Category: 2015
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IBO: Do a Larger Share of Students Attending the City’s Specialized High Schools Live in Neighborhoods With Higher Median Incomes than Those Attending the City’s Other High Schools?
Students in the specialized high schools came from census tracts where the median household income averaged $62,457 compared with $46,392 for students in other high schools. (All dollar amounts are reported in 2012 dollars). If we rank the census tracts by their median income and then divide the tracts into equal fifths (quintiles), we observe…
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A Summer of Test Prep Means More Asians in the City’s Elite Schools
Those involved in the tutoring business believe the deck is stacked because too many smart kids don’t even know about the importance of test prep. While certain Asian immigrants have created a pipeline of tutoring centers, educators say black and Latino students often don’t have the same networks in their communities. https://www.wnyc.org/story/certain-immigrants-tutoring-key-specialized-high-schools-test/
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The Big Problem With the New SAT
The SAT will remain a “norm-referenced” exam, designed primarily to rank students rather than measure what they actually know. Such exams compare students to other test takers, rather than measure their performance against a fixed standard. They are designed to produce a “bell curve” distribution among examinees, with most scoring in the middle and with…
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Questions of Bias Are Raised About a Teachers’ Exam in New York
The earlier test that Judge Wood ruled was discriminatory, the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, was used until 2004. She said that because the minority candidates were failing that test in greater numbers, the burden was on public officials to prove the test served a valid purpose. In similar rulings, judges around the country have…