Every year, Newsweek publishes a list of the top one hundred public high schools in the country that excludes many prestigious public schools. Instead, Newsweek places these schools on a separate list—”The Public Elites.” The reason for this distinction: “Because their students are too good. The best of the best.” These schools, along with other prestigious public high schools across the country, provide their students with an education unparalleled to that which the vast majority of American teenagers receive. Elite public high schools, however, are not typically open to all students in the district, but rather these schools selectively admit students based on stringent admission requirements. To decide which students merit these remarkable educational opportunities, many school districts utilize admission policies that rely heavily on standardized test scores. The students admitted to these elite public high schools are considered the most intelligent, talented students that will attend the best colleges and universities and become the country’s future leaders. However, the representation of black and Latino students at each of these elite public high schools is disproportionately low.
Standardized test scores have been traditionally considered an objective measure of “merit.” If this is true, however, then what can explain why the use of test scores in admissions by elite public high schools has resulted in the admission of so few black and Latino students? Said otherwise, why do black and Latino students score lower on standardized testing than white students? Some academics proffer that black and Latino students do not genetically have the same intelligence or ability to meet the rigorous admissions test score criteria, an unpopular proposition. Other scholars have focused on social structure factors to explain the gap between white and black and Latino standardized test scores: “parent and teacher expectations, differences in attitude and attributional styles, family structure, motivation, culture and history, values, and genetics.” Additionally, social psychology has shown that even when socioeconomic status and other social structure factors are held equal, black and Latino students still score lower than similarly situated white students on standardized tests because of a psychological phenomenon called stereotype threat. Research has demonstrated that negative group stereotypes about the inferior intelligence of blacks and Latinos triggers severe anxiety for black and Latino students during the administration of standardized tests, resulting in lower individual test scores. Furthermore, “model minority” or “positive” stereotypes relating to the superior intelligence of Asians as a group has the opposite affect: Asian students outperform white students on standardized tests. Therefore, social structure and psychological factors contribute to the continuing low numbers of black and Latino students at elite public high schools where admission is heavily based on standardized testing.
The next question then is, what can elite public high schools do to increase the number of black and Latino students if standardized testing leads to racially imbalanced student bodies? In 2003, the Supreme Court, in Grutter v. Bollinger, held a diverse student body to be a compelling governmental interest in the context of higher education “that could justify the use of race in university admissions.” After Grutter, lower courts and school districts considered this holding applicable in the context of primary and secondary education. The Supreme Court in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (PICS) indeed confirmed this interpretation of Grutter and held diversity to be a compelling interest in primary and secondary education. While PICS is often cited as a decision that limits the use of race as a means to increase black and Latino enrollment in public high schools, admission policies administered by colleges and universities are still constitutionally viable, and as Justice Kennedy noted, Grutter would have “some application” to primary and secondary education if “students were considered for a whole range of their talents and school needs with race as just one consideration.”