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.
Tag: statistics
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Assessing the Assessment: SHSAT
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Pathways to an Elite Education Exploring Strategies to Diversify NYC’s Specialized High Schools (2015)
This brief examines students’ pathways from middle school to matriculation at a specialized high school, and simulates the effects of various admissions criteria that have been proposed as alternatives to the current policy. Analyzing data from 2005 to 2013, we found that while the SHSAT is (by design) the most important factor determining who attends the specialized high schools, it is not the only factor. Many students—including many high-achieving students—do not take the SHSAT at all, and some of those offered admission decide to go to high school elsewhere.
Even when comparing students with the same level of prior academic achievement (based on state tests), we noted disparities at each stage of the pathway into a specialized school. For example, among students with comparable prior achievement, girls and Latinos were less likely to take the SHSAT. And girls, Latino, and Black students who took the test were less likely to receive an offer of admission. These findings suggest that there are opportunities to increase access, even within the confines of SHSAT-based admissions. Interventions that ensure that well-qualified students sit for the SHSAT—and have adequate resources to prepare for it—could help make the specialized schools more diverse.
https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/research_alliance/publications/pathways_to_an_elite_education
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New York City released its study of the SHSAT. Here’s why it won’t end the admissions debate.
Still, the study doesn’t address key questions about whether the SHSAT is any better at predicting student success than the alternative system de Blasio put forward. And it can’t get at the heart of the debate about the importance of diversifying the elite schools.
The study uses data from every single eighth grade student who took the SHSAT between 2005 and 2009, looking at whether a student’s score seemed to predict early success in high school. It finds a relatively strong relationship between SHSAT scores and early high school performance.
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Evidence on New York City and Boston exam schools
The current admissions approach almost certainly shuts out many gifted, disadvantaged students. When we rely on parents, teachers, or students to make the decision to apply to a program for gifted students (by, for example, voluntarily signing up for a test), evidence indicates it is disadvantaged students who disproportionately get shut out.
But getting rid of the test is not the answer. Well-educated, high-income parents work the system to get their kids into these programs. The less transparent the approach (e.g., portfolios or teacher recommendations instead of a standardized test) the greater the advantage these savvy, connected parents have in winning the game.
An important step is to make the test universal, rather than one that students choose to take. In the dozen states where college admissions tests are universal (free, required, and given during school hours), many more students take the test and go on to college.[8] The democratizing effect is strongest among low-income and nonwhite students. The same dynamic holds among young children: when testing for giftedness is universal, poor, Black and Hispanic children are far more likely to end up in gifted classes.[9]A school district in Florida showed huge increases in the diversity of its gifted programs when it shifted to using a universal test, rather than recommendations from parents and teachers, to identify gifted students.
Rather than force students to take yet another test, New York could use its existing 7th– and 8th-grade tests to determine admission to the exam schools. These tests are, in principle, aligned to what is taught in the schools and so are an appropriate metric by which to judge student achievement. When so many are complaining about over-testing, why have yet another test for students to cram and sit for?
The city could go further toward diversifying the student body by admitting the top scorers at each middle school to the exam schools. Texas uses this approach to determine admission to the University of Texas flagships: the top slice (originally 10%, now lower) of students in each high school is automatically admitted to these selective colleges. This ensures that Texas’s elite colleges at least partially reflect the economic, ethnic and racial diversity of the state’s (highly segregated) school system.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/evidence-on-new-york-city-and-boston-exam-schools/
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High Stakes, but Low Validity? A Case Study of Standardized Tests and Admissions into New York City Specialized High Schools
This is a study of the admissions process at a select group of New York City public high schools. It offers the first detailed look at the admissions practices of this highly regarded and competitive group of schools, and also provides a window into the broader national debate about the use of standardized tests in school admissions. According to New York State law, admission to these schools mustbe based solely on an exam. The exam used is called the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT). This study makes use of the individual test results from 2005 and 2006.Several key findings emerge:1. The SHSAT has an unusual scoring feature that is not widely known,and may give an edge to those who have access to expensive test-prep tutors. Other reasonable scoring systems could be constructed that would yield different results for many students, and there is noevidence offered to support the validity of the current system.2. Thousands of students who are not being accepted have scores that are statistically indisti nguishable from thousands who are granted admission. And these estimates are derived using the less precise, classical-test-theory-based measures of statistical uncertainty, which may understate the problem. The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) fails to provide the more accurate, item- response-theory-based estimates of the SHSAT’s standard error of measurement (SEM) near the admission cutoff scores, which would offer a clearer picture of how well the test is able to differentiate among students who score close to the admi ssion/rejection line. This omissionviolates generally-accepted testi ng standards and practices.3. Students who receive certain versions of the test may be more likely to gain admission than students who receive other versions. No evidence is offered on how accurate the statistical equating of different test versions is. The mean scaled scores vary across versions much more than would be expected given the chance distribution of ability across large random samples of students, suggesting that the scoring system may not be completely eliminating differences among test versions.4. No studies have ever been done to see if the SHSAT is subject toprediction bias across gender and ethnic groups (i.e., if SHSAT scorespredict things for different groups). -
Who Wins, and Who Loses, in the Proposed Plan for Elite Schools?
