Meritocracy vs. Diversity....is there a right answer?

Parents Forum
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If one group of students has parents enrolling them in expensive commercially-run test-prep classes, taught by experienced tutors using materials and strategies developed over time — and another group has no formal instruction, but does have access to on-line materials at the public libraries or the option to sign up for occasional free after-school tutoring === those two groups are not on equal footing. It requires a much higher level of planning, maturity, and self-discipline for the student without parental support to take on the responsibility for finding and participating in the test prep --and that’s a pretty steep expectation for a 12-year-old (Because it is middle school students doing the prep). And many of these kids may have life circumstances that make it difficult to access the free stuff – maybe no computer at home and a parent who needs the kid to come directly home after school to watch younger siblings while the parent is at work.

And I don’t see how anyone can argue with a straight face that self-study or utilization of whatever free tutoring resources are available is in any way equivalent to the programs the commercial test prep services are offering. Their entire business model depends on them being experts in their field.

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@jonri

the article states

I am member of Bklyn Tech’s class of 76 (3rd class of young women to graduate). I can tell you while there was a critical mass of students from my middle school who attended Tech with me, the school was definitely not 50% Black and Hispanic. No one prepped for the exam; we went on a school day took the test and waited for the results.

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Maybe NYC should think about a TX model where there are auto admits for top student(s) from each NY middle school.

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However, one of the undesired effects in Texas is cutthroat rank-grubbing. If an auto-admit-by-rank system were used, it would be better if a top _% benchmark GPA set by the previous class were used for the current class to try to meet, rather than cutthroat each other to get into the top _% of the current class.

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That’s similar to what was proposed, as listed at https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?default_fld=&leg_video=&bn=A10427&term=2017&Summary=Y&Text=Y . The basic idea is rank students in their middle school class according to a combination of grades and standardized NYS achievement test type scores. Those in the top ~6% of their middle school class and in the top 25% citywide get 90% of offers. Students not attending public middle schools and new students with a 93%+ GPA get the remaining 10% of offers via random lottery.

The key to the demographic changes is basing decisions on the top x% by school rather than by top x% citywide. Students are competing against kids from their school rather than kids across the whole city, so kids in poorer quality and more ethnically diverse middle schools are well represented; instead of offers being concentrated among a small number of higher quality middle schools. The simulation at https://ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/admissions-overhaul-simulating-the-outcome-under-the-mayors-plan-for-admissions-to-the-citys-specialized-high-schools.html found demographics would change as follows for the 2017-18 admission.

Actual with SHSAT – 61% Asian, 3.7% Black, 41% Female
Simulation with top 7% – 31% Asian, 19% Black, 66% Female

I think the first step should be spelling out exactly what they are trying to accomplish with the selective high school admission system. If the goal is to increase diversity while still having decent students, this plan would accomplish that goal. If the goal is instead to have the best performing students, students who are most deserving, students who will benefit most from the school compared to other available alternatives, or students who are most likely to go on to do amazing things; then I expect there are better alternatives than both the SHSAT system and the top 7% system. The best options depend on what specific goals are the priority.

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Please understand that I too want the exam schools to be more diverse.The question is how to bring back the good old days. (Even if the numbers weren’t as good as the Post article said, they certainly were very good compared to the present day.) de Blasio & his school chancellor want to get rid of the present admissions process and replace it with something else. (Frankly, I think they want to do away with the specialized high schools entirely. The chancellor is on record saying something that implies he thinks LaGuardia (Music,Art, Drama, Dance) should be the only “screened” high school. Basically, from what I can figure out, they will just keep trying different admissions processes until they get close to the desired demographics and if that doesn’t happen, the next thing will be just making the exam schools regular high schools. Unless, of course, de Blasio is voted out of office and the way things are going, that may well happen.

As I’ve said repeatedly, I think the abysmal performance of URMs on the SHSAT is largely a product of how badly the middle schools have deteriorated and that NYC needs to fix THAT problem. I’m not worried only about the kids at the top of the heap; I’m also worried about the kids going into high school–any high school–who are woefully unprepared.I want to improve the middle schools so they are as good as they used to be. The situation is the worst in neighborhoods which are heavily URM and poor.

