last year, roughly 900 English learners took the specialized high school test, and fewer than six got in. (The Education Department suppresses data for groups that small, so the precise number isn’t shared.)

It wasn’t immediately clear how many current specialized high school students were considered English learners at one point in their school career and have now tested out of that designation. About 47 percent of specialized high school students last year spoke English as a home language, compared with about 52 percent of all city public high school students, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of city data.

Healy pointed out that the test the city previously used for admissions to elementary gifted and talented programs was offered in multiple languages. Several of the Regents Exams required for high school graduation, including Algebra I, Global History, and Living Environment, are offered in multiple languages, though the English Language Arts test is not.

But Leonard Silverman, the vice president of CEC 2, who voted against the resolution, argued that while students entering the gifted program have years to improve their English, students entering the specialized high schools need to have a strong command of the language right away.

“The schools we’re talking about . . . are some of the most rigorous in the city. And their curriculums are administered in English,” he said.

Manpreet Bopari, another council member who opposed the resolution, added that “if students take the SHSAT in their native languages, even if they pass they’re likely to struggle with the day-to-day realities of the English-only curriculum, so this sets them up for frustration and failure rather than success.”

Bopari said she was an English learner in middle school and didn’t take the SHSAT in part because of language barriers but “succeeded in other ways.” She urged the city to focus “not on lowering barriers but in equipping our [English learner] students with the tools they need to overcome them.”

Schools are required under federal law to provide accommodations for students learning English, including by hiring specialized teachers. But the extra funding schools rely on to hire those additional teachers comes from enrolling English learners, making it difficult to build up support without first enrolling the students who need that support.

That dilemma is familiar to students with disabilities, who are also significantly underrepresented at the specialized high schools and have often struggled to access the services to which they’re entitled.

Healy countered that while it might be challenging at first for students still learning English, they should have the option to make that choice themselves.

“It felt to me there’s a lot of kids who are capable of doing this work,” he said, “who probably aren’t getting a chance to do it.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025/01/28/council-debates-translating-specialized-high-school-exam/