The fraught racial politics of entrance exams for elite high schools

Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a drastic change in the way students are admitted to the city’s elite high schools.

Students gain entry to one of these eight “specialized” schools by scoring high enough on a single exam called the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT). De Blasio has called for phasing out the exam and instead admitting the top students from each middle school.

This has prompted protests from Asian Americans who feel this policy disproportionately hurts them, as well as hand-wringing from graduates...