Can Opening Up Stuyvesant (and Other New York City Selective High Schools) Help Poor Kids?
Photo courtesy of GothamSchools.org
New York City’s specialized High Schools are highly selective public schools for academically and artistically gifted students. There are nine specialized high schools in New York City. Admission to eight of the schools is based on the score attained on the competitive Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT). (Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts accepts students based on auditions and reviews of academic records.) Places are awarded to those students who earn the highest scores on the SHSAT, which is offered to all eighth and ninth grade students residing within New York City. Students who qualify may attend the selective high school of their choice. The best known of these schools are the Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant High School.
According to a recent series on the local New York City NBC television affiliate, “a dramatic race gap persists at the city’s most elite public high schools, a product of a single standardized entrance exam that privileges students who have been intensively primed and prepped through expensive private tutoring programs.” The reporters go on to point out that “At Stuyvesant High School, widely viewed as the crown jewels of the top public high schools, just two percent of incoming ninth-graders are black, and 3.5 percent are Hispanic . . . In the general New York City public school population, the two groups comprise a total of 77 percent.”
New York City is divided into “community school districts,” neighborhoods, varying from the wealthy Upper East Side of Manhattan and the semi-suburban areas of eastern Queens, to the impoverished Bronx and central Brooklyn areas. The distribution of students qualifying for selective high schools is a measure of the academic quality of science education in their middle and junior high schools and, perhaps, a measure of the family incomes in those neighborhoods. Students in northeastern Queens, near Great Neck, have a good opportunity to learn in a selective high school. Students in the Bronx and Central Brooklyn have none.
An especially curious fact is that 115 of the 843 students admitted to Stuyvesant in a recent year had not attended New York City schools. They came from private schools and the suburbs. Their parents had invested in their elementary and middle school education in expensive private schools so that they could have a free education in one of the nation’s best public high schools.
Selective high schools are the Emerald City of New York City traditional public schools. The yellow brick road leading to them starts with the kindergarten tests for Gifted and Talented programs. But not all children have a chance of even setting out on that road. The city tests only 21 percent of its kindergarten students. The percentage of students in a neighborhood the New York City district thinks it worthwhile to test varies by the income of their parents. In some community school districts 70 percent of the students are tested. In others, as few as seven percent are tested. If instead, say, 70 percent of ALL students were tested, we could estimate that there would be an additional 10,000 students qualifying for the ruby slippers of the city’s Gifted and Talented programs. These additional students would mostly be Black, Hispanic and living in poverty. It is these students, and their peers, whom the system is denying an equal opportunity to learn.
The yellow brick road out of poverty runs through the schools. Unfortunately, that road is blocked by a Tin Man, lacking a heart, who prevents poor children from embarking on that road by restricting the additional resources that flow to students in Gifted and Talented programs to those from prosperous families, and a Cowardly Lion, lacking the courage to do what he must knows is right, maintaining a gatekeeper examination that cannot be passed without expensive private tutoring. Is it then any accident that Stuyvesant is one of the most highly segregated schools in the country, with only two percent of its student body who are Black and three percent Latino? Do we need any more evidence that there is a pattern of segregation from kindergarten through high school in New York City?
Any objective observer would find it highly suspicious that New York City has a system of selective high schools with a gateway examination that cannot be passed without extra tutoring. The New York Department of Education appears to believe that its schools are not good enough for the SHSAT. Doesn’t that seem a bit odd? Perhaps not when we know that many schools in the poorest parts of the city do not offer the courses, like advanced algebra, necessary to even read the questions on the test.
However, this situation, just because it is so egregious, offers an opportunity for fundamental change in the nation’s largest school system.
First, New York City should abolish the SHSAT. That should be done for a number of reasons, not the least being that no child’s future should be determined by a single, high stakes, standardized test that is admittedly not aligned with the curriculum of the schools and blatantly discriminates on the basis of family income.
Instead of the SHSAT, the school district should adopt a system used for college admission in various places around the country: a quota, based on enrollment, from each middle and junior high school. If a school enrolls, say, one percent of the city’s grade eight students, then one percent of the pool of students admitted to the specialized high schools should come from that school. Each school should be permitted to set their own criteria for identifying those students, as who knows students better than their teachers?
What would be the consequences of this innovation? Some schools which now send many students to the selective high schools would send fewer. Every school which now sends no students to the selective high schools would send some. Every student in New York City would have an equal opportunity to learn in some of the best high schools in the nation.
