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 240 articles on Hecht-Calandra, SHSAT, and related topics.
Gaps at many of the other schools were also stark: Out of 287 offers made at Staten Island Technical High School, for example, two Black students were accepted — up from zero last year — along with seven Latino students ... Read More
While talent helps, students also need knowledge, expertise and polish to get into dozens of New York City public school arts programs that use auditions and portfolios to screen applicants. Although these schools have largely escaped the rancorous debate over ... Read More
Assuming Massey is right that segregation is the vehicle “through which Black poverty is transmitted and reproduced,” policymakers of good will face the enormous and perhaps insuperable task of restoring integration to center stage while somehow avoiding the political and ... Read More
But perhaps the most consequential feature of Black segregated schools in the United States is that they are mostly high-poverty schools. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a staggering 72.4 percent of Black eighth graders attend a high-poverty school, ... Read More
Despite these grim odds, young Indians continue arriving in Kota, and the coaching institutes have become a big business, encompassing 300 or so centers that generate $350 million to $450 million in revenue every year, according to one estimate. The ... Read More
It shouldn’t have been so difficult to feel welcomed in my own school. Something is wrong when students feel alienated in the space where they spend the majority of their time. My experience is part of a bigger problem. Black ... Read More
A new report from the Civil Rights Project finds that New York retains its place as the most segregated state for black students, and second most segregated for Latino students, trailing only California. The report also makes clear that New ... Read More
While today’s school subdistrict boundaries were mostly established in the late 1960s, their historical roots are much older, dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, when New York City as we know it today was formed by consolidating ... Read More
the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) submitted an amicus brief to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence Corp. v. School Committee of the City of Boston. In its brief, ... Read More
While the share of Black and Latino students taking the test increased this year by more than five percentage points, to almost 47% of test-takers, that did not translate into more students earning a score high enough to qualify for ... Read More
