Asians were systematically discriminated against for generations in the US. Is overcoming discrimination to some extent frowned upon?
5
Asians are still being discriminated against. Look at Deblasio and carranza’s Asian exclusion plan and Harvard admissions. Both say too many Asians.
4
"To help more black and Latino students succeed on the [high school entrance] exam, the city [New York] spent $6 million this year to offer test preparation for low-income students and increase outreach and the number of schools offering the exam. Those efforts seem to have done little good."
How come? The test prep books go for an average of $15 each on Amazon. Used books are less than $5 each. Two new books per kid for $30 means 200,000 kids could have gotten free prep books.
Where did the money go?
4
Open new specialized schools that accept students in the top X% of middle schools.
@P where will the money to pay for these new schools come from?
Great suggestion! Or reinvent existing schools!
2
In many schools, the so called top students read below grade level.
Have you looked at the curriculum for Bronx H.S. of Science?? I checked the math curriculum. Even if the entrance exam were completely eliminated, there is NO WAY a student who needs "remedial math" is going to succeed. The "problem" is obviously in the primary schools.
7
People gripe about affirmative action in the workplace. They said the playing field should be leveled beforehand, in school.
Colleges factor in race, and people gripe. Shouldn't the playing field be leveled in K-12?
So, people are now trying to level the playing field for a high school. Ideally that would have happened earlier than high school but maybe that isn't realistic.
I'd rather see the playing field leveled in high school rather than waiting until college or later. Some students just need the opportunity, and will rise to the occasion.
What is the experience like at Stuyvesant or another specialized school? Is it a high-pressure, competitive environment?
I wonder whether, at least to some extent, the group that winds up at such a place isn't self-selecting. Does it perhaps want such an environment? If so, would a kid who does not currently select this (or who does not score high enough on the test) necessarily be better off in that environment?
Is it possible that some of what we are seeing reflects the fact that people have different learning styles and prefer not to be in a place like Stuyvesant?
Here's my two cents: I graduated from Science in 68 and went to CCNY, which shortly thereafter became an open admissions school, for reasons very similar to those driving the debate about the specialized high schools today. City was an elite school, with high academic standards, one of the best public universities in the country. It was flooded with students manifestly unprepared to tackle the workload. Sheetrock partitions were put up in the Great Hall on North Campus to tutor freshmen in reading and math. Electives were cancelled, remedial and introductury courses abounded. The inevitable happened, and standards were lowered (why admit students and then fail them?), and a degree from CCNY no longer commanded the respect it once did. I think the same thing would happen to the specialized high schools, and it's a pity, because they have been and still are a ladder out of poverty for many minorities: they were largely white and Jewish when I went, they are largely Asian now, but they are definitely not for the children of the rich. If we want to level the playing field, which is an admirable goal, we have to start much earlier in the educational process.
17
@Paolo Francesco Martini
I went to CCNY starting in 1967.
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I completely agree with Mr. Paolo Francesco Martini.
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I rarely mention that I went to CCNY. Its reputation has become that bad.
@Paolo Francesco Martini I think we need to realize that if you can't pass an admissions test you will not be able to do the required course work. It's not getting in - it's staying in!
Remedial ANYTHING has no place in a college.
Why don't we hold the primary schools and the "ordinary" high schools responsible for their poor performance at educating ALL students?
3
Why is the qualifying exam not administered to every NYC ninth grader by default? That would at least remove one reported barrier: not knowing about the exam. Also, if our public schools serving Black and Latinx communities are not preparing the brightest students to compete, surely they are failing to meet the needs of ALL the students who attend. A lopsided student body at Stuyvesant is just an indicator of the real and bigger problem.
9
@Amy Mogulescu, no one is against the original Discovery program that was fair and only accepted those who just missed the cutoff. However, the mayor plans to expand the program from 5% of the slot to 20% AND only offer them to blacks and Hispanic schools. Low income kids of other races concentrated in other schools would not be eligible. The plan was explicitly constructed to exclude Asians since the clear and declared objective was to include more Blacks and Hispanics. If you expand the Discovery program by 300% and exclude the population that did the best in the exam, the kids coming through the Discovery program would likely have scores that are much lower than the kids from previous years, before the change.