Now, I admit that even if that were to happen, kids might need some test prep to get in based on the present reality. However, your base line when you start prepping matters. If you start too far behind, it’s hard to catch up and you might decide it’s just not worth it. If you are within striking distance, you are more likely to prepare for the test. That might help explain why 70% of Asian 8th graders in NYC public schools take the test and 22% of Black 8th graders do. (I’m not saying it’s the entire explanation; only that it’s part of the problem.)

As for test prep:

@calmom says

I can do it with a straight face. Have you ever heard of Khan Academy? It’s excellent–for lots of subjects and lots of test prep.Khan, a proud grad of Bx Science, first offered scholarships to his “live and in person” prep classes. He sent info about his scholarships to all the middle schools and was unable to fill his classes. He said that the administrators in the worst performing middle schools were resistant and didn’t give out information to the kids. So, he went to the free internet model.

In my neighborhood–an unusually diverse one–the computer lab at the local PS (public school) is open for students until 6 pm every night. The local branch of the NYPL(New York Public Library) is also open until 8 pm 2 days per week and all day Saturday. Some of the NYPL branches are also open on Sunday. Our local afterschool program also has a computer lab. I think that’s pretty typical. I think most NYC public school kids have someplace where they can use a computer.

And there are lots of free programs. Khan isn’t the only one. This is not an exhaustive list. https://insideschools.org/insidetools/shsat Do NOT assume these are worse than the commerical ones. My neighborhood may soon have one which is run by a graduate school.

Many of the NYPL branches are now offering free workshops on Saturdays explaining what the SHSAT is and giving out info about the high schools.The parents of any child from 5th grade on up are encouraged to attend. My local NYPL branch is doing this. The librarians are falling all over themselves trying to get parents to come to them. The Girl Scout troop is giving info to the girls about these programs.

I FULLY support efforts to encourage more URM kids to take the exam and to give them access to free prep. Frankly, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t.

As to what NYC does to tell kids about the Discovery Program…the program is aimed at kids who are within “reach” of the cut off. All of the kids who take the test and receive a score within the decided upon zone are informed about the program. Getting them to enroll in it is a different issue. ( I think it’s Boston that decided the best way to get poor URMS to enroll in free SAT classes and stick with them is to pay them to attend.)

As for the proposal to take a certain percentage from each middle school. There are lots of issues with that one. One is that right now, some middle schools do have honors programs. Are we going to assume that all of the kids selected must come from those? I have a lot of problems with that personally. Assuming you don’t, remember that, as @zoosermom said before, a lot of these programs skew heavily Asian and white, even in heavily URM schools.

Moreover, NYC kids don’t attend middle schools based purely on geography. Some middle schools have screened admissions. https://www.schools.nyc.gov/enrollment/enroll-grade-by-grade/middle-school So, you would in effect be punishing the kids and parents who opted out of their local middle school to go to an academically more rigorous one. Indeed, one of the new chancellor’s initiatives is a pilot program which reserves a certain number of seats in the best middle schools for kids from the worst elementary schools. I REALLY don’t want to create a situation in which the kids from the poorly performing schools that take advantage of that offer then find out they are so out of luck for high school.

I personally have a really hard time with that, perhaps because more than half of the kids in my local PS check out to do just that. In one recent year, there were 105 kids in third grade at my local PS and 18 in 8th. Moreover, some of those 18 don’t live in my neighborhood. Maybe if you gave notice 3 or 4 years in advance that this is what was going to happen it would be fair, but right now, I don’t think it would be. (Just as an aside, how do you figure out what the top 3% or the top 7% is when the class size is 18?)

This will be my last post in this thread because I think it’s now just going round and round. As I’ve said too many times, I think changing admissions in some way which would come close to matching the demographics is a game of smoke and mirrors. NYC needs to fix its worst performing middle schools–not give kids an incentive to stay in them so they can go to an exam school for which they are ill-prepared.

YMMV.

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Absolutely true. But this is inequality, not discrimination and some of that inequality is “self-inflicted” which you note with the next post.

@calmom, how is various differences in the percentage of single parent households by race the fault of the NYC school system?

You just compared preparing for a standardized test to athletes cheating. Do you think that standardized test prep is cheating?

