The new effort, spearheaded by the advocacy group Teens Take Charge, comes on the heels of sweeping protests against racial injustice that advocates hope will shine new light on segregation in city schools.
“The recent protests really did show all of us racism is a really big issue and that we need to do better in improving integration in this city,” said William Diep, a 16-year-old Teens Take Charge member, and senior at Brooklyn Latin, one of the city’s specialized schools.
This new bill calls for the repeal of the Hecht-Calandra Act.
At present, there are nine specialized high schools in New York City, one of which – Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts – focuses on the arts. The other eight schools are The Bronx High School of Science, The Brooklyn Latin School, Brooklyn Technical High School, High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at the City College of New York, High School of American Studies at Lehman College, Queens High School for the Sciences at York College, Staten Island Technical High School, and Stuyvesant High School.
Section 2590-h of the Education Law requires that admission to the specialized high schools, other than LaGuardia High School, be based on the results of a competitive, objective and scholastic achievement test. This test is known as the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT).
Section one of the bill sets out legislative findings of stark racial disparities in the New York City specialized high schools, which since the enactment of Hecht-Calandra Act of 1971 mandated admission be based solely on a single score obtained on a standardized test known as the specialized high school admission test (SHSAT), a test which is in use in no other school district in the country.
Section two of this bill would amend section 2590-h of the Education Law to provide an amended recitation of the specialized high schools, and the City of New York’s authority to create additional such highs schools at the discretion of the Chancellor, leaving the establishment of admissions criteria to the local school district.
Section three would make the same amendment as the amendment made by section one of this bill, as described above. Section two would take effect when section 2590-h of the Education Law, as amended by chapter 345 of the laws of 2009, expires and reverts to section 2590-h of the Education Law, as amended by chapter 720 of the laws of 2006.
Section four would provide that this bill takes effect on January 1, 2022.
https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?default_fld=&leg_video=&bn=A10731&term=2019&Summary=Y&Text=Y
6-minute student short documentary “SHSAT AND SEGREGATION” by teen student Micha Hervey.
Micha did an excellent job, and though our vote maybe biased, would get our nod for an Emmy if we had one.
We realized that both the admissions process and the school system had changed from the time of our attendance. Many of us came to Stuyvesant by way of gifted classes in our neighborhood public schools. Until the 90s, gifted education was decentralized, with accelerated SP (“special progress”) and IGC (“intellectually gifted”) classes in local schools giving academically talented kids in every city neighborhood an opportunity to receive instruction in the above-grade level material they would encounter on the SHSAT. Today, that opportunity is concentrated in just a handful of schools.
Today, no other school system in the country uses a single test to determine who is admitted to their most competitive public schools. None uses the SHSAT, which is distinctive in its content and format, and mysterious in its scoring. It is not aligned with what most students are taught and includes question types which are unfamiliar to most test takers and give a significant advantage to students who have had prior exposure to the test, even with recent changes to its components. This speaks to the validity of the test, or whether it is actually measuring what it was designed to measure. New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza addressed this issue when he testified before the NYS Assembly Committee on Education last year. In his testimony, Chancellor Carranza explained that “a test is valid when it measures what it was designed to measure and it’s reliable when it gives you an accurate measurement over time…[a]s students go through their school day and they’re learning the state standards which the legislature has said this is what you need to know to be able to get a diploma from the State of New York, this test does not measure that. It does not measure that mastery. It’s a tricky test designed to rank order students. So in terms of reliability and validity for ranking students, it is. But the question is it the best methodology for measuring talent, for identifying talent, for identifying the grit, the tenacity, the dedication, the desire of students to be able to go a specialized public school in New York City. It is not valid, it is not reliable when it is used in that way.”