It is possible that parents now willing and able to pay large amounts of money for after-school and Saturday classes for their children from kindergarten through grade eight, and to pay for special “cramming” tutoring in for the SHSAT, will consider moving from neighborhoods where the competition for places will be high to neighborhoods where the schools currently do not sent students to the selective high schools. It is possible that they will put pressure on those schools—and the New York Department of Education—to improve the schools so that their children will have the opportunity to attend a selective high school. It is possible that the Department of Education will do this, will make all its schools places where every child has an opportunity to learn to high standards.
And now we will all join together and sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
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[...] Holzman, research director for the Schott Foundation for Public Education, on Dropout Nation. Open up the exam schools to disadvantaged students, writes Holzman. According to a recent series on the local New York City NBC television affiliate, [...]
NYCMOM
266 days ago
Most of the children the I know who go to one of the specialized high schools did not have expensive extra prep work. They did not come from prosperous families, or come from out of the city. They did well in school and had goals and determination. Many many low-income kids go to these schools – my own children included. I see their friends and I know about many family situations (at least in 2 specialized schools, one being stuyvesant). Admitting children to these schools based on a quota is ridiculous and will turn these elite schools into regular neighborhood high schools. I am hispanic, but I’ve really had it with everyone of color whining about everything being unfair. The system is fair. My kids worked very hard and made sacrifices to succeed in school. And now they reap the rewards. I am proud of them for earning their spot rather than getting in because the school needs 3 more hispanic kids to even out the records. Maybe you should write an article on taking schoolwork more seriously or one about families being more involved in their kids education. That’s what it’s all about.
Brooklyn Parent
265 days ago
Wow – Did you even do any research, or did you just riff off of some easily available articles on the subject?’
Regarding Stuyvesant – you fall to mention that the student body is 72 % Asian! Do you think they all come from wealthy Asian families? They do not. The advantage they have is that Asian Americans place a higher priority on education than many other cultures and races. They work hard and sacrifice.
So which “Man” are you talking about? It’s easy to blame white people for the racial gap in education, but it’s also lazy and divisive.
The road out of poverty begins in the home, with parents who are involved, engaged and invested in their children’s success. When children are little, parents need to read to them, play educational games, expose them to culture and the arts. As children begin school, the parents need to help with, and review homework and schoolwork, build relationships with the teachers and faculty, and ask for extra help and extracurricular opportunities.
There are plenty of free resources available, perhaps not so widely distributed, but the parents need to be vocal and tenacious – and not expect someone else to come and advocate for their children.
Finally, families who live in districts where G&T programs, advanced math and science classes and extracurricular resources are scarce need to band together and fight for a fairer share of DOE funding, and they need to hold the schools accountable for properly using those funds. One of the most crucial differences between under-performing and successful schools is the willingness of the parents to roll up their sleeves and get involved.
Engineer-Poet
263 days ago
If instead, say, 70 percent of ALL students were tested, we could estimate that there would be an additional 10,000 students qualifying for the ruby slippers of the city’s Gifted and Talented programs. These additional students would mostly be Black, Hispanic and living in poverty.
If you tested 70% of all students, you would find that e.g. the ones which had made it to the third grade without learning to read failed almost without exception. There is no point in testing “students” who do not study and would have failed out of their regular classes… if the schools didn’t exist in a la-la land where nobody actually fails.
What would be the consequences of this innovation? Some schools which now send many students to the selective high schools would send fewer. Every school which now sends no students to the selective high schools would send some. Every student in New York City would have an equal opportunity to learn in some of the best high schools in the nation.
Wrong. The thing that makes the school worthwhile is its critical mass of high-achieving students with good faculty. As an immediate consequence of that “innovation”, the student body would lose that critical mass and the value of the school would be destroyed.
Your “innovation” is disingenuous, as fake as the fake Wizard of Oz. Those schools allow high-caliber students to get an equally high-caliber PUBLIC education in line with their abilities. If you select students by arbitrary criteria or by lottery, the school is destroyed (perhaps physically as well as academically). The beneficiaries are the wealthy, who can afford private schooling for their children and who would no longer have to compete with parents who can’t but whose children can pass the SHSAT (with or without a bit of tutoring).
If you really cared about poor children of high ability, you’d bring back tracking to the K-12 schools. The average should not have to waste their time listening to lecture and doing material at the ability and pace suitable for the retarded, just as the gifted should not be shackled to the pace of the average. Heterogeneous grouping eliminates the appearance of “racism”, but it hurts everybody. Everybody, that is, who can’t afford anything beyond the public schools.