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Agreed, but finding that middle ground would be some fight.

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Essentially, yes-- in the context of the current test prep industry and extensive level of prepping.

Obviously it is allowed, I think it has totally skewed whatever value the tests have in providing accurate information about the abilities of the people being tested.

It is not their “fault” – it is a demographic characteristic of the clientele they serve. Their job is to provide education to all school age children who reside in their district, and to provide fair and equal opportunities to all.

And the inequality is not “self-inflicted” by the school children the district is supposed to serve. Kids don’t choose their parents, nor do they have control over the choices their parents make or the options they have.

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The preparation for the SHSAT has skewed the range of scores, but the actual results (student final outcomes at top schools) show that there is some value. I personally like multiple points of academic review (like adding grades and class rigor to the equation). But your assertion basically says that having resources and working hard is cheating. A student with a 4.0 GPA and hard classes might as well be categorized as “cheating” for preparing harder than other classmates with lower grades and easier classes from that point of view.

It is not job of schools to be parents either. You are trying placing a burden on NYC schools that should be on parents, guardians and the community at large. I listen to complaints about students and parents not knowing of opportunities available (like free tutoring) but at the same time watch as info sessions, flyers, and open houses get avoided like the plague in the underrepresented communities that I have been a part of. Some of that is due to demographic challenges (One income households have to work), but some of that blame is because of an apathy when it comes to education. Schools can do better, and should be held accountable, but you won’t hold the students or parents accountable?

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Sorry for the brief diversion, but a few days ago, @collegedad13 wrote:

Now that Ivy Day has passed, I thought it was worthwhile describing the results of the three kids from our high school that made USAMO/USAJMO (roughly the top 500 nationwide in those math contests) in earlier years.

  • One was accepted to Harvard and MIT
  • One was accepted to CalTech
  • One was accepted to two Ivys (don't remember which ones) and received a full-tuition scholarship from another top-20 school.

If this is disfavored, I am good with it. Carry on…

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The City Council President is currently proposing more “elite” schools with different admissions criteria. Great. I support that. More is better. However, as I’ve said repeatedly, there are already elite programs all over the City with different criteria.

The problem with the Texas model is that there are already programs that work that way, and there are all sorts of documented examples of the middle schools cheating to get kids into those spots. Making the specialized schools work that way will create an overwhelming incentive for middle schools to cheat. That benefits no one.

With regard to prep: Jonri is right. There are opportunities for those who want to prep to do so, and the Discovery program communicates very effectively to those kids who are eligible. My D is a seventh grade teacher and I am not of the usual educated demographic of CC. I know whereof I speak. I would personally like to see the number of kids offered admission to the Discovery program versus those who accept. I know a lot of families who don’t think the specialized schools are worth the trouble to deal with that for a whole summer. Plenty do, but a lot don’t.

There are also prep programs and opportunities of various sorts in individual middle schools across the City. My D runs the after school and summer programs at her school, so she knows what’s in her poor and mostly Hispanic middle school, and she is involved in the administration across the City. Is it perfect? No. But there is a lot more than the press makes it out to be, so lack of access to prep and computers is not the reason for the disparity. I would say the type of prep is a huge factor, but access to a reasonable amount of prep is available across the City.

The chancellor doesn’t believe in tracking according to ability at all in any aspects. There is a cohort in the upper tier of the DOE that really doesn’t want to see programs for the extreme high achievers.

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Intensive practice and coaching for tennis, gymnastics, swimming, piano, and Spelling Bees is cheating too…

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I do not agree that typical test prep is cheating, but I do agree that it can reduce the value of the test in terms of measuring what it is intended to measure.

Any test intends to measure something, but may be what is seen initially as a well correlated proxy for the thing that is intended to be measured (since the actual target of measurement may be too time consuming to measure). But extensive test prep may cause applicants to get better at the proxy without getting much better at the actual target being measured. A simple example would be that strength in multiple choice test taking tactics is good for multiple choice tests, but most actual tasks in school and career are not multiple choice tests.

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Yes, there are free prep programs but a typical 11 year old sixth grader from a high paverty area needs support to get to these programs. If programs are being offered at middle schools, why are they not effective at properly prepping students for the test? Clearly, either the students are not attending or the programs are not effective.

