<p>As the Brooklyn Tech alumni piece suggests, the only answer that is within the power of the local government is to improve preschool-8 education drastically.</p>
<p>@4kidsdad, it’s much more complicated than that. There are 8 different schools that admit via that test, the 3 legacy schools and 5 smaller ones added in the past decade. The schools vary a lot–several with strong science focus, one very much humanities-centric, one a very successful IB school that has the most Latino and black students and the most free-lunch-eligible students. But most of the newer 5 are much, much smaller, with 5-700 kids total. Brooklyn Tech, the largest, has 5500 students. And they are all over the city, leading to major transportation difficulties. No school buses for NYC high school students, and it can take 2 hours or more to get from one place to another via public transportation. Driving to school is completely out of the question, since junior license holders (under 18; under 17 in very limited circumstances) are forbidden to drive within city limits and none of the schools have parking; they barely have parking for teachers.</p>
<p><a href=“Asians’ Success in High School Admissions Tests Seen as Issue by Some - The New York Times”>Asians’ Success in High School Admissions Tests Seen as Issue by Some - The New York Times;
<p>Article from 2012 describing the prep that some students do. I think @Consolation is correct that the level of k-8 education needs to improve drastically. Since it seems unlikely that this will happen anytime soon, it takes a savvy parent to realize that the education their kid is receiving is not adequate and to take steps to make sure that he or she is prepared not only for the SHSAT, but for a more rigorous education in general.</p>
<p>In case any of you are curious, there are 2 sample tests published by the Dept. of Education in the Specialized High School Handbook:
<a href=“http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/1FDB8183-E675-42D9-A17C-237C18E4C255/0/SHSAT_StHdbk_201415.pdf”>http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/1FDB8183-E675-42D9-A17C-237C18E4C255/0/SHSAT_StHdbk_201415.pdf</a>
the first test starts on page 34.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a great test. Plus it is graded in such a way that favors students that do better on one section (Verbal vs Math) than the other. My daughter’s score was quite high and I am reasonably certain that she lost many, many points on the scrambled paragraphs.</p>
<p>Both my kids graduated from Staten Island Tech. They’re now in college, one at a state school and one at a private school. Being at a specialized high school prepared them for the college workload, taught them time management and how to succeed academically. I loved the school and never once worried about bullying, since everyone was too busy with schoolwork, sports and other ECs. They were challenged to do their best, but admittedly, there were some students that made us wonder how they got into the school in the first place. That test score was not indicative of their academic capabilities. I do agree that one test shouldn’t paint the whole picture, but neither should the test itself be altered so schools can be more diverse. It’s like the FDNY test. I don’t care what race you are. When the time comes, you’d better be able to carry me out of a burning building. </p>
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<p>One alum who is in favor of altering the admissions process to make it more holistic used that as his argument. </p>
<p>I pointed out I could say the same about several undergrad classmates I knew of at my private LAC which does practice holistic admissions. Academic probation, suspensions, and yes…even expulsions. </p>
<p>And the ones I encountered weren’t struggling URMs from the inner-city public schools, but higher SES mostly suburban White students* who had the benefit of private day/boarding school education with tuition rivaling those of private colleges like my LAC. </p>
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<li>Or folks from higher SES urban neighborhoods like the UES or di Blasio’s Park Slope.<br></li>
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<p>Much of that has to do with the nature of immigrants from overseas. It takes a relatively high level of motivation to move to a new country, and the immigration process itself is selective, with categories for skilled workers, PhD students, etc. So how do you think a kid of highly motivated parents who originally immigrated as skilled workers or PhD students will compare in his/her home life as it relates to education, compared to the typical distribution of native born Americans?</p>
<p>Everyone seems to focus on racial/ethnic differences here – but what would it look like if stratified by generation number (i.e. immigrants versus immigrants, first generation versus first generation, etc.)?</p>
<p>^ ^</p>
<p>Not all immigrant families of NYC SHS students were necessarily highly educated or skilled workers even in their home country. Many HS classmates when I attended had parents who barely had the equivalent of an 8th or even a 6th grade education in the country of origin and worked as day laborers, garment workers, waiters/waitresses, etc. One thing they all had in common, however, was feeling education for their children up to and sometimes beyond the undergraduate level was important and to be valued. One classmate had parents who worked in a Chinatown sweatshop, another had parents who were rural farmers back in China/Taiwan, still a few had parents who were waiters at various restaurants and more. </p>
<p>Incidentally, most of the ones I knew ended up being the top students, Westinghouse semi-finalists/finalists, and gaining admission to some pretty elite colleges…including HYPSMCC with substantial near full/full ride FA packages. </p>
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<p>I’m not sure I’d emphasize the immigrant factor to the degree you are doing here. </p>
<p>In that paragraph, my main point was if someone came from a given society where its standard academic curriculum provided substantial in-depth exposure to academic topics considered high school material in another society at a much earlier age, he/she’s going to have a substantial academic advantage by default if he/she later immigrates to that other society. </p>
