Category: analysis
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At New York’s Other Selective Public Schools: Auditions for 9th Grade
While talent helps, students also need knowledge, expertise and polish to get into dozens of New York City public school arts programs that use auditions and portfolios to screen applicants. Although these schools have largely escaped the rancorous debate over selective admissions policies, they raise many of the same concerns about equity, class and race.…
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Brown’s Lost Promise: New York City Specialized High Schools as a Case Study in the Illusory Support for Class-Based Affirmative Action
But even if the diversity rationale falls out of favor with the U.S. Supreme Court, New York City’s revamped Discovery program should not. The law that created the program and the manner in which it is applied are class-conscious, not race-conscious. And if the conservative members of the Court ultimately do rule against the City…
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The Complicated Debate Around Specialized High School Admissions
https://soundcloud.com/katherine-christine-anastas/the-complicated-debate-around-specialized-high-school-admissions
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Mayor’s 2018 Proposal
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 2018 SHSAT proposal. [pdf-embedder url=”https://shsatsunset.org/wp-content/uploads/Specialized-High-Schools-Proposal-2018.pdf”]
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Is This What We Consider ‘a Good Education’?
This is one of the best “perspective” pieces on the topic yet. The time has come, I believe, to redefine what it means to be a great public school. McGraw put it this way: “I don’t know why we’re celebrating a school that’s 97 percent Asian or white as a great school. I don’t know…
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Back to School Reform
The allure of testing lies in its apparent neutrality—its democratic indifference to a student’s background and wealth. But this is not how the current system functions. Success correlates closely to socioeconomic advantages and access to test preparation. Pricey services offer tutoring to ever younger children. (There is a niche industry of consultants who help two-year-olds…
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Elite or elitist? Lessons for colleges from selective high schools
An in-depth report on the state of specialized high schools across the nation. reformers might do better instead to look to Chicago’s use of area-based geographical tiers. One advantage of this system is that it retains the high-stakes entrance examination but takes inequality into account by having students with similar backgrounds compete against each other…
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The Myth That Busing Failed
“The school bus, treasured when it was serving as a tool of segregation, became reviled only when it transformed into a tool of integration,” Nikole Hannah-Jones writes in a news analysis. Podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/podcasts/the-daily/busing-school-segregation.html
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5-10-19 Public Hearing on Specialized High Schools
The NY State Assembly had its first hearing on SHSAT exam. The hearing brought together activists, scientists, politicians and city hall employees all to discuss Hecht-Calandra and the exam it authorized. Follow the link below for the over 7 hours of testimony. https://nystateassembly.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=8&clip_id=5117