I honestly don’t understand the hoopla on changing the admissions standards for these schools. The higher ability program in our school district used a common sense approach to identify students for placement that, in addition to placement tests, used grades as a measure of a students readiness and tenacity to apply themself to challenging curriculum. I don’t remember the specifics, but I know they work. I believe that a “B” GPA average was required for placement. The kids do well overall and only a few drop out each year. All The drop-outs I knew of were the ones who were borderline with either grades or placement test scores.
@jonri
Will do. I read this and posted while my puppy was jumping all over me.
Regardless, I am passionate about this subject and wanted to share a different perspective.
“I personally know several low income young black men who were truly brilliant and chose to do Prep for Prep because that is life changing. Many of the truly bright lights bring their gifts to Laguardia. There are also many scholarships to private schools. My son went to a fancy prep school on scholarship and the school is a fundraising behemoth. His class had a cohort of black and Hispanic students, many on scholarship, far exceeding population ratios. Some of those kids were off the hook brilliant and ended up in Ivy League schools. They never considered test schools because the private schools got them first for a better education and a much better experience.”
zoosermom, I think this is a great point, and one that’s lost on people outside of NYC. I know lots of parents of bright AA or West Indian-American kids who are considering going the Prep for Prep route. The specialized public HSs are losing a significant amount of these students to Prep for Prep.
Right. Because those schools aren’t the best option for a lot of students. I really think that if parents in the Asian immigrant community could be helped to understand how many spectacular options there are, some would apply elsewhere and open spots for kids of other races who would be best served in the specialized schools.
We went to pre-prom for my son a couple of years ago at an insanely posh home of one of his classmates whose dad is a well-known member of the financial community. Of the twelve couples in their limousine, 5 of the classmates were black. They were and are all friends. My son was a scholarship student, but I don’t know who else, if anyone, was a scholarship recipient. But I do know that they were all very comfortable in such posh surroundings and were poised and sophisticated. These boys are very bright and all went on to good colleges, but none was interested in STEM. In their private school, they were paired with alumni mentors in their fields of interest (business or finance) and given excellent internships. It was something totally different from what’s available in public school, even the specialized schools. My point is that this is a very big city and there is a vast array of options, both public and private, so there is no need to fixate on these nine schools, and I think all students would be better served to understand and be open to other options, and for other people and politicians to be more honest about what’s available instead of sowing discord.
Just like to point out that you don’t need to go to test prep to get good scores on SAT/ACT. I am far from being brilliant in any subject but got 99.9% on SAT by buying a thick Barron’s book and studying 1.5 hours every day for 2.5 months during one summer vacation. Improved my score by 400 points. And at the time of testing, I had immigrated to US 6 years ago and my English was not that good. So when I listen to an argument that poor kids get lousy scores on SAT/ACT because they cannot pay for test prep, I just don’t buy that argument. Because of my experience, I told my kid to study for SAT on his own, and while he didn’t do awesome on ACT (he got 33 composite), he made NMF. And he had to adapt to living in English speaking country 6 years before he took standardized tests.
@zoozermom – I understand and agree that NY has some wonderful programs beyond the exam schools – and I also agree that the exam schools are probably not the best option for many students. I would not have wanted to send one of my own children there – I favor a more collaborative and supportive approach to education – and am very glad that my kids had positive high school experiences without being subject to the high stress levels or competition that seem to characterize schools like Stuy.
HOWEVER
The exam schools are part of the PUBLIC school system in NYC and New York State, and as such have a legal and constitutional obligation to provide equal access and opportunity to all students. Pointing to other educational options – no matter how strong they may be – is just a variation of the “separate but equal” argument that was rejected in 1954 in Brown vs.Board of Education. Citing to private school options is even worse, no matter how wonderful the school or how generous the scholarship – because that is just an expectation that the private schools will step up to fill the gap created by a public school district that isn’t living up to the obligations it has as an agency of the state under the 14th Amendment.
If NYC is going to have ANY specialized schools, they legally need to have a system of selection to those schools that does not result in disparate treatment of specific racial groups. If 44% of test-takers are black or latino, but only 7% of offers go to those students – that’s prima facie evidence of a discriminatory practice, whether it is intentional or not
The concept of basing admission on a single exam is an arbitrary choice of an admission standard – it may also be a traditional choice, and it may now be entrenched in law – but it is still arbitrary and actually rather unusual in modern day education. Most specialized secondary schools or college have more holistic admission standards – looking at grades, LORS, essays, and/or interviews in addition to test scores.