Dan
263 days ago
Getting rid of the SHSAT would solve nothing. There are many FREE programs, such as SHSI, that can adequately prepare you for the exam. Using a college acceptance system is not going to work because the cirriculum of middle schools differs greatly? Are you an educator? The rigor of the ciricculum of a prestigious school such as Mark Twain or NEST is far greater than other schools that I shall not name to not offend anyone. While this is also the case for high schools, high schools at least have the same named courses albeit they still differ in rigor. The SHSAT is the only equilizer in the equation, and there are many study tools available for you to succeed on the exam without a high price, such as prep books, SHSI, online websites, etc.
I, for example, was accept into Stuyvesant, and I had never paid more than $100 for my prep. During middle school, I attended SHSI (which, for the first year, was atrocious, but the second year was great. I specifically remember than the math instructor taught at an Asian prep school)and studied off of prep books such as Barron’s and Kaplan. Yes, I worked extremely hard. I sacrificed both of my summer vacations and spend the year studying. However, people who did not do this ended up not doing well on the exam and then blaming everyone but themself
Engineer-Poet
262 days ago
No comments? What happened to what I posted? Well, here it is again:
If instead, say, 70 percent of ALL students were tested, we could estimate that there would be an additional 10,000 students qualifying for the ruby slippers of the city’s Gifted and Talented programs. These additional students would mostly be Black, Hispanic and living in poverty.
If you tested 70% of all students, you would find that e.g. the ones which had made it to the third grade without learning to read failed almost without exception. There is no point in testing “students” who do not study and would have failed out of their regular classes… if the schools didn’t exist in a la-la land where nobody actually fails.
What would be the consequences of this innovation? Some schools which now send many students to the selective high schools would send fewer. Every school which now sends no students to the selective high schools would send some. Every student in New York City would have an equal opportunity to learn in some of the best high schools in the nation.
Wrong. The thing that makes the school worthwhile is its critical mass of high-achieving students with good faculty. As an immediate consequence of that “innovation”, the student body would lose that critical mass and the value of the school would be destroyed.
Your “innovation” is disingenuous, as fake as the fake Wizard of Oz. Those schools allow high-caliber students to get an equally high-caliber PUBLIC education in line with their abilities. If you select students by arbitrary criteria or by lottery, the school is destroyed (perhaps physically as well as academically). The beneficiaries are the wealthy, who can afford private schooling for their children and who would no longer have to compete with parents who can’t but whose children can pass the SHSAT (with or without a bit of tutoring).
If you really cared about poor children of high ability, you’d bring back tracking to the K-12 schools. The average should not have to waste their time listening to lecture and doing material at the ability and pace suitable for the retarded, just as the gifted should not be shackled to the pace of the average. Heterogeneous grouping eliminates the appearance of “racism”, but it hurts everybody. Everybody, that is, who can’t afford anything beyond the public schools.
Stuy Alum
261 days ago
As a former student at Stuy, I can assure that many students, like myself, do not come from rich families. In fact, about a quarter of the student population qualified for free or reduced lunch. If a student truly wants to do well on the exam, there are plenty ways to do so. The books at the library are free. Learn on your own! That’s what I did. Stuy can’t help you if you don’t help yourself first.
Stuy is a great school mostly because it’s a place where some of the smartest kids in the city get to interact and learn from one another. They challenge themselves to be better. Admitting students who are unprepared for the rigor of the curriculum and who do not possess that level of ambition will be damaging to the overall environment that makes Stuy so unique.
There are certainly flaws in the current admission policy. But instead of blaming the system, why not focus our attention on why many of the city’s elementary and middle schools are not providing quality education?
Michael Holzman
261 days ago
Just two points:
1) It is my understanding that it is the purpose of schools (and school systems) to educate all children well, without regard to the type of homes from which they come.
2) According to the 2010 Census, Median NYC incomes are: White, non-Hispanic, $66,000; Asian, $52,000; Black, $40,000; Hispanic, 36,000
HS Mom
256 days ago
As a parent who agonized through the NYC HS admissions process last year, I just wish that every school was a good school.
The kids that make it into the Specialized Schools deserve to be there. Thousands of kids go through extensive prep every year and don’t make it in. There are also many kids who don’t do any prep at all who make the cut.