SHSAT Sunset

SHSAT Sunset

  • Elite or elitist? Lessons for colleges from selective high schools

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    An in-depth report on the state of specialized high schools across the nation. reformers might do better instead to look to Chicago’s use of area-based geographical tiers. One advantage of this system is that it retains the high-stakes entrance examination but takes inequality into account by having students with similar backgrounds compete against each other…

  • NYCLU: Paving the Way

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    Standardized test scores aren’t a good predictor of whether a student will succeed. No one knows that more than Obrian, an A-student, track star, and activist at Brooklyn Tech.

  • The Myth That Busing Failed

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    “The school bus, treasured when it was serving as a tool of segregation, became reviled only when it transformed into a tool of integration,” Nikole Hannah-Jones writes in a news analysis. Podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/podcasts/the-daily/busing-school-segregation.html

  • Foes of de Blasio’s high school integration plan spent close to $1M to quash it

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    The Education Equity Campaign, a pro-test coalition which launched in February to counter the mayor’s plan, hired top firms Tusk Strategies, Bolton St. Johns and Patrick B. Jenkins & Associates to the tune of $80,000 total in May and June, according to the recent bimonthly filings with the state’s ethics watchdog. Those contracts cost them $65,000, according…

  • Thinking through gifted and talented education in New York City public schools: One parent’s reflection on the system

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    How does the process work? Four-year-olds take a nationally normed standardized test (actually, two tests, the NNAT and the OLSAT, which are supposed to measure reasoning ability and general intellectual aptitude). No bubble sheets: It’s administered in person by an adult. Those above 90th percentile qualify for district programs. Those above 97th percentile qualify for…

  • Being black at Stuyvesant: Two students on what it’s like for African Americans at the specialized high school

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    Just because students are intelligent enough to pass a test doesn’t mean they understand people who might be ethnically, racially or culturally different. That’s what happened to Gordon in his freshman biology class when his lab partner blamed him for the AIDS virus. Or when he was told to “go back to Africa” because he…

  • GET RID OF THE SPECIALIZED HIGH SCHOOLS

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    Excerpt from an interesting opinion on NYC specialized high schools. Do we need them? Why do we have them?… The very obvious solution to the specialized high schools’ diversity conundrum is here: get rid of the specialized high schools. They’re an ugly, embarrassing testament to America’s insistence upon inserting hierarchy into all things, including public…

  • The History of New York City’s Special High Schools

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    A 2014 timeline of SHSAT related events. 2014 – New York City Council Introduces Package of Legislation to Promote Diversity in City SchoolsOn Wednesday, October 22nd, New York City Council members introduced one bill and two resolutions intended to build momentum around tackling diversity issues in New York City schools. According to recent reports, such as one…

  • Elite High-School Debate Simmers as Albany Session Winds Down

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    They got some relief Wednesday when Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat who attended Brooklyn Technical High School, told reporters he isn’t considering a deal to pass that bill in return for other changes, such as boosting gifted programs. “I think we should be looking to enrich our junior high-school students as we try…

  • FAIRNESS TO GIFTED GIRLS: ADMISSIONS TO NEW YORK CITY’S ELITE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS

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    A SHSAT research paper published in the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering. Jonathan TaylorHunter College Gender Equity Project ABSTRACT The use of test scores in school admissions has been a contentious issue for decades. In New York City’s elite public high schools, it has been particularly controversial because of disproportionate representation…