The news that just seven black students were offered admission to Stuyvesant High School, the most celebrated public school in New York City, is an embarrassment.

It should also be a call to action for state lawmakers, who hold the power to change an admissions process that shuts out black and Latino students from New York City’s eight selective specialized high schools, which can provide a crucial path to success.

The major reason is a state law known as the Hecht-Calandra Act that requires the three largest schools — Stuyvesant, the Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School — to use a single exam as the sole criterion for admission. That law was passed in 1971, as the city weighed measures to increase enrollment of black and Hispanic students at the schools amid a broad push for racial integration. Whatever the law’s original intent, the effect has been to limit the number of black and Latino students.

It has also spawned a cottage industry in which parents — including Asian New Yorkers living in poverty — feel compelled to spend thousands of dollars on test preparation over several years to give their children a shot at one of these coveted seats. Other students have little chance to compete.

To help more black and Latino students succeed on the exam, the city spent $6 million this year to offer test preparation for low-income students and increase outreach and the number of schools offering the exam. Those efforts seem to have done little good.

Last week, 51.1 percent of admissions offers from the schools went to Asian students, and 28.5 percent to white students, even though each group represents about 15 percent of students over all.

If state legislators repealed Hecht-Calandra, the city could eliminate the exam and come up with a new admissions policy that gives children from every background a fair shot.

Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a promising plan last year that would scrap the test and instead admit the top 7 percent of students at each middle school based on grades and scores on state exams given to seventh graders to measure achievement in math and English.

The City Council speaker, Corey Johnson, has also called for eliminating the specialized high school admissions exam, and wants input from communities across the city to create a more holistic admissions process, like those adopted by many universities, which now rely less and less on standardized tests in judging applicants.

Many Asian-American New Yorkers have objected to eliminating the exam, arguing that the mayor’s plan would deny admission to hard-working and high-achieving children in their communities. Many alumni at Stuyvesant and other specialized high schools have argued that dropping the test would lead to the admission of students who could not handle the rigorous curriculum. But where’s the evidence?

An admissions policy that is demonstrably unfair shouldn’t be allowed to continue simply because it has worked for certain groups. As the city schools chancellor, Richard Carranza, has said, public education belongs to the entire city.

Research shows that grades are a better predictor of success than a single exam, particularly for black and Latino children who come from communities that have faced generations of racism. Elite colleges like Harvard and Yale don’t use a single exam to admit students. Why would a New York City public school?

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said he would hold a hearing to help understand how these schools came to exclude black and Latino students, and consider what could be done about it — a good idea for the City Council to pursue as well.

Mayor de Blasio should consider changing the admissions process at the five smaller specialized schools, which are not listed in the 1971 state law and over which he has more control. The mayor should also move aggressively to address segregation in city schools over all.

And Gov. Andrew Cuomo could demand repeal of Hecht-Calandra and return control of the admissions policies from Albany to the city, where it belongs.

If nothing is done, thousands of black and Latino children will be denied the chances they deserve.

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