SHSAT Sunset

Category: research

  • IBO Report: The Specialized High School Admissions Pipeline

    While about one third of traditional public and charter school 8th grade students took the SHSAT during the 2021-2022 school year, far fewer students received offers of admission and ultimately enrolled. IBO examined admissions rates by disability status and found students with disabilities were less likely than their peers without disabilities to take the SHSAT, to receive offers of admission to a specialized high school—and to enroll.

    Students with disabilities took the SHSAT three times less frequently (12.4%) than their peers without disabilities (38.3%).

    The disparity between the two groups increased as students moved through the admissions pipeline. Students with disabilities received offers of admission eleven times less often (0.6%, compared with 6.7%) and they enrolled nearly twelve times less than their peers without disabilities (0.5%, compared with 5.8%).

    This really should be a federal ADA lawsuit.

    https://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/the-specialized-high-school-admissions-pipeline-june-2024.html

  • Report Shows School Segregation in New York Remains Worst in Nation

    A new report from the Civil Rights Project finds that New York retains its place as the most segregated state for black students, and second most segregated for Latino students, trailing only California. The report also makes clear that New York is experiencing an acceleration of demographic changes outlined in the earlier 2014 report. White students are no longer the state’s majority group as they were in 2010. the proportion of Asian students increasing sharply to more than 17% in 2018, and Latino students becoming the largest racial/ethnic group, from 35% in 1990 to 41% in 2018. Conversely, there has been a significant decline in the black student population. The new research also examines the expansion of school choice and charter schools and how they may have contributed to the continued segregation of the city’s schools. The research underscores that many in New York City are engaged in important efforts to integrate schools and there are a significant number of schools showing signs of reduced segregation.

    https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/news/press-releases/2021-press-releases/report-shows-school-segregation-in-new-york-remains-worst-in-nation

  • Boundary Matters: Uncovering the Hidden History of New York City’s School Subdistrict Lines

    While today’s school subdistrict boundaries were mostly established in the late 1960s, their historical roots are much older, dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, when New York City as we know it today was formed by consolidating what are now the five boroughs—the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island—into one unit. In 1902, a centralized board of education took control of the entire city school system, which was divided into 46 geographic school subdistricts, each with their own local board and administrator

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584211038939

  • Adams & Banks are putting lipstick on a pig: Separate gifted-and-talented classes are bad educational practice that drive segregation

    Integration researchers and advocates like us have been recommending for years that all students in all classrooms deserve access to opportunities to challenge and stimulate their learning and creativity. Rather than telling kids that they’re in G&T or they’re out, the city should implement a gifted-for-all approach, shifting to a system focused on differentiation within mixed-ability classrooms, equipping teachers to provide high-quality instruction that includes project-based learning and challenge, and ensuring that there are entry points for all students.

    https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-adams-banks-gifted-talented-20220415-ld2fhxewrjaqrjiu4crc774ile-story.html

  • Constitutional Diversity in New York’s Specialized High Schools: The SHSAT, the Discovery Program, and the Fourteenth Amendment

    Even if the SHSAT was an educational necessity, it would still violate disparate impact regulations if there was an alternative available that achieved the same objective with a less discriminatory impact. The NAACP LDF found that a multi-measured approach to admissions based on quantitative and qualitative portions of an application would be equal to or more effective than the SHSAT and would have a smaller discriminatory impact. While middle school grades could be a major component of an application, “teacher recommendations, proven leadership skills, a commitment to community service,” and demographic profiles could be used to assess a candidate’s academic and individual capabilities. To supplement a multi-measured approach, the NAACP LDF advocated for changes to the Discovery Program or adoption of a system which reserved seats for top students from middle schools around the City.

    http://cardozolawreview.com/constitutional-diversity-in-new-yorks-specialized-high-schools-the-shsat-the-discovery-program-and-the-fourteenth-amendment/

  • Taylor Study 2019

    taylor-gifted-study-01

  • Brown’s Lost Promise: Segregation & Affirmative Action In New York City Specialized High Schools