<p>For instance, if the standard math curriculum for all students in say…Russia for argument’s sake started introducing algebra and geometry in 3th-5th grade and progressed from there, a Russian immigrant who immigrates to the US where algebra and geometry are considered standard in 9-10th grade of high school or advanced topics for middle-school will have a substantial academic advantage…even if he/she was an average or even below average student in Russia. </p>
<p>Isn’t it true that, before WW I/II, many extremely capable Jewish immigrants came to this country because of the wars in the Europe? I think we could agree that they were among the best who immigrated around that time, likely at all time.</p>
<p>@cobrat is correct. Brooklyn Tech and a couple of the smaller test-in schools have as many free-lunch-eligible students (truly poverty level) as the city at large. Children of Chinese and Bangladeshi immigrants tend to have very poor parents, living in slum-like conditions. Here’s an article about one of the newer Chinatowns in NYC, and how its residents value education:
<a href=“http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_2_chinese-immigrants.html”>http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_2_chinese-immigrants.html</a></p>
<p>The wealthier test-in schools still have more poor students than do the other very selective high schools in the city.</p>
<p>It is not the same profile as professional Asian immigrants in the suburbs who can afford to buy or rent homes in school districts with the best schools.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I believe that these parents value education very highly.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my paternal grandparents were in the big wave of Jewish immigrants to the U.S. around the turn of the century. They were definitely not intellectuals, not wealthy, not worldly. Think Fiddler on the Roof.</p>
<p>Author of this Time magazine article makes some good points about why the admissions criterion should not shift to “holistic”; it means more hoops to jump through that richer families can game:</p>
<p><a href=“New York's Single Test Entry for High School Changed My Life | TIME”>New York's Single Test Entry for High School Changed My Life | TIME;
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<p>However, they still had a high enough level of motivation to move themselves to a new country.</p>
<p>If the system is “rigged” in some way so that it would give the kids from families lack of resources more upward mobility opportunity, I think I am personally OK with this. What I am against is that, some well-to-doers would take advantage of this change to gain some “edge” in this game. I believe this has happened before (e.g., a century ago), and it could happen again. The “holistic” evaluation approach may create a loophole of such which is not easy to detect.</p>
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@oldmom4896 so they were musical! :)) No offense meant. Just the first thing I thought of when I read your post.</p>
<p>@Erin’s Dad, as musical as the cowboys and farmers in Oklahoma!</p>
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<p>By comparison, possibly. However, it really irks me when I keep seeing ignorant journalists and activists portray Stuy and the other SHS as bastions of the wealthy upper/upper-middle class elite. I don’t think that’s the case now and it certainly wasn’t the case when I attended Stuy. </p>
<p>It’s especially ironic as I’ve heard many upper/upper-middle class kids and parents state they’ll never go/send their kids to one of the SHS because they feel the campus cultures exhibit too much of an academic pressure cooker and a sink or swim environment as opposed to the private day/boarding schools they prefer sending their kids. Some of it is the same mentality as the “White flight” from certain California suburbs because the “Asians are making the schools too damned hard”. </p>
<p>@cobrat, the percent of free-lunch-eligible students in the big legacy test-in schools are: Brooklyn Tech 64%; Bronx Science , 46%, and Stuyvesant, 47%. Brooklyn Latin, with the highest percentage of black and Latino kids is 68%. I believe the citywide average is around 80%. So Stuy and Bronx Science definitely have a wealthier student body than the average NYC school, but not as wealthy as LaGuardia, the performing-arts school featured in the movie Fame which admits via auditions as well as test scores, with 32% free lunch.</p>
<p>Some of the other elite screened schools: Beacon is 28% free lunch, Millennium Manhattan and Brooklyn are 43 and 44%, respectively. Eleanor Roosevelt is 25%. Townsend Harris in Flushing, Queens with a majority of Asian students, is 51%. </p>
<p>I believe that many of these schools with lower free-lunch percentages have many students who attended private school in grades k-8. But I personally know 2 kids from private schools, one who went to Stuy and one to Bronx Science, who went back to their private schools after a few months when they found that routine class sizes of 34 kids was not what they wanted.</p>
<p>Another tidbit from the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation report is that private schools recruit high-achieving black and Latino students, especially through various programs like Prep for Prep. Presumably many of these students would have attended public high schools if it were not for this opportunity.</p>
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<p>Private schools recruiting URMs with full scholarships was already starting to happen when I was in HS. </p>
<p>One URM college classmate who attended a NE boarding school was recruited under one such program after spending a year at BxScience. </p>
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<p>Same situation as the college arena. The U Mich’s complain that the talented URMs get picked off by the Harvards, </p>
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<p>One crucial difference is that not only does UMich charge tuition, but for lower income students, private elite colleges like Harvard can be a much better financial deal than one’s in-state public colleges if one’s qualified for admission. </p>
<p>In contrast, the NYC SHS are all already free so long as one is admitted. Then again, there are many folks in the NYC area and sometimes around the world who assume schools like BxScience or Stuy charge tuition. :(</p>