H.S. Policy Earns 'Incomplete'
For the past two weeks, we have been bringing you opinions about the education of gifted children in NYC’s public high schools. The issue arose when the NAACP complained to the Federal Department of Education that the current test for children seeking admission to the city’s specialized high schools does not predict academic success.
Their complaint alleges that the test’s reliance on reading and mathematics precludes the measurement of other skills which contribute to overall intelligence. They say that it disregards a student’s grades, participation in extra-curricular activities and leadership qualities.
Today, we publish an editorial which appeared in Crain’s New York on October 7th. The article agrees with Edward C Sullivan, another critic of the test, and disagrees with the views of Michael Benjamin and John McWhorter who feel that the existing test is the fairest and most practical way to choose between thousands of applicants and should not be changed because of political pressure.
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H.S. policy earns 'incomplete'
The lack of diversity at top city schools is stunning.
When evaluating job applicants, employers consider experience, education, character and skills. They do interviews and check references. Colleges and universities do the same with students seeking admission.
But for seven of the city's elite public high schools, a single test score is all that matters. That doesn't make sense.
The result has been a lack of diversity at these top schools that is nothing short of stunning in our multicultural city. The student population at Stuyvesant High School is 72% Asian, 24% white, 1% black and 2% Hispanic. Bronx High School of Science is 64% Asian, 25% white, 4% black and 7% Hispanic. Asians, who account for 13% of city residents, also predominate at Queens High School for Sciences (74%) and Brooklyn Technical High School (60%).
Asian students deserve credit for performing so well on the Specialized High School Admissions Test. They can't be blamed for mastering the process, which has been enshrined in state law since 1971. The problem is the system itself.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg likes that the test is purely objective: All applicants who score above the cutoff set by their top-choice school are admitted.
But high-school admissions need not be free of subjectivity. The point is to admit students who are most likely to succeed and who best enhance the experiences of fellow students. A test score alone does not predict success in school as well as a combination of grades, test scores and other factors. That stands to reason, because flourishing in school requires much more than acing one test.
The NAACP recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education about the city's policy. That was no surprise: The organization advocates for blacks, who are dramatically underrepresented at schools that rely on the SHSAT. More telling is that the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, though not a party to the complaint, also views the policy as problematic even though it appears to favor Asians. The advocacy organization opposes admission policies that discriminate without reason, and this one fits that description.
A school is better off having a diverse population of bright students than a homogeneous one. An admission policy that is selective and comprehensive would produce a student body more reflective of the city and more likely to thrive academically and socially.
To broaden these elite institutions' one-dimensional admission policy would not be to “get rid of these schools,” as the mayor impulsively claimed. It would improve them.
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Elite High Schools
The social engineers are at it again. Instead of addressing the real problems ravaging our public educational system (i.e. poverty, high crime, inadequate family structure, unqualified/substandard teachers), the coddling PC crowd is looking to dumb down the admisssion standards for elite academic institutions all for the sake of creating greater diversity. To borrow a line from VP Biden: 'What a bunch of malarky!"
Dumbing down the admissions standards under the guise of creating greater diversity is not going to do anything but undermine the academic standing of the elite high schools. Instead of lowering the bar, the social engineers should focus their energy on the root of the problem - failing urban public schools, grades K-8. My dad use to preach the importance of building a solid foundation for life. The same applies for children in urban areas where the schools are woefully inadequate. How can one expect any child to compete in an environment where American exceptionalism isn't nurtured, but is squelched by a academic system rife with all sorts of internal problems. Start by builidng a strong foundation and the rest will fall in to place with hard work, persistence and a support system in which students are encouraged to learn and push themselves to the best that they can be.
Giving a student a break - a pass - is only going to foster a false sense of security and do little to prepare he/she for the real world. In all, the social engineers mantra reminds me of those who believe scores should no longer be kept during sporting constests and everyone should receive a trophy irrespective of his/her individual or team performance. It's nothing more than the feel-good generation trying to cacoon a whole generation of tomorrow's generation, rendering them ill-prepared one day to cope in the real world. Nanny State here we come.
John E. Tiffany
jet4444@verizon.net
Henry, Met you about ten
Henry,
Met you about ten years ago at a book signing for Sol Stern’s Breaking Free at the Harvard Club.
Know that I taught at the Bronx High School of Science for 7 years, 2 months, 28 days and 3.5 classes out of my thirty years in the classroom (1988-1995). At Science, I taught English (my license area), plus Global and Spanish.
Blacks and Hispanics had and I imagine still have a hard time at Bronx Science and I tried to help. I served as adviser to the Hispanic club Unidad and under my tutelage it became one of the more successful clubs in the school. We held many activities and I tried my best to encourage the Hispanos to study hard. The dropout rate for Blacks and Hispanics is very high – well above the 6.5 average for others. I also participated in many activities with the Black club, BOSS (Black Organization of Science Students).