    New York City is one of the most diverse cities in the United States. However, its schools remain some of the most segregated. The crown jewel of the City’s public education system, Specialized High Schools, are among the nation’s top public institutions. But in a city where over 60 percent of children are Black or Latinx, less than 10 percent of the students admitted into these prestigious schools come from these communities. Due to a 1971 New York state law, admission into the Specialized High Schools is granted solely on the basis of a standardized exam, the Specialized High School Admissions Test, which students can opt to take during their eighth grade. The statute allows only one exception to this rule, the Discovery program, which allows the City to place “disadvantaged” students near the cutoff score in a preparatory summer program that would grant them admission into a Specialized High School.

    Recently, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio expanded this program to make up 20 percent of the seats at Specialized High Schools and redefined the Discovery program’s parameters to only accept those students who go to high-poverty middle schools. A lawsuit currently before the Southern District of New York alleges that this policy is discriminatory against Asian American students. This Note argues that this lawsuit constitutional challenges is against a facially-neutral affirmative action policy, which undercuts the two major competing Equal Protection frameworks: anti-classification and anti-subordination. Subsequently, this Note contends that Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s ascent to the U.S. Supreme Court tilts the Court’s Equal Protection jurisprudence sharply towards the Court’s anti-classificationist wing, making it even more important to consider other means of reducing racial homogeny that could withstand judicial scrutiny. Further, this Note suggests that the conservative scrutiny facing the revamped Discovery guidelines is due to a distinction between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor, as the political right’s support of class-based affirmative action has not extended to the present case in New York City.

    Ultimately, this Note contends that the Southern District of New York should rule in favor of New York City to remain consistent with Supreme Court precedent in cases regarding facial-neutrality, such as Fisher v. University of Texas. Should the district court decide otherwise, this Note asserts that it will have “pierced the veil” of facial-neutrality, overturning the Court’s precedent and leaving uncertain the constitutionality of facially-neutral programs.

    In conclusion, the Note holds that even the adapted Discovery program guidelines do not go far enough to ensure inclusive enrollment at these prestigious institutions. More must be done to provide every child in New York City has the opportunity for a better life—the very foundational value upon which the Specialized High Schools were created.

    Full research paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3699190

  • The Effects – Intended and Not – Of Ending the Specialized High School Test

    Our findings also lead us to some larger conclusions about flaws inherent in New York City’s entire system of choice in public high school admissions. Because under this system, there is no simple, direct relationship between an individual applicant’s academic strengths and the caliber of the high school she or he ultimately attends. Myriad other factors intervene, including: exposure to and awareness of the application process and the range of high-quality school options available; quality of middle school counseling; ability or willingness to undertake long inter-borough commutes to school; and others. 

    Success on the SHSAT and in the high school choice process often go hand-in-hand, because both require resources above and beyond academic ability alone. For evidence, one need only look at the expensive “arms race” of prep tutoring and courses for the SHSAT that many families take part in every year. 

    http://www.centernyc.org/the-effects-intended

  • FAIRNESS TO GIFTED GIRLS: ADMISSIONS TO NEW YORK CITY’S ELITE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS

    A SHSAT research paper published in the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering.

    Jonathan Taylor
    Hunter College Gender Equity Project

    ABSTRACT

    The use of test scores in school admissions has been a contentious issue for decades. In New York City’s elite public high schools, it has been particularly controversial because of disproportionate representation by ethnicity. Underrepresentation of girls has received less attention. This research compared the predictive validity and gender bias of the admissions criterion, the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), with that of seventh grade GPA, a possible additional criterion. SHSAT (r2 = 0.20) predicted high school grades less precisely than GPA7 (r2 = 0.44) and underpredicted girls’ grades in all academic domains and specific courses analyzed. Girls were overrepresented in the upper tail of STEM course grades. Simulated admissions using an index combining SHSAT and GPA7 suggest that different admissions criteria might improve the quality of the admitted cohort, increase diversity, and be gender-fair.

    http://www.dl.begellhouse.com/journals/00551c876cc2f027,294b56436594090b,2e036b8a364ae7df.html

  • SHSAT Assembly Testimony: Race, Gifted & Talented, and Tracking in NYC: Dr. Roda, et. al

    Dr-Roda-SHS_testimony_20190520_final

    Below are some excerpts from Dr. Roda’s paper on SHSAT, gifted and talented, and tracking in NYC.

