That may be true in the aggregate, but in the NYC area that we are discussing, the Asian American pool is low SES, but apparently not low information. So it’s not because the parents are well off and well educated. There is a strong cultural component of how education is key to moving forward, and while I personally think cram schools are overkill, I can understand why these parents may feel it’s a way forward for their kids.
As a math professor at a university serving a largely Black and Hispanic population, I am less concerned about overzealous test prepping than I am about URM students who are unable to master basic college entry level math and reading skills. Setting aside more seats at Stuy is not a solution for this large scale issue.
The referenced studies do not list combined percentiles, but they do list mean and SD for combined. Assuming a normal distribution, this would result in the following approximate cutoffs for selective HSs during the years of the study.
Given that Stuyvesant is a STEM-focused high school, the acceptance of kid #2 suggests something of a mismatch. That is a kid with extremely strong verbal skills arriving at a high school in an environment that might expect a higher level of math ability. — and in that kid’s place, some other kid with very good but not spikey verbal skills, and much higher math ability, came in below the cutoff.
As I posted upthread, there are different ways that the tests could be weighted or used to tweak the results – for example, simply disqualifying applicants who didn’t obtain a set minimum score on one section or another (for example, at least 90% on each section). That would set a lower total point threshold for admission, because the extremely lopsided test-takers would be dropped from the pool.
Whether that would change demographics materially is hard to say – but it would at least undermine the strategy of extensive test prep focused on only one half of the test. And to the extent that test results provide an accurate picture of ability, would also assure that incoming student at Stuy were capable of doing the work expected, at the pace as expected.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that these are public schools with a mission to serve, which should include fair access to all who live in the city. If that process is being distorted for reasons that have more to do with a test-cramming culture than ability, then that means that there are some students who are being denied opportunities they should have access to – whether or not a shift in the way the test is scaled or used would change the overall racial makeup.
Bottom line, if a kid can get into a competitive, elite, STEM-focused high school with a math score at 76th percentile, then there’s something wrong with the math used for admissions. Nothing wrong with the kid with that level of math – that kid is going to do just fine on a regular or slightly accelerated math track at most high schools – but I just don’t know if it meshes with the intended purpose of the Stuy program — and if it is acceptable for a student to enter with that ability level – then what would be wrong with setting up an alternative entry track for disadvantaged students and reserving more spots for them-- that is, expanding the Discovery program?
The broader grad requirements including English / social studies / foreign language --would generally be required for college admission to most selective 4-year colleges – so they are going to be included at any high school. But the “mission” is clearly stated to be STEM.
Really? I found that to be one of the most overtly racist articles I have read in a while. Here is one line in particular that I found offensive:
I wonder how Jose could write that without noting the obvious irony, given who gets into Stuy today. I doubt it is ignorance on the author’s part. More likely hoping for ignorance on the reader’s part (not you @calmom).
You might want to read up on the eugenics movement-- and the way that IQ testing played into that. Try Googling “Carl Brigham”. (And be careful who you call ignorant – there’s a quote from Brigham’s book A Study of American Intelligence that you’ll find under the heading “Career” that is far too abhorrent for me to quote here.)
Did anybody else test into “elite NYC Catholic schools” in the seventies? And then switch to a “regular” public school so you you could get vocational training and work while you went to HS and college?
Good times! After all that, met my husband who did Brooklyn Tech and Columbia, while I went to Howard. (He was first gen; I was more like sixth).
We met at his Medical School (Einstein! Ha ha!) , and it worked out well enough for us and our kids. Guessing it might not work as well for THEIR kids.
I know about the Eugenics movement, and how it was used by the Nazis to justify its horrors. And that organizations many now respect, such has Planned Parenthood, once had leaders who were active supporters of Eugenics.
But none of that is remotely relevant here because the Asian students getting into Stuy have darker skin to begin with, they have little financial advantages relative to other applicants (most qualify for reduced price lunches) and finally many often come in with English as a second language.
