Author: siteadmin
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Whose Side Are Asian-Americans On?
Hsin, the sociology professor, told me, “If you were to put aside any concerns about goals of diversity at all and you just wanted to come up with mechanism for identifying the most talented individuals to be admitted to specialized high schools, you would never come up with the admissions policy you have now.” Grades,…
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Hey DOE: Revamp the SHSAT The current exam doesn’t accurately measure ability
Part of the reason for this disparity is that many kids don’t find out about specialized high schools and the SHSAT early enough, if at all. “In my middle school, my class didn’t know there was an SHSAT. We were considered the dumb class because we didn’t test well in elementary,” says Angie, currently a…
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SHSAT and Its Discontents: WNYC Audio Interviews
Madina Touré, New York City education reporter for Politico New York, andClara Hemphill, founder of InsideSchools at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs, discuss proposals to change admissions policies at NYC’s specialized high schools. https://www.wnyc.org/story/shsat-and-its-discontents/
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Assessing the Assessment: SHSAT
Don’t assume that because your student does well in school that they will do well on any other test or in any other setting. Kids who do the best on the test are those who go into confident and prepared. Don’t make assumptions your kid will do well. If you’re thinking of a Specialized High…
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Schools chancellor calls for more black, Latino students in city’s specialized high schools
“We’re the only city in America that requires a single test for admission to a public school,” he said. “So I’m asking the question . . . ‘Is that OK?’ I’m asking the question, ‘Is that justice for our kids?’ ” […] “You have brilliant black and Latino students . . . if they don’t…
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Closing gap at specialized high schools
Ultimately, the city has to do more to improve educational opportunities for everyone, not just the admission process to the top schools. More middle schools need to be high-achieving ones, more gifted programs are needed in the younger grades, and the city should add more specialized high schools, too. There’s no guarantee that the city’s…
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The Students Trying to Get Ahead in a One-Test System
At Think Prep, a testing outfit near Penn Station, six students bent over desks in a windowless classroom. They’d been there for the past six weeks, Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., studying practice S.H.S.A.T. questions. (The program costs five thousand six hundred dollars.) […] The instructor, whose name was Andrew, wiped down the…
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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…