NYC can opt for different ways to address this problem – but the one thing they can’t do is maintain a system that promotes increased racial segregation at any of its schools. Again, this has been the law of the land in the US for 65 years-- admittedly à law that has proven very difficult over time to implement – but that doesn’t absolve NYC of its responsibility to assure that the contingent of 44% black & hispanic students who are applying to these schools have roughly equivalent chances to the other 56% of applicants. “Roughly equivalent” meaning there doesn’t have to be an exact correlation – but the differential between 44% and 7% is just too large.
Now there are multiple ways this issue can be addressed – changing the test or the way the test is used for all is one way, but another way is to create multiple paths for admission as De Blasio has suggested. X number of slots go to the test-only students, and X number go to students coming in via other, more holistic paths— and certainly the Discovery program is one way to achieve that. But maintaining a system that has proven over time to be a significant barrier to black & hispanic students simply is not an option – even if you and I agree that the exam schools would have been terrible places for our own high achieving kids. A third option would be to completely revamp the programs at the exam schools — including admission standards – but I don’t think anyone wants that. So the question becomes: how can NYC continue to maintain this separate track set of high-schools in a way that also meets its obligations under the US Constitution to provide equal opportunities fo all?
In other words, you did do over 100 hours of test preparation for the SAT.
I guess it is a quaint memory of the time when I was in high school that “test preparation” was (for most students) less than a half hour of doing the small number of sample questions in the paper booklet that included the sign-up sheet. Yes, there were some who went to prep classes or spent a lot of time with prep books, but neither was the norm.
Yes, I share that quaint memory-- the biggest thing was making sure we knew ahead of time how to bubble in the letters of our name on the computer scantron sheet. And what? maybe one or 2 pages of sample questions to get familiar with the test format?
It is completely stupid not to prepare for the admission tests to a magnet school or a college. For a non-rich family the SAT/ACT preparation is the best investment in time and money one can make. Back in the day I did extensively prepare for my college admission exams because they were difficult, there was no notion that everyone deserves to go to college and if you did not get admitted in August you would be drafted into the military for 2 years in September.
My son came to me in December of his 8th grade and announced that he would be applying to our county magnet high school in January and we spent almost 2 months reviewing the math (he was always good with language).
By the way, his magnet high school, that is across the river from the Stu, is not a STEM-only school and for admission it uses an admission test, middle school GPA, teachers recommendations and interviews (and auditions for some majors) and the current racial composition is:
Asians - 51.1%
Whites - 34.8%
Hispanics - 7.4%
Mixed race - 5.1%
Blacks - 1.4%
But the question is, what is the composition of applicants? 1.4% black is very low, but it turned out that only, say, 3% of applicants were black – that probably wouldn’t be enough of a discrepancy between applicants and admission to suggest that there was anything inherently flawed about the admission process. If, on the other hand, 10% of applicants were black, but only 1.4% of admitted students – then that would be a very different story.
I have no idea about the racial composition of the applicants. In the past the admission was capped by town (each school district had a quota) but I think that was cancelled. I believe my son also had to write an essay about himself and why he wanted to apply. They tried every imaginable way to increase the number of URMs including offering free test prep classes for 8th graders in the school. Obviously, they were taken to court for their deadly sins on multiple occasions by a very black school district and by the very white school districts.
So, what’s your answer @calmom ? Racial quotas?
There is NOTHING discriminatory about the SHSAT. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, there was a much higher percentage of Black and Hispanic kids in Stuy and BxS than there is now and Brooklyn Tech was about half Black & Hispanic. https://nypost.com/2019/03/23/the-racially-diverse-high-achieving-schools-of-nycs-past-have-vanished/ The admissions test wasn’t that different and I’d bet a lot that if the exact same test that worked so well back then was used now the results would be very close to the actual results this year.
No, the biggest reason for the decline in the number of African-American and Hispanic kids is the decline in the quality of the middle schools in URM neighborhoods.
The answer seems to be in the article you cited:
The article also cited loss of honors & gifted programs in the middle schools – but the test prep business pushes up the scores to levels that aren’t generally achievable without extensive prep. And – according to the article you cited, that wasn’t necessary back in the 70’s & 80’s. It was essentially a level playing field.
And yes the services at the middle school levels do also need to be improved. The test in and of itself may not be discriminatory, but the conditions under which it is administered certainly is.
I’d analogize it to use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs at the Olympics.
@jonri That article says as recently as 1989. I attended Brooklyn Tech in the late 90s and it was not over 50% black and Hispanic, though it was far more diverse than it is now, which saddens me greatly. I can’t speak for the other SHSAT schools, but Tech was an amazing place with amazing teachers and students, and it was a very collaborative and supportive school. There’s been an ongoing discussion about this issue on the Tech FB page for a number of years. Back when I attended, for URMs, middle schools recommended that their top students take the test and most were accepted to at least Tech. There was no prep for these students, however. I went to a low performing middle school and hadn’t seen a lot of the math before and I didn’t read for pleasure yet. The first time I saw the test format was the morning of the exam. I only found out that students had actually prepped for it when I started hanging out with the students in the special pre-med program. I certainly would have prepped for the exam had I known better.