As for the mayor's plan to get rid of SHSAT all together and select the top 7% of every school instead, based on a study done by the state's IBO using DOE data, the 7% plan would replace over 1000 kids who excels in Math with about 500 who did not even meet their grade standard in Math and others who only just met the standard. These are not going to be the same as the Discovery program kids you mentioned. How can you honestly believe this would not change the school's performance? Dozens of remedial math classes at the top NYC schools? Does that sound right to you? It doesn't for me. If you respect my opinion, I'll respect yours.
10
Well said.
1
Why is the qualifying exam not automatically given to all NYC ninth graders? That would at least remove one reported barrier to entry: not knowing about it. But also, if our schools are failing our very brightest Black and Latinx students, isn't the larger problem that they are likely failing ALL the students who rely on them?
2
What is the experience in other countries with Black and Latino students?
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Great Britanin has a roughly 3.5% African population. Italy has about 2%. France has approximately a 5% African population - although the figure is not official as France does not collect ethnic data about its citizens.
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Still, it would be helpful if the NYT and other news oranizations would identify the degree of success that those of African descent in these countries have in their educational and career achievment.
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Is the U.S. alone in its problem with African/Black acheivement?
2
Hundreds of years of slavery, systematically not educating the first few generations of blacks, structural discrimination, followed by generations on welfare. This is the result.
2
How is the Dept. of Education defining "black?"
If an applicant has 1 white parent and 1 black parent, is he/she classified as "black" or "other" or "white?" (Or 1 Asian parent and 1 white parent? Anyone who's mixed will have at least three choices.)
Similarly, until there's a clear definition of the 74 students who were not categorized as white, black, Hispanic or Asian, the headline "Only 7 black students" admitted seems over-sure.
I realize the point of the story was much more problematic than finding the exact number(s), but the statistical analysis seemed to lack some very basic and vital info.
7
perhaps my simple question has been answered & I've just missed it but what is the involvement of the charter schools ?
did any of students of color accepted to NYC's elite high schools graduate from NYC charter grammar schools ?
2
to do this issue justice you must dig a bitter deeper into why low-income Asian-American students have managed to do so well on this test, and why African-Africans students are either not taking it, are not listing Stuyvesant at top of their list (Brooklyn Latin seems more sought after amongs African-American 8th graders), or why they are not scoring high enough. Is this a function of the elementary and middles schools that the Asian-American students attend, their family structure and cultural values? Is it test pret? Cmon reporter - Do better! We all know this is not about poverty. And the test on its own does not discriminate. So you need to go a little deeper. Finally, how about celebrating the actual diversity at Stuyvesant? The school is majority students-of-color and low income - that is a big success story and a driver of upward mobility.
19
@EME
I could not have said anything more or better than what you said.
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Thank you.
2
@EME
As someone of Asian descent I can attest the importance of education as a major part of Asian culture. "It's true. All of it."-Han Solo in The Force Awakens
"You be doctor or else we disown you."-Asian parent.
1
"But that system has left Boston Latin overwhelmingly white"
Actually, Boston Latin is less than half white:
White 46.8%
Asian 28.6%
Hispanic 12.5%
Black 7.5%
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/student.aspx?orgcode=00350560&orgtypecode=6
I guess in 2019 America, 46.8% white counts as "overwhelmingly white."
14
7 young people of african american/latino ethnicity accepted at stuyvesant...how many of this particular ‘subset’ took the test? 7 out of ?
No article mentions this
7
When I attended Science in the 60's, there were far more black and Hispanic students there than there are today. The question we should be asking is what has changed? It's pretty obvious to that the NYC school system today is far more segregated than it was in the 60's. And one of the reasons why is charter schools. There are charter high schools in each borough which nominally have similar programs as the specialized high schools. Their populations...50% black, 50% Hispanic, with only a trace of white and asian students. That's where the diversity candidates have gone. Figure out why that happened and you'll will explain the 21st century's de facto segregation problem.
https://www.nyccharterschools.org/sites/default/files/school-indicators-for-new-york-city-charter-schools-2013-2014-school-year-july-2015.pdf
3
@Mike
I'm not sure that's where the diversity candidates (high-performing black and Hispanic students) have gone. I think there are only about 50 charter high schools in NYC, and while they probably appeal to students and parents who perceive them as safer, more community-based, and committed alternatives to their local schools, it seems more likely to me that these students are being siphoned off to screened programs at various smaller high schools around NYC. I'd love to see stats. Either way, they're not taking and passing the SHSAT in numbers that correspond to their presence in the population.
