SHSAT Sunset

Tag: naacp

  • Civil Rights Groups Submit Amicus Brief in Support of Race-neutral Admissions Policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

    Appellee appears to recognize that controlling precedent foreclosed a finding
    of discriminatory intent, but nevertheless invited the district court to misapply the
    law in furtherance of its attempt to change the law to prevent schools across the
    country from removing known barriers to opportunity and adopting race-neutral,
    research-based reforms to promote equality.

    NAACPLDF Amicus

    Using past results as a baseline is not only improper, it is woefully misleading.
    As the district court in Boston Parent correctly noted, when a racial group has been
    significantly overrepresented in the prior system, “nearly any changes to the
    admissions process will likely result in some reduction, if only from the law of
    averages.”

    https://www.naacpldf.org/press-release/civil-rights-groups-submit-amicus-brief-in-support-of-race-neutral-admissions-policy-at-thomas-jefferson-high-school-for-science-and-technology/

  • NAACP 2012 Case: New York City Specialized High School Complaint

    In school districts across the nation, talented African Americans and other students of color are denied a fair opportunity to gain access to the life-changing educational experiences provided by specialized schools for high-achieving students and gifted/talented education programs.  As a result, elite public schools and programs, which provide key pathways to college and then to leadership locally, regionally, and nationally, are among the most segregated.

    In too many school districts, these racial disparities result in large part from admissions policies that rely too heavily or even exclusively on standardized tests, even though the three leading organizations in the area of educational test measurement—the American Psychological Association, the American Educational Research Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education—have concluded that a high-stakes decision with a major impact on a student’s educational opportunities, such as admission to a specialized or gifted/talented program, should not turn on the results of a single test.  There is also a marked failure to provide African Americans and Latinos with opportunities to learn the material or otherwise prepare to meet the admissions standards used to determine whether students will be placed in these specialized programs.

    https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/new-york-city-specialized-high-school-complaint/

  • Failing The Stuyvesant Test

    In bringing its federal complaint against the Specialized High Schools admissions policy, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (to which I am an unpaid advisor) is challenging both the effect of the test in diminishing opportunities for bright black and Latino youth and shining a light on the arbitrary nature of the admissions process. How peculiar, to have the state legislature determine these procedures! Normally, such technical matters are left to educators versed in psychometrics and professional judgment. Here, a 40 year-old law trumps everything we know and otherwise practice about academic merit.

    That SHSAT scores are highly sensitive to test prep is beyond dispute. Rigid rank ordering creates hair’s-breadth distinctions without substance. The test has never been validated to determine its consistency with actual high school performance so the city Department of Education cannot even demonstrate a relationship between admitted students’ test results and those of others who might have been more successful meeting elite high schools’ demands. Discounting the use of middle school grades, portfolios of student work, and (after substantiated widespread cheating at Stuyvesant) character diminishes merit to a narrow gauge of tutored test-taking proficiency on a given day in an adolescent’s life.

    https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2013/01/11/failing-the-stuyvesant-test/

  • Charges of Bias in Admission Test Policy at Eight Elite Public High Schools

    A coalition of educational and civil rights groups filed a federal complaint on Thursday saying that black and Hispanic students were disproportionately excluded from New York City’s most selective high schools because of a single-test admittance policy they say is racially discriminatory.

    The complaint, filed with the United States Education Department, seeks to have the policy found in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to change admissions procedures “to something that is nondiscriminatory and fair to all students,” said Damon T. Hewitt, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, one of the groups that filed the complaint.

    At issue is the Specialized High School Admissions Test, which is the sole criterion for admission to eight specialized schools that, even in the view of city officials, have been troubled by racial demographics that are out of balance.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/nyregion/specialized-high-school-admissions-test-is-racially-discriminatory-complaint-says.html