Although it would be logical to expect that the students who perform the best on the SHSAT to also be the students who perform the best on state tests, research indicates that is not necessarily the case. In 2015, Sean Corcoran, a researcher at NYU, examined data from 2005 to 2013 and determined that Black, Latinx and female students who score well on state tests are admitted to specialized high schools at a lower rate than White, Asian and male students. While the reasons for these differences are not fully understood, they were enough for Corcoran to conclude that the SHSAT acts as a BARRIER to admission for certain groups. This finding, standing alone, raises serious questions about the continued utilization of the SHSAT in the high school admissions process.
To the extent a special program like Discovery must be used, we see an opportunity to strengthen this alternate path. We have proposed combining the Discovery Program with the DOE’s DREAM middle school enrichment program as part of a larger, coordinated effort to identify academically talented students who are educationally disadvantaged as early as possible in their academic careers, and then provide them with accelerated instruction and other appropriate support, academic as well as social, both before and after their enrollment in high school. This would allow the City to move beyond the SHSAT as the sole way to identify talent, and target academically talented students from communities underrepresented at the City’s specialized high schools with a longer period of enrichment and support than the summer session currently offered through the Discovery Program. This would help compensate for our uneven educational system, and would assist admitted students with addressing the challenges they may face once they start high school.
https://medium.com/@shsbadi/shsbadi-at-10-lessons-learned-and-the-path-forward-d6ca29c8a5de
Name: Aravella Simotas
Assembly Link: https://nyassembly.gov/mem/Aravella-Simotas
Ballotpedia: https://ballotpedia.org/Aravella_Simotas
Phone: 718-545-3889
Although frequently virtue-signaling in public, Assemblymember Simotas has been a firm supporter of keeping the SHSAT high-stakes exam as the sole admissions criteria in NYC public specialized high schools.
Media:
From: “Aravella Simotas” <[email protected]>
Date: June 27, 2019 at 12:19:40 PM EDT
To: [Redacted]
Subject: RE: Please OPPOSE A2173 on NYC Specialized High School Admissions
Dear [Redacted]:
Thank you for your letter concerning the Specialized High School Admissions Test. I am always glad to receive feedback from my constituents.
As the mother of a young child and a product of the public school system, I share your commitment to supporting our public schools. While it is important to work towards increasing diversity in New York City’s specialized high schools, I agree that eliminating the entrance exam is not the right way to achieve this goal.
Having one standardized admissions test for our specialized high schools ensures that all students are judged based on the same objective measure and considered solely on merit. Introducing subjective criteria into the admissions process could have unintended consequences and lead to a less rigorous curriculum in these schools, which would ultimately do a disservice to high-achieving students of all backgrounds. Furthermore, this proposal would deprive students in private and parochial schools of the opportunity to compete for admission on an equal playing field to their peers in public schools. To address racial and economic disparities in high school admissions without compromising high academic standards, we should work to expand access to quality educational opportunities and test preparation services for students in disadvantaged communities. In the Assembly, I will continue to fight to ensure every student has the chance to thrive and reach their full potential.
I appreciate you taking the time to write to me. Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Aravella Simotas
New York State Assemblymember
36th District – Queens
In the above letter, Assemblymember Simotas goes through the greatest hits of incorrect assumptions regarding the SHSAT exam.
The SHSAT is objective only if you do not consider that it tests above grade material. Parents pay thousands of dollars a year to get their children tutoring above what’s taught at school. This ensures that the SHSAT is biased toward wealth or at least the willingness to invest thousands into it.
Assemblymember Simotas continues to claim that ANY admissions criteria outside this single high-stakes exam would be subjective. I guess every college, including every Ivory league has been doing it wrong.
Assemblymember Simotas suggests there are better ways of increasing diversity at our specialized high schools. Yet she never proposes or passes any bills toward this. Keep in mind that NYC already spends about $20M/year on this single exam!
Simotas’ is a common NY democrat strategy when supporting conservative agendas. Simply vaguely claiming that there’s a better way. Sadly, they’ve been using this redirect since the 1970s.
Chancellor Carranza gives the New York State Assembly and Senate a great summarized argument for repealing the Hecht-Calandra Act.
