SHSAT Sunset – Against High-Stakes Testing for NYC Public School Admissions

Over the almost 50 years of Hecht-Calandra act being law, we now have decades of research detailing the problems with high-stakes testing as the sole measure of student ability. Yet Hecht-Calandra and the exam it authorizes continue to be New York State law.

Denying the harm in using a single multiple-choice exam as the sole measure of a child’s academic worth with the mountains of scientific evidence we now have is similar to denying global warming.

No other district in the nation uses a single exam for screening a public high school. No red state or GOP-led State has a single-measure entrance exam.

Replace Hecht-Calandra act to allow modern psychometric testing practices that aren’t subject to the above issues.

How you can help

We have a hard time getting NY Assembly and Senate elected members to give on-record opinions on the test. Call your Assembly and Senate representatives to ask for their opinion on the test. And let us know their opinion.

Posts, News & Articles

Interested in learning more? We’ve collected [total_posts] articles on Hecht-Calandra, SHSAT, and related topics.

chalkbeat, gifted-and-talented, news, statistics, statistics

Mamdani wants to rethink gifted and talented in NYC. The program has already seen big shifts.

But the test helped drive sharp racial and economic segregation: In 2020, the last year it was administered, just 12% of kindergartners in gifted programs were Black or Latino. After the city nixed the test, the demographics began to change …

data, gifted-and-talented, mit, research, research, statistics, statistics

Pipelines and Equity in Gifted and Talented Programs

This project will study enrollees in elementary school gifted and talented (G&T) programs, and follow the educational outcomes of this group through high school. Racial diversity of G&T programs is a persistent concern, as Black and Hispanic students make up …

nytimes, statistics, statistics

Elite New York High School Admits 8 Black Students in a Class of 781

Just over 4,000 students received acceptance letters for the fall semester after nearly 26,000 eighth-graders took the exam last fall. Black and Latino students made up more than 44 percent of all test-takers. Another highly competitive specialized school, the Bronx …

chalkbeat, statistics, statistics

Fewer Black and Latino students win offers to attend specialized high schools

Just 3% of offers at eight of the city’s specialized schools went to Black students, down from 4.5% last school year, according to Education Department data released Thursday. Meanwhile, 6.9% of offers went to Latino students compared with 7.6% a …

accessibility, chalkbeat, news

Should NYC’s specialized high school test come in other languages? Manhattan parent council says no.

Last school year, just four of the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in the eight specialized high schools, or 0.03%, were classified as English learners, according to city data. That’s in a school system where roughly 148,000 students, or 16.3% of …

contract, news, nytimes, pearson, pep

New York City Approves New Contract for Specialized High School Test

According to the D.O.E., approximately 30,000 eighth graders and 5,000 ninth graders take the test each year. Major racial gaps have persisted in the admissions process, with 12 percent of spots last year offered to Black and Latino students — the …

ny-daily-news, opinion, opinion, pearson

The NYC school system must reject this contract

In 2012, the NYS state exam produced by Pearson featured more than 30 errors, with faulty questions and problems with translation and scoring. One of the reading passages was so ludicrous it was featured on John Oliver.
In 2013, Pearson’s state exams …
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budget, contract, john liu, news, ny-daily-news, pearson

Push to digitize NYC entrance exam for specialized high schools reignites equity debate

n panel documents, it reported receiving two bids during a request for proposals from Pearson, which has historically provided the exam, or a competitor, Educational Testing Services. After negotiating the contract down with Pearson, education officials said the cost of …

budget, chalkbeat, news

NYC eyes $17 million contract to create computer-based Specialized High School Admissions Test

This year’s eighth graders could be the last class that takes the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test with paper and pencil. A New York City education panel is slated to vote on a roughly $17 million contract later this month …

news, nytimes, results

More Black and Latino Students Admitted to New York’s Elite High Schools

Across the public school system, 24 percent of students are Black and 41 percent are Hispanic. But at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, often viewed as the city’s most competitive high school, 10 of the 744 offers made this spring …

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