Poor middle schools, lack of information, and lack of prep is really hurting URM admission to these schools. With the higher scores needed to attend now due to increased competition, it is a rare URM who can do what most did back then - walk in cold on test day, take the test, and score well enough. Most students getting accepted to these schools today are prepping. While some have mentioned that there are prep programs for URMs with empty seats, the question is, is that information getting to families. I highly doubt that it is. Just look at the lack of information to URMs today about college, especially elite schools.
From what I’ve seen on the Tech FB page, most URM alums aren’t advocating that the test be discontinued or not used as the sole entrance requirement. And they aren’t blaming Asians for taking their seats. But the root causes of what most agree is a sad situation needs to be understood and addressed so that these schools are once again diverse. Diversity really did enhance the experience. And URMs who can thrive at these schools are missing out on the exceptional high school education and experience they offer. I’m still friends with many of my friends from high school, and it’s a very diverse and accomplished group.
@calmom So if the problem is too much test prep (which isn’t illegal) I am failing to understand where the discrimination is. This is a problem much more complex than just saying that discrimination is going on and trying to setup a quota to get the student body to population representative levels. @itsgettingreal17 astute analysis is the same consensus I see within my community. Most underrepresented groups are not advocating against standardized testing and they are not blaming other groups for seats being earned through testing. More focused resources on early childhood education and reading would be a good start along with more free or low cost avenues for test prep (that genie is not going back in the bottle so all students shooting for a NYC specialty school need to adapt to reality) and parental counseling (explaining the benefits) in low income and low performing school districts. But saying that NYC specialty schools admission practices are illegal when many public magnet schools around America are using tests or a combination of grades and tests to admit students brings us no closer to working on the problems that plague underrepresented students and their communities. Was SHSAT testing illegal when those schools had majority African American and Hispanic populations 30 years ago?
@calmom, I’m obviously not making myself clear. I am not advocating for or against the test. What I am saying is that if the Asian students were comfortable in choosing other wonderful PUBLIC SCHOOL options for their children, the whole situation might ease a bit and even become less fraught. That’s my whole point. That in the immigrant community there is, yes, a level of ignorance that feeds the frenzy. I would like to see more information, more marketing, and build to an understanding of the other options.
That’s not true across the board. Most middle schools have honors programs. Not gifted, but honors. But as I said, in even some very heavily black and Hispanic middle schools (like my daughter’s and the school my son went to), the honors programs skew Asian and white.
There are amazing PUBLIC SCHOOL options as well. Bard, Eleanor Roosevelt, IB programs, etc. Some of which (Bard, IB) use their very own tests for admission. There are also scholars/honors/stem programs in zoned schools which use their own admission programs, as well.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: There is ONE thread on race in admissions on this website, and this is not it.
@jonri Based on the comments from the students in the NY Times story, many of them did not know about the specialized HSs until late in the game. How would they have known about the Discovery program? Plus, the discovery program is for kids that “just missed” the bar on the SHSAT and have high potential. If kids don’t have the opportunity to prep for the SHSAT, they may not score high enough to make that second cut. How would kids, especially those that don’t have a computer or internet at home, going to take a Kahn Academy course they don’t know about even if it is FREE?
Further, a few weeks of summer school is not equivalent to years of weekly or more than weekly tutoring.
As calmom said so well, the issue is not to close out one group of students, but to make sure that all public school students in NYC have equal access to these schools and to figure out why some groups are under-represented and what can be done to improve that.
This should be brought up in every middle school starting in 6th grade, in both the math and english classes. Point them to the free test prep, and where the nearest after school classes are. Send a notice to the parents as well, who can then just sign up.
And have people like Jose Vilson use his megaphone to encourage his people to take the test, and tell them they can do well on it with the appropriate effort. Far better than his current path of encouraging victimhood.
@hebegebe wrote:“And have people like Jose Vilson use his megaphone to encourage his people to take the test, and tell them they can do well on it with the appropriate effort. Far better than his current path of encouraging victimhood.”
I can sort of understand how the upper classes have a lot to gain from the victimhood narrative, but I really don’t get what’s in it for the people in the underserved communities - a few crumbs from the Ivies and their ilk, and some extra spots at prep schools and the top public high schools, carefully rationed out by those at the top? Why would anyone settle for that?