Also at this hearing, Senator John Liu brought up the question of decertifying the 5 most recent SHSAT schools…
This 2014 Slate.com article makes the unusual argument that Specialized High Schools should be closed.
My alma mater, Stuyvesant High School, has been a lightning rod in New York City politics for as long as I can remember. Whenever critics have griped about the way Stuyvesant does business, my inclination has long been to say, essentially, “Screw you.” Going to Stuyvesant is one of the best things to have ever happened to me.
Noguera is exactly right. The politicians and the education experts who are so fixated on the racial balance at Stuyvesant neglect the fact that Stuyvesant is not built to support and nurture students who need care and attention to excel academically and socially. It is a school that allows ambitious students who know how to navigate their way around a maddening, complex bureaucracy to connect with other students with the same skill sets
A bit of a racist argument here. That these 2 groups won’t materially intersect.
I have a theory about declining white representation at Stuyvesant. I seriously doubt that it’s because New York City is no longer home to white eighth-graders from affluent families who have expansive vocabularies and solid critical thinking skills and who are more than capable of scoring well on the entrance exam. I’ve met more than my share of such young people. My gut tells me that Stuyvesant has grown steadily less attractive to white families with the kind of social and cultural capital that helps people get ahead in America.
Instead of reinventing Stuyvesant from the ground up, we should instead recognize that it never made sense for one warehouse of a school to hoover up such a big chunk of the city’s whiz kids. Better to spread gifted and talented kids across a wide range of schools offering different instructional models
Boston Public Schools have for years misused the test results that help determine admissions to its coveted exam schools, in a way that makes it harder for “underrepresented” students to win admissions, according to the organization that administers the controversial exam.
The fairness of the admissions process to the three exam schools—Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy, and the John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science—has been a contentious subject in recent years. Several civil rights groups and community organizations have argued that the admissions process, based half on student grades and half on their scores on the test, called the Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE), has disadvantaged low-income students, particularly Blacks and Latinos.
“Given that it’s an exam that is completely foreign to students and requires parents and outside resources to help prepare them, it doesn’t make sense as a tool for identifying which students are going to be able to succeed in a rigorous academic environment,” said Joshua Goodman, an associate professor at Brandeis University. Goodman authored a 2018 study that found the school system’s reliance on the ISEE potentially blocked thousands of students of color from accessing the exam schools.
Instead, Rochon said in a Wednesday morning interview, the four sections are intended to be considered individually as part of a broader assessment of an applicant’s merits—which ideally should also include student essays, letters of recommendation, and other elements. Too much emphasis on a summary test score can disadvantage students from more marginalized groups. But Rochon added that “it is obviously up to the citizens of Boston to decide how to weight academic achievement…with the really important issues around equity and access.”
Although the mayor’s proposal is modest, opposition to it has been enormous. Opponents defend wholeheartedly the use of the SHSAT. It’s their belief that this high-stakes exam is objective, merit-based, and fair. This opposition movement is largely backed by lobbyist groups funded by CEOs, and alumni associations with deep pockets. Its ranks also include self-described progressives such as Jumanee Williams, alumnus of the specialized school system and current New York City Public Advocate. Instead of scrapping the SHSAT, they believe the city should instead expand access to the exam, invest in SHSAT preparation services, and open more SHS.
At some point it must be asked more generally: Why expend all this effort preserving an exam whose validity and legitimacy are dubious? There are better predictors of SHS performance—such as middle school grades, or scores from state exams (for which preparation is universally built into the curriculum and, unlike the SHSAT, are taken during school hours). These alternatives would satisfy SHSAT defenders’ own requirements for admissions based on academic merit. But they oppose them—because it’s really not about defending objectivity, but protecting the most privileged routes to the SHS that exist because of the SHSAT.
https://morecaucusnyc.org/2020/01/12/the-system-that-segregated-nyc-schools/