SHSAT Sunset

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  • High-Stakes Standardized Testing Supporter: Robert Cornegy

    Name: Robert Cornegy
    Council Link: https://council.nyc.gov/robert-cornegy/
    Ballotpedia: https://ballotpedia.org/Robert_Cornegy
    Phone: 718-919-0740

    Robert Cornegy is an NYC City Council member and a candidate for Brooklyn Borough President. He represents city council district 36.

    Mr. Cornegy is also a firm supporter of the SHSAT specialized test as the sole measure of student ability. Even as just about every expert explains that he can’t rely on a single 90 question multiple-choice test as the sole measure of a child’s academic ability.

    Media: Brooklyn Council Member Cornegy Misused Office for Borough President Run, Complaint to Council Charges

    Brooklyn Council Member Cornegy Misused Office for Borough President Run, Complaint to Council Charges
    Employees were asked for campaign work and contributions — both banned under ethics rules — a former staffer alleges. The complaint also contends that Cornegy planned campaign activities with his top aide while on the job.

    https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/2/17/22288694/robert-cornegy-office-complaint

    Media: Robert Cornegy’s endorsements that weren’t

    However, Cornegy’s campaign has inflated its endorsement count: three people who the campaign told City & State endorsed Cornegy have not done so.

    Media:

    Cornegy’s accepting Real Estate lobbying money

    Education Equity Policies

    As for education, and judging from Mr. Cornegy’s interviews, I can only conclude his position stems from a lack of understanding rather than a firm belief of any kind.

    So I’ve taken some stances that I don’t care whether they’re popular or not, they were right. I was one of probably the only Democratic members who voted for an expansion of charters, because charters in my district have provided a pathway for students to do really well, especially on socialization and standardized testing, which I think are two of the pillars for our students to be successful. I’ve also fought diligently to bring back Gifted and Talented programs.

    Robert Cornegy to PLACENYC interviewer

    I’m a tremendous advocate for not removing the test into our specialized high schools. I’ve been fighting against that. Again, very unpopular at the council, right? For some reason, they see the necessity to do away with something that I think has been a great tool for students to be able to access. So I’m in that fight with you ( PLACENYC). So you have an advocate and an ally on the council in that fight to make sure that we’re not removing.

    Robert Cornegy to PLACENYC interviewer

    Yeah, I don’t particularly care for that program ( D15 integration plan ) because I think that there are … I remember when we fought to bring the Gifted and Talented programs back.

    Robert Cornegy to PLACENYC interviewer

    So again, I’m on the Education Committee at the council and have established great relationships. The Borough President’s Office, as I mentioned, has the largest bully pulpit. So everything from sounding the alarm to work with advocates like you on the call for a good solid education policies swings the pendulum, right?

    Robert Cornegy to PLACENYC interviewer

    One of the things that’s happening is people are listening to advocates around tests and around the specialized high schools more. There was a time when the advocates were trying to just push so hard to to get rid of the test. Me being an African American male and standing up and saying, “No, we don’t want to get rid of the test. Change the whole …” It slowed down the process. The test probably would have been going because the mayor wanted it gone, and the chancellor wanted it gone and these advocates. But there were black people like me, who said, “No, no. We never said we wanted the test to go away, we think there shouldn’t be a measurement tool.” Consequently, the fight still continues and we’re getting momentum. With the larger platform and from the borough president’s office, I can take the momentum that we already have. Like you said, which is the best analogy somebody can get, swinging the pendulum the pendulum back in the right direction.

    Robert Cornegy to PLACENYC interviewer

    So I’m a top tier candidate, even though I’m not walking in lockstep with some of the wild, crazy ideas around shifting policy and education as it relates to our kids. So I think it’s an excellent opportunity to invest in someone who is like you, who’s been a part of the system, who’s not idealistic, but who’s practical about what we can do to change the system and who’s a hard worker. So I would just ask that you continue to spread the word that there’s somebody out there that’s incredibly interesting in the in the educational space, who’s well steeped in what the needs are, and who stands on his own.

    Robert Cornegy to PLACENYC interviewer

    The full interview can be found on youtube.

  • NYC mayoral candidates divided on politically fractious elite high school test

    “We cannot have admissions practices that have nothing to do with the learning abilities or needs of our kids, that are frankly just testing how much income parents have and for low-income parents who are scraping it together instead of doing other things with their limited dollars,”

    Maya Wiley

    https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2021/01/28/nyc-mayoral-candidates-divided-on-politically-fractious-elite-high-school-test-1361070

  • Students Will Take SHSAT in Person Next Week, Adding to Strain on Middle School Principals

    Covid pandemic or not, NYC holds the SHSAT exam.

