SHSAT Sunset

Category: research

  • 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 large differences between the share of students in specialized high schools and other high schools from each quintile.

    https://a860-gpp.nyc.gov/concern/nyc_government_publications/tx31qk407

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  • Hecht-Calandra Governor’s Bill Jacket

    Research on the passing of Hecht-Calandra in 1971. This includes supporting documents from various agencies and stakeholders.

    Christa_McAuliffe_Intermediate_v_De_Blasio_et_al__nysdce-18-11657__0048.2

  • AERA Position Statement on High-Stakes Testing

    The American Educational Research Association is the foremost and most respected national educational research society. Below is their opinions on using high-stakes testing in admissions.

    This position statement on high-stakes testing is based on the 1999 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. The Standards represent a professional consensus concerning sound and appropriate test use in education and psychology. They are sponsored and endorsed by the AERA together with the American Psychological Association (APA) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). This statement is intended as a guide and a caution to policy makers, testing professionals, and test users involved in high-stakes testing programs.

    Protection Against High-Stakes Decisions Based on a Single Test
    Decisions that affect individual students’ life chances or educational opportunities should not be made on the basis of test scores alone. Other relevant information should be taken into account to enhance the overall validity of such decisions. As a minimum assurance of fairness, when tests are used as part of making high-stakes decisions for individual students such as promotion to the next grade or high school graduation, students must be afforded multiple opportunities to pass the test. More importantly, when there is credible evidence that a test score may not adequately reflect a student’s true proficiency, alternative acceptable means should be provided by which to demonstrate attainment of the tested standards.

    http://www.aera.net/About-AERA/AERA-Rules-Policies/Association-Policies/Position-Statement-on-High-Stakes-Testing

  • NYC selective high school admissions uproar a symptom of a much bigger problem

    Multiple studies have found no difference in college enrollment, college quality or graduation rates of kids who just barely met the test score cutoff for selective public schools like Stuyvesant and those who just barely missed the mark and then attended more ordinary public high schools, Valant said.


    Valant would like to see selective schools drop their test-in requirements and instead award admission to a set number of top-performing students from every district or system middle school. The resulting classes would be more diverse and formed with anobjective, open access measure of long-term performance.


    “I think the Stuyvesant story matters because there is something incredibly important about Stuyvesant and other symbols of excellence. When you send the message that only certain groups belong in those types of institutions, that only certain people can ‘earn’ access, that’s a dangerous message to students of color and students in poverty who may feel left out. And it’s a dangerous message to the kids who make it into Stuyvesant. None of it is good for society.”

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/nyc-selective-high-school-admissions-uproar-symptom-much-bigger-problem-n985736

  • Metis Associates Study

    Finally getting the Metis Associates study up.

    metis-full

  • Admissions Overhaul: Simulating the Outcome Under the Mayor’s Plan For Admissions to the City’s Specialized High Schools

    Demographic Changes. IBO compared the demographic composition of the specialized high schools under each of the three scenarios with the actual demographic composition of the ninth grade class in specialized high schools in 2017-2018.14 We found that:
    More black and Hispanic students would get offers. Under the top 7 percent scenario, the share of black students receiving offers would increase by five times and the share of Hispanic students receiving offers would increase by more than four times compared with the share of those groups that actually attended a specialized high school in 2017-2018. If the new system was fully in place, black and Hispanic students would make up roughly 19 percent and 27 percent, respectively, of all students receiving offers to the specialized high schools. Although the share of offers to black and Hispanic students would also increase under the top 3 percent and top 5 percent scenarios, the increases are less steep; for example, compared with the respective shares of incoming students who actually attended a specialized high school, the share of offers to black students under the 3 percent scenario would be about 2.4 times greater and the share of offers to Hispanic students would be a little more than double.