I got many complaints of racism on the part of some Science teachers. Some of these complaints were not justified and it was simply a matter of competent teachers making reasonable demands on them and the fact some of minority students didn’t work as hard as they needed to. Some complaints were legitimate as some teachers did have prejudices. I did my best to explain racism was a part of life and that I also experienced it as a teacher from not only colleagues, but some students as well. “But I try to be the best professional I can possibly be to show them I belong here. You have to do the same.“
It helped. I tried to get the few other Hispanic teachers to help. They didn’t, being more interested in leaving early to beat the traffic out to the suburbs. Most of the black teachers did help and were more concerned with minorities than my fellow Hispanic colleagues.
Worked summer school. Science at the time had a special program to help students with good grades who don’t quite pass the entrance exam but came close. I also taught a course at City College prepping minorities for the Special Schools test. Although I didn’t leave Science under the best of circumstances and hold a grudge against it, Science did make an effort to increase its minority population. Incidentally, I landed in the Rubber Room. Why? My compassion, whether you believe it or not. The details aren’t really important.
There is talk of lowering standards by some activists to raise minority enrollment. No. We should lift up Black and Hispanics – not lower standards at a great institution that’s produced 8 Nobel laureates. Classes to help good minority candidates pass the test is the answer. Most can’t afford a course at Kaplan’s, nor do they have the resources and wherewithal that Asian and white students have.
By the way, since retiring, I’ve self-published a teacher novel, Confessions of a Rogue Teacher (iUniverse, 2008), and a second, To Kill President (iUniverse, 2011), exploring the1950 suicidal assassination attempt on President Truman by members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. I’ve completed a memoir, A Bronx Teacher’s Saga which paints in words the Bronx’s story, weaving into its fabric a Puerto Rican family saga, the author’s personal story and a commentary about what’s gone wrong with American education.
I’m looking to do book readings for my To Kill a President, especially as on Election Day next month yet another plebiscite is planned to determine Puerto Rico’s political status: independence, statehood or status quo (American territory). Think my story will be timely. Looking for help publicizing it of whatever kind you might render.
Thanks George Colon
851 Underhill Avenue To order call: 1 - 800 - AUTHORS
Bronx, New York, 10473
(718) 892-5169
GeorCln1 @AOL.Com.
Website http://www.tokillapresidentthenovel.com
Elite HS
I am a graduate of Stuyvesant and bemoan the pandering to the elites of the city. If you cannot afford $80-100 and hour for tutoring your child may not pass the exam - it's not totally based on ability - it's also based on the financial resources of the parent.
A simple fix: half the kids selected by the current test and half the top graduates from middle schools in each borough.
No quotas by race, no "dumbing down" of the exam.
Interestingly I believe any change requires a change in the law - highly unlikely unless you tie it to a legislative salary increase.
Admission to elite NYC high schools
What about including the criterion of what students would most benefit from the experience of attending one of the "elite" high schools - not just who would do best academically there?
The authors of the Crain's article rejecting the current test procedures might enhance their persuasiveness if they used the word "problematic" correctly. [It means "iffy", "uncertain"; it does not mean problem-laden.]
Do not destroy our middle class alma maters
I am sorry that certain ethnicities believe that a test based on math and English is somehow discriminatory. It's funny how 72% of the population is Asian, and many of them are not native to this country and yet still somehow manage to pass the exam to gain entrance. If the school was 72% African American, would anyone claim it wasn't diverse? I think not. I guess Yellow people don't count for "diversity" purposes. This is just more hypocritical sour grapes.
If open admissions are introduced into these schools, all that will be accomplished is that the last bastion of superior free education for the middle class will be destroyed. Permitting unqualified applicants entrance will simply water down the reputation of the school, whoever they are: purple, yellow or orange. And the the proof is in the pudding. According to the Stuyvesant H.S. Wiki page, "a September 2002 high school ranking by Worth magazine, 3.67% of Stuyvesant students went on to attend Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities, ranking it as the 9th top public high school in the United States and 120th among all schools, public or private."
Do not destroy the value of our alma maters simply because it is politically correct.
Admission Tests for Elite Schools
Again, I think this writer is missing the point here.
It's all well and good to want students who have extracurricular interests and community involvement, and who come from diverse backgrounds and cultures etc. However, all that really doesn't matter if the student can't do the work. These tests -- which focus primarily on math and science, and to a lesser degree, reading comprehension and writing skills -- are the best indicators of whether or not the student:
a) can keep up the level of academic effort and comprehension necessary to satisfy the school's academic standards for four years; and
b) will enter the school already in possession of the academic skills and knowledge needed to perform at the required level.
These should be THE deciding factors in admission.
The Crain's article stinks of Affirmative action -- a concept that should have been left in the 20th century that spawned it.
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