    “It seems incredibly unfair to put families in the position where they, again, any family who chose remote learning, now has to choose whether it is worth jeopardizing the safety and health and well-being of people in their household to send their student, their children, in to take this test,”

    https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2021/01/22/students-will-take-shsat-in-person-next-week–adding-to-strain-on-middle-school-principals

  • Mayor’s 2018 Proposal

    Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 2018 SHSAT proposal.

    Specialized-High-Schools-Proposal-2018

  • Reopen Schools, and Reform Them

    Instead of allowing the pandemic to worsen longstanding inequities, New York could seize on the disruption to fix its broken high school admissions practices at all its schools. Several promising proposals have emerged in recent years. Instead of a single exam, Albany could allow the city to use state test scores, class rank and other measures. These important reforms would require the State Legislature to overturn Hecht-Calandra, the 1971 law that explicitly requires three of the specialized high schools — Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School — to use an exam as the only point of entry.

    Changing admissions policies to allow talented Black and Latino students — indeed, all students — a fair shot at attending the city’s top high schools should be the easy part. The far harder challenge facing the city in the coming years is how to prevent millions of children who were already vulnerable before the pandemic from falling far further behind.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/opinion/new-york-public-high-schools.html

  • Nobody’s Special PLACE

    But if schools are “good” and “bad” based on who enrolls, then what function does a school itself serve?

    The SHSAT conversation has crystalized into who is worthy of the “best” education, and who is not. A dyslexic student who excels on projects but not tests; a student juggling multiple caregiving demands; a high-performing student who spends hours at soccer or debate practice — any student who is not laser-focused on preparing for this one test and does not exceed the ever-rising cut-off score — all, under this PLACE paradigm, fall among the undeserving.

    https://safeschoolsny.medium.com/nobodys-special-place-4b769ad5c350

  • NYC, suspend high-stakes admission tests

    Yet for years, neither the mayor nor the Legislature — nor anyone in Hunter College leadership — has taken the necessary action to overhaul a system that bases admissions to the most coveted schools on just a test, the SHSAT or the Hunter test. There’s not a single elite college in America that bases its admissions only on SAT or ACT scores, yet New York City’s best high schools make a single, homegrown exam make or break for thousands of students, despite results that worsen segregation.

    Now we are faced with an even greater educational crisis: The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequities within the school and health-care systems. School leaders across the country have suspended their 2021 admissions tests to mitigate the disparate effects of the pandemic. We are calling on New York City’s leaders to uphold both equity and safety by suspending the SHSAT and Hunter admissions test for 2021.

    https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-nyc-suspend-high-stakes-admission-tests-20201130-ovxqoz6qdjgcjlrisceopbspdy-story.html

  • Taylor Study 2019

    taylor-gifted-study-01

  • Will the coronavirus mean the end of the SHSAT? I hope so

    I believe the exam should have been eliminated years ago, but this difficult moment in history would be the perfect opportunity to see how a more inclusive set of admissions criteria could work for these specialized high schools without administering the test. The city’s education department should see this as a chance to explore the effectiveness of the other solutions that have been suggested as alternatives to using the SHSAT. While it is not up to the city alone, the city should put pressure on members of the New York State Legislature — who are the only ones that can repeal the relevant law — and push for a waiver to not have to administer the exam this year at least.

    https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2020/11/24/21625605/coronavirus-end-of-the-shsat

  • The legal battle over high school entrance exams

    The points made in this article cannot be overstated. The Hecht-Calandra Act may be an unknown, obscure law to many Americans, including New Yorkers. But this law may be the small crack in the armor that allows conservative legal groups to defeat all race-conscious equity schemes.

    McAuliffe PTO is just the latest federal case involving Asian American plaintiffs (though funded and orchestrated by conservative legal strategists Edward Blum and the Pacific Legal Foundation) alleging that racial diversity efforts in admissions discriminate against them, and we can expect more such cases to be filed in the future. (See also Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.)  

    If the case makes its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and if the Court strikes down New York’s effort to tinker with its elite schools’ admissions process (even though the new policy is race-neutral and has only negligible effects on the racial composition of those schools; Mader, 2020), the implications could be far-reaching. For instance, it could lead to further litigation in other cities, like Boston and Chicago, whose elite public schools are more representative of the districts’ student population. It could further limit schools’ ability to adopt race-conscious measures to integrate K-12 schools (a practice that was already on life support after Parents Involved). It could even prompt further limits to or the end of affirmative action in higher education (if the Harvard case doesn’t get the犀利士 re first). 

    https://kappanonline.org/legal-battle-high-school-entrance-exams-kim/