1
If the majority of kids at the school are Asian, why are we not ringing our hands about the lack of caucasians as well as blacks and latinos?
As an aside, note that "open admissions" has damaged the reputation and academic rigor of City College.Cannot we not expect the same if standards are lowered for admission to NYC "elite" schools?
17
NYC gathers copious amounts of data about its public school students. A sampling of questions that would better inform articles like this one, as well as NYT readers:
1. What are the admission test scores and year by year grade point averages of Black, Hispanic, white, and Asian students in the specialized schools?
2. What are the pre-college test scores for the above-mentioned groups in specialized schools, what percentages are admitted to colleges (including elite vs other colleges), what percentage drop out after 1/2/3/4 years, what percentages graduate after 4/5/6 years, how many go to graduate school, etc.?
3. What percentages of the above groups in specialized schools had prior access to coaching, test prep, etc.?
4. What are the demographics of these students: family income level, location by zip code, single vs 2-parent family, immigration status, etc.?
5. How many students who qualify for admission to specialized schools are siphoned off to private schools?
All of this information is or should be available for analysis without having to identify individual students, and it is likely that some such analyses have already been carried out internally by the city or state.
However, I suspect that such research will not be published because it may not support, or may call into question, various aspects of affirmative action.
If the goal is to educate all students to their maximum potential, such research is essential to inform program and policy development.
8
A misconception I see frequently repeated in these comments and in much of the opposition to the change in admissions criteria is that changing the test would be equivalent to dramatically lowering the quality of student at the school. This is untrue. I teach at a specialized high school and the students admitted through our summer discovery program (meaning they scored below the cut off on the test) often become our strongest students. The mayor’s plan to select kids with top grades from across the city would reward all the things that predict academic success—hard work and achievement. Why would we reject those proven metrics that have been shown to be far better predictors of how students will do later in school than the current test?
Similarly, the idea that there are only a small handful of qualified black and Latino students across the city is ridiculous. We could easily fill all the seats at all these schools with talented, motivated black and Latino kids who would excel.
This is a separate question from whether we should ensure all K-8 students in our city are given access to an excellent education. Of course we should. But those who argue that we are paying too much attention to these schools should ask themselves why they are spending so much effort protecting what they see as their seats.
Last, research does show that the test under-admits girls.
3
@Amy Mogulescu
I think that part of the issue is the lack of resources dedicated to admissions. Assuming that you are right that "hard work and achievement" should be significant factors in admissions then how do you measure that and then compare and rank that hard work and achievement among the limited number of students to be offered admission? To do this, you need to set up admissions committees for each school, Ultimately, it then becomes a subjective judgment of hard work and achievements as opposed to a more objective numbers issue.
1
@Amy Mogulescu
Please give some hard numbers to support your claims..
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The avilable evidence is that even when Black/Latino students attend special or Charter schools, they still undrperform other students by a signifcant margin.
1
The most successfully integrated institution in America is the U.S. Army, integrated at all levels. The army puts resources into preparing people for the assessments to get the next role.
What the school system can do is to reinstate system which had led to more black enrollment at the science schools in the past. There were classes in the junior high schools for more academically advanced students. Those accelerated classes had prepared black students to better compete in the admission tests. Tracking, which was ended because it was said to discriminate, actually better prepared black students in those classes for high school, including for admission to and success at the selective high schools.
5
NYC gathers copious amounts of data about its public school students. Some questions that would better inform articles like this one, as well as NYT readers:
1. What are the admission test scores and year by year grade point averages of Black, Hispanic, white, and Asian students in the specialized schools?
2. What are the pre-college test scores for the above-mentioned groups in specialized schools, what percentages are admitted to colleges (including elite vs other colleges), what percentage drop out after 1/2/3/4 years, what percentages graduate after 4/5/6 years, how many go to graduate school, etc.?