    • More black and Hispanic students would get offers. Under the top 7 percent scenario, the share of black students receiving offers would increase by five times and the share of Hispanic students receiving offers would increase by more than four times compared with the share of those groups that actually attended a specialized high school in 2017-2018. If the new system was fully in place, black and Hispanic students would make up roughly 19 percent and 27 percent, respectively, of all students receiving offers to the specialized high schools. Although the share of offers to black and Hispanic students would also increase under the top 3 percent and top 5 percent scenarios, the increases are less steep; for example, compared with the respective shares of incoming students who actually attended a specialized high school, the share of offers to black students under the 3 percent scenario would be about 2.4 times greater and the share of offers to Hispanic students would be a little more than double.
    • Fewer Asian students would get offers. Just over 31 percent of offers would go to Asian students if the plan was fully phased in, compared with 60.9 percent of ninth graders enrolled in specialized high schools in 2017-2018. Under all three scenarios, Asian students would still comprise the largest share of offers.
    • Roughly the same number of white students would get offers. Under the top 7 percent scenario, the share of white students receiving offers would be nearly 4 percentage points lower than the share of incoming white students at the specialized high schools in 2017-2018, from 24.1 percent last school year to 20.3 percent if the new program was fully in place. Under the top 3 percent scenario, however, the share of offers going to white students would be slightly greater than the actual share of incoming white students at specialized high schools.
    • More girls would receive offers and under all three scenarios they would account for the majority of students receiving offers. In the top 7 percent scenario, girls would receive two-thirds of all offers, compared with just 41 percent of students who actually attended specialized high schools in 2017-2018.
    • More students in poverty would receive offers.15 In 2017-2018, students in poverty comprised about half of all incoming students to specialized high schools; that share would increase to 63 percent if the program was fully phased in for 2017-2018.

    https://ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/admissions-overhaul-simulating-the-outcome-under-the-mayors-plan-for-admissions-to-the-citys-specialized-high-schools.html

  • The problem with high-stakes testing and women in STEM


    Overall, the correlation was a loose one. Test scores predicted only 20 percent of the variation in students’ GPAs.  In other words, students with the same test high scores had wildly different GPAs at school the following year. At first glance, the test doesn’t seem very good at discerning A students from B students. Seventh-grade GPAs were twice as likely to predict ninth-grade achievement than test scores.


    “People say the SHSAT is objective and that grades are unreliable,” Taylor said. “Schools and teachers have different subjective grading standards and grades are all over the place. The exams were designed to be a uniform metric. It’s ironic that the exams don’t predict as well as grades.”


    One might wonder if girls could be taking easier classes or not as many math and science classes once they get to high school and perhaps that is why girls are getting higher grades. But Taylor checked and he found that girls were, in fact, well-represented in math and science classes in ninth grade and doing very well in them.

    https://hechingerreport.org/the-problem-with-high-stakes-testing-and-women-in-stem/

  • Overemphasizing a Test, Oversimplifying Our Children: An APA Perspective on Specialized High School Reform towards Educational Equity

    The SHSAT is misperceived as an objective, and “colorblind” tool to measure merit. However, an expansive body of research reveals that school screening policies that do not consider race or socioeconomic status do not reduce, but rather contribute to further “stratification by race and ethnicity across schools and programs.”

    […]

    In the field of testing, known as psychometrics, a single measure like the SHSAT violates the universally accepted norm and consensus in favor of multiple measures.[19] Having a single-test as the admission policy in no means takes into account the wide range of diverse experiences of all students and their families in New York City.

    Further, a single measure of a student’s academic potential taken at one particular point in time can be imprecise. Using multiple criteria reduces the risk that a school admissions decision is based on an erroneous measurement. Almost all US academic institutions employ multiple-measure admissions policies

    http://www.cacf.org/

    Archive:

    https://shsatsunset.org/CACF-SHSAT-Paper-201811-01.pdf

    CACF-SHSAT-Paper-201811-01

  • Highly skilled black, Latino students face admission barriers to exam schools, study finds

    Black and Latino students who do as well as their white and Asian peers on the MCAS exam nonetheless have a much lower chance of being admitted to Boston Latin School and the city’s two other exam schools, according to a Harvard report being released Tuesday.

    Their path is hindered by a separate test — designed for private institutions — that students applying to the city’s top-flight exam schools must take. Black and Latino students do notably worse on that exam and also take it at lower rates.

    “MCAS scores in fifth grade identify a substantial number of high-skilled black and Hispanic students who currently do not enroll in exam schools,” the report said. “Assigning students to exam schools based on such scores could increase the number of black and Latino students at BLS by up to 50 percent.”

    https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/10/01/highly-skilled-black-latino-students-face-admission-barriers-exam-schools-study-finds/LOKwnprnVnL6XAUffuJ8yK/story.html

  • Assessing the Assessment: SHSAT

    Don’t assume that because your student does well in school that they will do well on any other test or in any other setting. Kids who do the best on the test are those who go into confident and prepared. Don’t make assumptions your kid will do well. If you’re thinking of a Specialized High School start looking into the test and preparation in 6th grade. Explore the DREAM – SHSI program run by the DOE or at very least have your child take a practice test to see how they would do on the SHSAT so that you have plenty of time to prepare if you need to.

    http://akilbello.com/assessing-the-assessment-shsat/

    http://espi.nyc/