It’s been 50 years since the Hecht-Calandra Act became law, and 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 remain New York State law.
Denying the harm of using a single multiple-choice exam as the sole measure of a child’s academic worth, given the mountains of scientific evidence we now have, is similar to denying global warming.
No other district in the nation uses a single exam to screen public high school applicants. No red state or GOP-led State has a single-measure entrance exam.
Replace the 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 260 articles on Hecht-Calandra, SHSAT, and related topics.
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Council members pitch plan to boost Black and Latino enrollment at specialized city high schools
City Council Members Nantasha Williams, who represents parts of Southeast Queens, and Lincoln Restler, who represents parts of Northern Brooklyn, joined “Inside City Hall” to discuss their plan to reform enrollment at specialized high schools in New York City. Restler says that 20 years ago, 40% of students at specialized city high schools were Black…
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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. In the 2023-24 school year, 30% of kindergartners in gifted programs were Black or Latino,…
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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 less than 25% of the NYC G&T population despite making up 70% of NYC’s student…
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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 High School of Science, made 21 offers to Black pupils and 55 to Hispanic students,…
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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 year ago. Across the city’s public schools, nearly two-thirds of students are Black or Latino. Asian…
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Should NYC’s specialized high school test come in other languages? Manhattan parent council says no.
· newsLast 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 the population, are learning English — a share that’s been growing as the city absorbs…
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New York City Approves New Contract for Specialized High School Test
· newsAccording 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 highest number since 2013 and up from 10 percent the year before. The meeting agenda for…
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The NYC school system must reject this contract
· opinionhttps://www.nydailynews.com/2024/12/18/the-nyc-school-system-must-reject-this-contract/
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Push to digitize NYC entrance exam for specialized high schools reignites equity debate
· newshttps://www.nydailynews.com/2024/11/23/push-to-digitize-nyc-entrance-exam-for-specialized-high-schools-reignites-equity-debate/
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NYC eyes $17 million contract to create computer-based Specialized High School Admissions Test
· newsThis 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 that would transition the test to a computer-based model. https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2024/10/17/nyc-specialized-high-school-admissions-test-shsat-could-go-digital/