Senator John Liu showed his hand and hinted that he plans to kill any SHSAT reform by languishing the decision in committee over the next few years.
State Sen. John Liu said at City & State’s Education Summit on Thursday that he doesn’t expect any major changes to come out of Albany for at least several years as lawmakers and stakeholders figure out the best way to address racial disparities at the city’s specialized schools. The Queens lawmaker said that he does not yet know the best path forward, adding that he and his colleagues in the state Legislature don’t want to act hastily in response to results from the Specialized High Schools Admission Test.
For Senator Liu, this continues a pattern of not addressing specific issues around testing and admissions but rather simply declaring other proposals won’t work.
Senator Liu has yet to propose a single proposal of his own. A common practice among SHSAT supporters, as their goal is to protect the status quo as is.
Senator John Liu is a supporter of keeping the SHSAT exam as the SOLE measure of merit for admissions to Specialized High Schools.
Senator Liu leads the Democrat Senate NYC Education committee. Which means he gets to decide what NYC education bills are brought to the Senate floor.
So we can pretty much confirm at this point that the mayor’s SHSAT proposal is dead as long as Senator Liu leads this committee.
Here’s Senator Liu arguing for keeping the SHSAT.
There are many inaccurate statements in this conversation. But the strangest part of all of this is that Senator Liu was at one point very pro-SHSAT reform.
We can even use the old John Liu to refute the new one…
As a past Liu supporter, his 180-degree turn on high-stakes testing is very disappointing. Maybe because it’s clear Senator Liu understands using a single 3 hour multiple-choice test is wrong, as he says in his previous interview.
Here are a few quotes from Senator Liu’s Huffington Post article which go directly against his current position.
The Specialized High schools are the equivalent of New York City’s Ivy League. Admittance to these schools is a ticket to success. They bring an almost certain guarantee of high school graduation, in a city where the graduation rate is 65 percent, and an almost certain guarantee of college acceptance. More than a quarter of the graduates of Stuyvesant and Bronx Science go on to university in the real Ivy Leagues, at Harvard, and Yale, and Brown, or other top tier colleges.
John Liu, May 30th 2012
Many educational experts have long decried this admissions method and some good ideas have been proposed to change it.
Assemblyman Karim Camara, from the 43rd Assembly District in Brooklyn, and State Senator Adriano Espaillat, of the 31st Senate District representing parts of the Upper West Side and the Bronx, are sponsoring legislation on the state level to change the admissions criteria for the Specialized High Schools to include grade point averages and other factors, such as interviews, personal statements, and portfolios, as well as an entrance exam. Their model is, in fact, similar to the same broad admissions process used by most colleges and universities in the U.S.
Senator Andrew Gounardes defends the use of the single SHSAT multiple-choice test as the SOLE measure of a student’s ability without any reservation. Senator Gounardes has a classic “Resource Hoarding” position. His constituents are over-represented by the exam, hence he defends it.
Senator Gounardes also claims the typical “the test is not the problem” position. He does not acknowledge anti-female bias in the SHSAT.
In the video below he also claims that many Democratic Senators also opposes the exam. Senator Gounardes appears to be against school integration policies in general, e.g. D15 diversity plan.
Media: Short video
Media: Full video
Andrew Gounardes Website
First, Specialized high schools have over 15,000 of the most sort after high school seats. So, no that’s not a small number.
Secondly, the 1% statistic Senator Gounardes uses is disingenuous since he’s considering all students from all grades and ages in the entire city. But still, specialized schools would account for more than 1% of students.
Thirdly, the SHSAT reform proposal is by no means the ONLY initiative put forward by the city’s department of education. Arguing it doesn’t solve all school problems is invalid. We should fix the use of a statistically biased exam, but ALSO continue to solve other education equity issues. So much for philoxenia he claims to believe in.
One thing’s clear, we won’t solve this issue while re-electing Democrats like Senator Andrew Gounardes. If you’re interested in a primary challenge and would like help, please reach out to NYCandidate.org
Senator Stavisky is the ranking member on the Democrat Senate’s Education Committee. She’s also a vocal proponent of keeping the SHSAT exam as the SOLE measure of merit for access to Specialized High Schools.
Her son’s lobbying firm also recently took a contract for over $65,000 to lobby for the SHSAT exam.