3. What percentages of the above groups in specialized schools had prior access to coaching, test prep, etc.?
4. What are the demographics of these students: family income level, location by zip code, single vs 2-parent family, immigration status, etc.?
5. How many students who qualify for admission to specialized schools are siphoned off to private schools?
All of this information is or should be available for analysis without having to identify individual students, and it is likely that some such analyses have already been carried out internally by the city or state.
However, I suspect that such research may not be published because it may not support, or may call into question, various aspects of affirmative action.
If the goal is to educate all students to their maximum potential, such research is essential to inform and guide program and policy development.
2
NYC gathers copious data about its public school students. Answers to sample questions like these would better inform articles like this one, as well as the public:
1. What are the admission test scores and year by year grade point averages of Black, Hispanic, white, and Asian students in the specialized schools?
2. What are the pre-college test scores for the above-mentioned groups in specialized schools, what % are admitted to colleges (including elite vs other colleges), what % drop out after 1/2/3/4 years, what % graduate after 4/5/6 years, what % go to graduate school, etc.?
3. What % of the above groups in specialized schools had prior access to coaching, test prep, etc.?
4. What are the demographics of these students: family income level, location by zip code, single vs 2-parent family, immigration status, etc.?
5. What % of students who qualify for admission to specialized schools are siphoned off to private schools?
All of this information is or should be available for analysis without having to identify individual students, and it is likely that some such analyses have already been carried out internally by the city or state.
However, I suspect that such research may not be published because it may not support, or may call into question, various aspects of affirmative action.
However, if we wish to educate all students to their maximum potential, such research is essential to inform and guide program and policy development at city/state/federal levels.
2
NYC gathers copious data about its public school students. Answers to questions like those below would better inform articles like this one, as well as the public:
1. What are the admission test scores and year by year grade point averages of Black, Hispanic, white, and Asian students in the specialized schools?
2. What are the pre-college test scores for the above-mentioned groups in specialized schools, what % are admitted to colleges (including elite vs other colleges), what % drop out after 1/2/3/4 years, what % graduate after 4/5/6 years, what % go to graduate school, etc.?
3. What % of the above groups in specialized schools had prior access to coaching, test prep, etc.?
4. What are the demographics of these students: family income level, location by zip code, single vs 2-parent family, immigration status, etc.?
5. What % of students who qualify for admission to specialized schools are siphoned off to private schools?
All of this information is or should be available for analysis without having to identify individual students, and it is likely that some such analyses have already been carried out internally by the city or state.
However, I suspect that such research may not be published because it may not support, or may call into question, various aspects of affirmative action.
However, if we wish to educate all students to their maximum potential, such research is essential to inform and guide program and policy development at city/state/federal levels.
2
Went to Bronx Science, graduated 1960. Parents were both factory workers who lost their jobs when the millinery industry collapsed in the 50s. Dad became a cab driver, mom a secretary. Took the test, was admitted. No prep (it didn’t exist). No coaching (it didn’t exist), no way to influence the outcome with money (we didn’t have any). There were black students (I graduated with Stokely Charmichael), Asian students, etc. The test was hard, but fair - there was no way to identify the race, religion, nationality, economic status, or species of the student. You took the test, if you scored highly enough, you got in. Pretty straightforward.
12
Going to a specialized high school reduces the chances of getting accepted to an Ivy League because it harder to be in the top 10% of the student body.
4
@redpill
Not in my experience, Stuyvesant class of 1976
Attendees (not admissions)
Harvard 19
Yale 11
Princeton 19
Cornell 55 (not a misprint, 7 in my dorm alone)
It added up to over 20% of my graduating class ATTENDING Ivy schools.
1
Is it too much to ask that there be a set number of African Americans (and of each minority group) admitted in each class so there is a level of comfort for those students? Having 8 African Americans out of 800 puts those students in a very challenging learning environment.
1
@Eric
Yes. It is too much to ask.
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It is unfair.
1
You would be listing race as a criteria for admission. That’s discrimination.