Note that the article deliberately avoided saying any one of those pertinent facts. It was intentionally meant to appeal to uninformed readers. As I said, one of the more racist articles I have read.
The sentence you quoted from in the article was specifically in reference to the “the early 1900’s”. The text you quoted had a link to an article on the African American Policy Forum titled “Standardized Testing” which began with a discussion of the eugenics movement and the origin of IQ testing. And Asians were definitely a historical victim of overt discrimination, with tightly restricted immigration under the Chinese Exclusion act that did not end until 1943.
So if you want to twist and distort an article for your own reasons, go ahead. But the history of standardized testing is what it is, and it’s not a pretty one.
And I consider it intellectually lazy to simply cry “racism” in response to an article or claim that appeals to “ignorance”. You don’t have to agree with it. But your ad hominem doesn’t cut it.
I was fully aware of everything you have written regarding Eugenics and discrimination against the Chinese. This is basic knowledge for any educated person.
But to bring up what happened that long ago and applying it today makes as much sense as condemning Planned Parenthood now because its founder, Margaret Sanger, was a Eugenicist.
But regarding standardized testing, one of the biggest current users in the USA (outside of high school students) is the US military, one of the least racist organizations in the United States based upon its leadership. And note that its ASVAB tests are considered more of an intelligence test than the current SAT and ACT. They apparently have no problem with it, nor do the people taking the test.
Despite what I consider the article’s numerous deficiencies, if you want to buy what the author is selling, go ahead, I can’t stop you.
About half of Stuyvesant students qualify for free or reduced price lunch (by normal rules). However, this is less poor than NYC public schools as a whole, which had 72% of students qualifying for free or reduced price lunch (by normal rules). That does suggest that NYC public schools are mostly the domain of students from lower and lower middle income families, suggesting upper middle to upper income flight to private schools. It also means that Stuyvesant students do, on average, have financial advantages over NYC public school students generally, but that is the difference between “SES disadvantaged” and “somewhat less SES disadvantaged”, since there are relatively few “SES advantaged” students in NYC public schools.
NYC public schools also seem to have both a racial segregation problem and white flight.
*NYC public schools recently changed to giving free lunch to all students.
Based on some sample questions found by a web search, it looks like most of these are content knowledge, with the first five being very basic knowledge that high school graduates should know, and the rest being things that someone who has done “shop” things (car maintenance and repair, building or repairing wood items, assembling IKEA furniture, etc.) would know.
I.e. it does not look like the ASVAB is an “intelligence test”, unless you are referring to it screening out the bottom end of the range.
There has been a lot written about how the ASVAB is an intelligence test. A brief synopsis is on the Wikipedia page, which contains this quote (note that AFQT is a score calculated from the ASVAB).
“However, it is important to note that AFQT has been shown to correlate more highly with classic IQ tests than they do with one another, and that the “crystallized” intelligence measured by AFQT is measured very similarly by Wechsler, in particular.[8]”
Since crystallized intelligence is the ability to use information, skills, knowledge, and experience, it is not a surprise that a content knowledge test like the ASVAB tends to correlated to measures of it (including parts of the Wechsler). The other aspect of intelligence here is called fluid intelligence, which is the ability to reason and and solve novel problems.
https://www.verywellmind.com/fluid-intelligence-vs-crystallized-intelligence-2795004 suggests that neither is fixed throughout life (despite the term “crystallized” suggesting that to one who does not know the technical definition of the term). For example, if you learn how to fix something on your car, you will have gained some crystallized intelligence in that area.
@Calmom Thanks for pointing me to Jose Vilson’s article. Big fan! He’s a friend of my H’s (has quoted H in the past in his writings). And of course that line about how IQ testing was used is factually true. And if someone doesn’t think that racism plays into attitudes about schools now, sure. That’s why every other comment in every newspaper article I’ve been reading on this immediately goes to a basketball analogy.