“If you truly believe that the demographics of Hunter represent the distribution of intelligence in this city,” he said, “then you must believe that the Upper West Side, Bayside and Flushing are intrinsically more intelligent than the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Washington Heights. And I refuse to accept that.”It is truly inspiring to see such acute insight into the workings of school admissions and the state of education, especially from a high school senior.
I went to two different elite private high schools and an elite private college. I can honestly say that all of those schools struggled with issues in Diversity. The main problem was (and still is) that kids from more affluent school districts have access to better education and are better prepared to take the entrance exams that will get them into even better schools. Kids from poorer neighborhoods and struggling schools do not have the same opportunities or access - despite having the same intelligence, creativity, and intrinsic academic ability as their more affluent classmates. And, in this country, our class system lies heavily along racial lines.
It was the same when I taught at Covenant. My students were predominantly black and hispanic. All of my kids were smart, creative, gifted in their own ways... but they never would have been able to do well on the entrance exams to typical elite middle school programs. They hadn't been trained in test taking, or taught how to write effectively. There was a great deal that my kids didn't know that their suburban peers did... but it was not, as Hunter points out, because kids in the suburbs are smarter. It is because the kids in the suburbs are being taught more. And my boys' willingness and eagerness to learn (as well as their astounding improvement in a short period of time) really demonstrates that.