Dr. Caceres, the Bronx principal, said that half of his eighth-grade students already take advanced math and science classes, and have the ability and work ethic to thrive in a challenging school like Bronx Science. His students do not do well on the SHSAT, he said, in part because most of their families cannot afford tutoring. When the results came back this spring, some of the students were so disappointed they cried.
“Don’t you think it’s embarrassing that Bronx Science is in the Bronx and only a handful of students are from the Bronx?” he asked. “People might think we don’t have the students, but we do have the students.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/nyregion/specialized-school-exam-losers-winners.html
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SHSAT Invalid: I’ve spent years studying the link between SHSAT scores and student success. The test doesn’t tell you as much as you might think.
First, that requires defining merit. Only New York City defines it as the score on a single test — other cities’ selective high schools use multiple measures, as do top colleges. There are certainly other potential criteria, such as artistic achievement or citizenship.
However, when merit is defined as achievement in school, the question of whether the test is meritocratic is an empirical question that can be answered with data.
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Specialized high schools and race
Another overview. Adds a DoE spokesperson quote.
According to New York City Department of Education spokesman Will Mantell, the citywide average GPA of students in the top 7 percent of their classes is 94 out of 100, the same average GPA of students offered a spot at the elite high schools. Additionally, he said their state test scores are comparable, an average of 3.9 out of 4.5 for the top 7 percent versus 4.1 for those admitted to the specialized high schools.
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/policy/education/nyc-specialized-high-schools-and-race.html
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2016-2017 SHSAT Admissions Test Offers By Sending School
City data detailing offers by sending schools for 2016 to 2017.
https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Education/2016-2017-SHSAT-Admissions-Test-Offers-By-Sending-/8ws3-956v
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Special Classes Help Gifted in Ghettos
OUTSIDE, there is a burned‐out tenement, a symbol of a devastated inner‐city neighborhood. Inside, a teacher is working on algebra problems with a class of gifted children, preparing them for entrance to specialized high schools.
Of the 16,800 pupils in District 7, 400 are in special progress classes. The district is about 68 percent Hispanic, 31 percent black and 1 percent “other,” meaning white and Oriental.
Madeline Golia, the coordinator of the district’s program for gifted and talented pups, said that admission to the special progress classes is based on several “flexible” standards. These include performance on the citywide reading test, mathematical ability, teacher evaluation, emotional adjustment and personal screening.
Selection Method Changed
This represents a change from the days when intelligence tests were used to determine eligibility for classes for the gifted, and when pupils who scored only one I.Q. point below the “gifted” score — 130 — were not admitted. I.Q. tests no longer are administered in New York City schools.
The District 7 standard, Mrs. Golia said, is that the pupil read one year and six months above grade level and be at grade level in math. Over‐all, only 40 percent of pupils in the city’s schools read at or above grade level. There are no citywide math tests.
This article points out quite a bit.
- Specialized High School test prep was given to students IN school. It wasn’t an added outside program like today’s “DREAM” program
- We had norm-referenced G&T before SPE which caused the predictable diversity issues. SP changed this to a local-normed admission process. This gives evidence to what I’ve always held. That Bloomberg/Klein knew that switching to a national norm-referenced exam would decimate Black participation in G&T
- SP had 400 students in a 16K district
- Students back then were performing at similar to lower on criterion-referenced exams ( something we already know, but some challenge )