    In particular, our research-based recommendations, described below, call on the Chancellor and Mayor to phase out G&T programs and replace them with equitable and integrated desegregated schools and classroom settings with culturally responsive and sustaining curriculum. We also strongly recommend that the city eliminate test-based enrollment screens at the elementary, middle, and high schools across the city and replace them with a more holistic approach that includes diversity targets.

    Admissions at New York City’s Specialized High Schools (SHS) is fiercely debated. One proposal for addressing the dismal percentage of Black and Latinx students admitted to these schools is to expand the number of G&T programs in elementary and middle schools. Supporters offer this solution in contrast to the mayor’s proposal to diversify the SHS with guaranteed spots for a set percentage of high achieving students from middle schools across the city.1 They hope that expanding the number of G&T seats will help Black and Latinx students compete for admission into selective middle and high schools—essentially diversifying the G&T to SHS pipeline.

    What these pro-G&T advocates are overlooking, however, is that Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein already tried that approach back in 2008, and their measure failed, largely because in adopting a single test for admissions they traded one inequitable method for another. Research has shown a tight correlation between test scores and socio-economic status (SES). It should come as no surprise, then, that test-based admissions systems achieve segregation, especially in school systems like New York City where race and class are tightly intertwined. Predictably, year after year, the G&T student population is disproportionately White and Asian with approximately 70 percent testing into G&T while only comprising 30 percent of the overall public school population. Meanwhile, 30 percent of Black and Latinx students are enrolled in
    the G&T programs, compared to 70 percent of students citywide

    Diane Ravitch, historian of New York City schools, wrote about the G&T admissions change to a single test score in 2008: “Any education researcher could have predicted this result, because children from advantaged homes are far likelier to know the vocabulary on a standardized test than children who lack the same advantages.” Yet other methods of admissions to G&T programs are equally problematic. Indeed, the Bloomberg/Klein shift to using a standardized test for access to G&T programs was in response to inequalities in G&T admissions that existed at the time, which used a variety of criteria, including teacher recommendations and private (and expensive) psychological valuations. A recent study found that nationally Black students with high standardized test scores are less likely to receive G&T services than White students with similar scores, and suggests that teacher discretion (and teachers’ racial background) explains some of this difference. Ultimately, what seems like a commonsense solution to diversify the G&T to SHS pipeline, by prepping and testing all children, is actually not going to have the desired effect of increased diversity in SHS, because G&T programs suffer from the same segregating forces as the SHS.

    Attempting to expand and diversify G&T programs also does not address the core problem of separating students into ‘dual school systems’ operating at the curricular level within public school settings.7 Instead of public schools becoming the ‘great equalizer’ in society, through
    G&T tracking, city schools are labeling some students as more likely to succeed than others, and that label is disproportionately being given to White and Asian students coming from families with advantaged backgrounds. Critics of G&T tracking bring attention to the academic and
    social harms of segregation, including achievement and opportunity gaps and negative stereotypes.

    Another proposal put forth to diversify G&T programs, and SHS, is to prep and test more students. However, during Chancellor Carranza’s testimony on the SHS admissions he reported that even as more Black and Latinx students were prepped for the test, and a higher number of
    students took the test last year, the number of Black and Latinx students who qualified for SHS did not increase. This is because prepping and testing more students does not mean more students will pass the cutoff score. In fact the cut-off score needed for admissions to the SHS is a
    moving target based on who else took the test and how they scored. The SHSAT is norm-referenced; it compares test-taking students to each other, not to some set of curricular standards, and because there are a discrete number of seats available, increasing the number of students who take the test merely drives acceptance rates down