High-Stakes Standardized Testing Supporter: Jumaane D. Williams

Name: Jumaane D. Williams
Public Advocate Link: https://advocate.nyc.gov/
Ballotpedia: https://ballotpedia.org/Jumaane_Williams
Phone Hotline: (212) 669-7250

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams strongly supports the SHSAT as the sole measure of academic merit.  He argues that the only reason he got into a specialized high school was that he was good at taking tests, and not particularly good in class.

Jumaane Williams has also been heavily lobbied on his SHSAT position by some of the city’s most powerful lobbyists. 

Media:

Jumaane accepts campaign contributions from Pro-SHSAT lobbyists for multiple years.

These also seem to coincide with increase SHSAT scrutiny

Now here’s Jumaane in his own words ( same years campaign contributions )…

It’s difficult to fact-check this speech because there’s so much wrong. Beacon high school stats are wrong. Beacon is 14% Black, and 20% Latino. Much better than Stuyvesant’s 1% Black.

He also argues substantially against multiple-measures. Claiming that muliple-measures of assessment are less accurate, while the ENTIRE industry argues the exact opposite.

Response to 2018 SHSAT Results

Mr Williams had the same tired excuses and redirects.


Jumaane has been falsely “calling” for discussion from at least 2014. He never facilitates this discussion. He has never provided a framework for this discussion. He simply punts the issue with “needs discussion”, leaving the status quo he supports in place.

The “Cutting off access points to education” Jumanne mentions is referring to a small tweak in the way the city defines “disadvantaged” in reference to disadvantaged students. The city now includes a child’s school poverty concentrate when calculating disadvantageness. That’s what Jumaane considers the big injustice this week.

As for “pitting communities against each other“, I’d like to remind our public advocate that we have always had to fight the status quo for school integration. It has never come easily.