I happen to see Bryan Stephenson speak recently. He spoke of meeting with 11 and 12 year old boys who fully believed their likely path was not to a good high school and to college, but to jail. It is really hard to understand the level of hopelessness about a bright future that kids in high poversty areas live with. As many have said, the key is to improve the middle schools so that kids have a good basis and test prep would not feel so overwhelming.

There are many dedicated teachers in these schools that do their best to support their students. Schools, obviously, can’t do it all. Students with difficult home lives have a harder time in general and especially in school. Unfortunately, nobody has come up with a way to break the cycle of poverty, but education is a key.

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Probably both, and additionally that the programs can’t compete with kids who have been prepping for hours each week for years. I still haven’t seen a great deal of outcry on the part of families. Just politicians and media personalities.

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I note the fixation on middle school. If we haven’t provided a proper early and elementary education - well by middle school the kids are far too behind. There is an enormous equity issue in education in NYC in the early grades.

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Exactly – which is why the single metric of a test score with a high upper tail ends up creating additional barriers, on top of and in addition to the barriers that these kids already face. So the options are to change the test, or change the way the test is scored or used, or change the process by which admissions is determined. More and better test prep really isn’t the option --because ultimately test prep is not an educational benefit for kids Perhaps at the lower end of the spectrum, it is bringing up skill levels in deficient areas-- but on the upper end it is a time waster for the students who truly have the greatest intellectual potential, and may actually be detrimental in some ways.

Is there any source of data to see overall score ranges for all students who opt to take the test? I’m assuming that it is only students who aspire to attend the most competitive high schools who are taking the exam, so that would be a self-selected population of students who are likely to score well above average even without prep

Also is there data available to see what the score cutoffs have been over the years?

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The post #61 studies listed the following mean (SD) and show graphs of the full distribution.

Verbal Section – ~200 (~50)
Math Section – ~200 (~50)
Combined Total – 400 (91)

You can lookup the cutoff for more recent years. Some examples are below. Note that the SHSAT exam has had significant changes between the listed years. I’m not sure that the exam was normalized to have the same score distribution in each year.

2019 – Stuy: 557, Bronx Sci: 525, Brookyln Tech: 498
2015 – Stuy: 555, Bronx Sci: 510, Brookyln Tech: 483
2010 – Stuy: 567, Bronx Sci: 512, Brookyln Tech: 482
2005 – Stuy: 562, Bronx Sci: ~513, Brookyln Tech: ~485

The paper at https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/webappendix_dobbie_fryer_shs_07_2013.pdf lists score cutoffs as a function of SDs above the mean for a longer period. This paper suggests Brooklyn Tech was far less selective in the early 90s, but much less difference in selectivity at Stuy and Bronx Sci.

2013 – Stuy: 1.8, Bronx Sci: 1.3, Brookyln Tech: 0.9
2008 – Stuy: 1.9, Bronx Sci: 1.4, Brookyln Tech: 1.1
2003 – Stuy: 1.7, Bronx Sci: 1.2, Brookyln Tech: 0.8
1998 – Stuy: 1.7, Bronx Sci: 1.2, Brookyln Tech: 0.6
1994 – Stuy: 1.7, Bronx Sci: 1.1, Brookyln Tech: 0.3

The full paper is at https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/dobbie_fryer_shs_07_2013.pdf . The abstract’s conclusion about the benefits of attending one of the listed NYC exam high schools was “exposure to these higher-achieving and more homogeneous peers has little impact on college enrollment, college graduation, or college quality.”

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My sister attends the Bronx Science High of Science, and I attend a gifted prepatory school. The plan to increase diversity by DeBlasio is great, but the way it’s being implemented is incorrect. What their doing every year is making the exam - the Specialized exam harder and harder. In hopes of making the entry way easier by so-called common core implementation, the testing is getting increasingly difficult. Its a rigid meritocratic system, and if we were to stick with it, the problem is not the test, but the early foundation of students- whether it be Asian or Hispanic or Black. Otherwise, I feel like the new system of inclusion of middle grades and attendance would become subjective- a watered down version of college-admissions.