Author: siteadmin
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Fair and objective or useless and biased? A Chalkbeat guide to the case for and against New York City’s specialized high school test
There’s no doubt that the exam is a clean-cut way of making admissions decisions — and clarity is rare in the New York City high school admissions system, where sought-after schools can all have different criteria and students are eventually admitted by an algorithm. But we also know that not all eligible New York City students…
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Stuyvesant High School Black Alumni Diversity Initiative: Letter To Chancellor Carranza
Below is an open letter to Chancellor Richard A. Carranza from the Stuyvesant High School Black Alumni Diversity Initiative (SHSBADI). SHSBADI was formed in 2010 to address the declining enrollment of Black and Latinx students at Stuyvesant and the city’s other specialized high schools. The letter below outlines SHSBADI’s recommendations for ways to increase the number of Black and Latinx students…
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My Feelings about the SHSAT & Specialized Schools
I don’t think the standard mathematics curriculum IN MIDDLE SCHOOL CLASSES will prepare a student to successfully get into one of the specialized schools without going to extra math classes (and ELA, probably, but I’m focusing more specifically on the math, because that’s my area of expertise). Now, when I consider the ways in which…
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Why I Support Multiple Measures of Admission to New York’s Specialized High Schools
First, I support multiple measures of evaluation for colleges, jobs, sports teams and anything else I can think of, why should I support a single test as the sole standard of admission to specialized high schools. Secondly, at a time when more and more colleges are becoming SAT/ACT Optional, it is in no one’s interest,…
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Scrap the SHSAT, for diversity’s sake: Mayor de Blasio is right about selective high schools
We at the New York Urban League are taking these issues head-on by helping to educate parents and students about the SHSAT so more black and Latino students are aware of the exam. Exams are administered in the fall; check the New York City Department of Education website for test dates, and encourage students to…
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Pathways to an Elite Education Exploring Strategies to Diversify NYC’s Specialized High Schools (2015)
This brief examines students’ pathways from middle school to matriculation at a specialized high school, and simulates the effects of various admissions criteria that have been proposed as alternatives to the current policy. Analyzing data from 2005 to 2013, we found that while the SHSAT is (by design) the most important factor determining who attends…
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New York City released its study of the SHSAT. Here’s why it won’t end the admissions debate.
Still, the study doesn’t address key questions about whether the SHSAT is any better at predicting student success than the alternative system de Blasio put forward. And it can’t get at the heart of the debate about the importance of diversifying the elite schools. The study uses data from every single eighth grade student who…
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SHSAT History: New York Specialized High School Admission Policies Have Changed Over the Years
A new reform movement was launched in 1996 when a report issued by the community-activist organization ACORN branded the high-stake one-shot admissions test a form of educational apartheid. They were supported by Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew, but once again the campaign failed because of deeply entrenched political opposition. In 1995 the city opened a Specialized High Schools Institute (SHSI), city-run preparatory program…
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Who Finds Out About Summer Test Prep Can Depend on Race
“If if it wasn’t for having a dual-income household, I would not be able to afford it at all,” said Auressa Simmons who enrolled her daughter Anaiyah. On top of the tuition for the summer program, she and her husband pay for a van share that takes Anaiyah to her summer classes. In contrast, Melissa…
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Asian Americans should embrace reform of specialized high school admissions
Not all communities view testing in the same light, and aversion to change is natural. Still, SHSAT supporters have yet to persuasively explain away decades of social-science research. Contrary to the belief that scrapping the SHSAT would lower the quality of students, education experts such as Amy Hsin, associate professor of sociology at CUNY, have argued that grades…