2
One NYT article had the simple solution hidden with it. Several black and Latino Stuyvesant students were interviewed. Some of them said that they didn't previously know about the admissions test, but when they found out about it they bought study prep books and/or took prep courses and they were accepted. There is the answer. Tell the students about admissions test and give the ones who are interested prep books. Offer them prep classes at locations throughout the city, paid for by the city. If those interviewed Stuy students are any indication there will be plenty of black and Latino admissions the next time around.
6
Does anyone refute any of the following facts?
1. The total number of black and Hispanic families able to afford test-prep are much greater than the number of Asian families considering their population being more than 4 times the number of Asians in NYC. Even if 25% of the Blacks and Hispanics send their kids to test prep, that's more than the entire Asian population, and we know most Asians are from low income families as well.
2. No one actually knows what percentage went to paid test prep classes or that it was the main factor for their higher score, even if we agree that test prep can help. Free test prep is provided by the DOE through the DREAM program. Who is willing to bet that a much greater percentage of Asians using the free DREAM program for test prep got a spot in the SHS compared to the blacks and Hispanics using that same program? Can the NY Times get that info?
3. Blacks and Hispanic kids have more options for free private school offers than Asian kids. Maybe NY Time can figure how many top performers are recruited to those private schools.
59
There's such a thing as a "Black Admissions?" Do we have to give admissions to people based on their colour?
Put some effort and earn your place in the world.
46
1. Do not recall seeing data about the number of students - broken down by demographics/background/race - who took the test? Is this available? This is important data in considering when opining about the outcome.
2. Am puzzled that the NY Times focused heavily on Stuyvesant and omitted discussion of the other test schools. The demographics (including gender) at the other test schools are somewhat different. For example, more Latino students at High School for Math Science at City College.
3. The focus on the test schools leaves out important context:
a) that many private day and boarding schools now seek a diverse student body and able to offer financial aid to black and Latino students who in the past might have sought to go to public school like Bronx Science stuyvesant
b) there are additional "good" and popular public high schools that screen admissions such as Townsend Harris, Bard, Beacon and others. These schools do not use a test but a combination of grades, recommendations etc. Again some black and Latino students are selecting these schools instead pursuing test schools like Bronx Science Stuyvesant.
4. Would suggest that the NY Times interview students at all the test schools - not just Stuyvesant.
5. Would suggest the NY Times interview students who did not get in to any of the test schools - and see where they went and what they think.
6. Would appreciate more details about the Discovery program.
18
@LS Thank you. I wish nytimes journalists interviewed people like you BEFORE finishing their research and publishing. You clearly understand the fuller context of hs education in NYC.
A few months back the Editorial Board read a statistic, became outraged, and then immediately mandated race quotas, interviews, and abolition of tests. A week later responses from every level and perspective of education replied explaining why such a knee jerk reactions were terrible ideas.
The diversity at Stuy is surely an issue that needs to be solved-- and an intriguing, anomalous one. But instead of trying understand it people are just flaming self-righteously out of complete ignorance.
7
I wish DeBlasio would research deeper before putting in place asinine policies that are race-based in a merit based democratic society. Survival of the fittest or highest scores. Step aside half- thought out discrimination policies.
1
My friends who attended Stuy received no preparation for the entrance exam, are from low-income families who went to the same schools and education as their neighborhood peers, and are Asian. They got in by their own merits as most of the Asian student population at Stuy. "A vast majority of N.Y.C. public school students are poor, but we can’t forget that there are layers of poverty." This also applies to the Asian population who live in NYC as well. Why are we overlooked in that area? Is it because it's assumed that we have higher ground than our fellow minorities because we're supposed to be naturally gifted/talented and don't have it so bad as our fellow minorities? Why can't it be acknowledged that we face similar disadvantages and why is it so hard to give credit and support when it comes to our hard work and accomplishments? Also, it's never an issue if there's a low population of Asian students, whenever we become the majority how come it becomes unfair?
73
Why doesn't the school district open more schools equivalent to Stuyvesant and the other selective schools?
19
@Jane Haigh
Not enough smart teachers. Not enough smart student. The quality of a school is determined by two factors
1) IQ of teachers
2) IQ of students
You could take all the teachers and students at Dartmouth and have them take classes in leaky tents using torn old books and sitting in mud, and the quality of study and education would be higher than other schools. Why? Smart teachers and smart students.
5
@Jane Haigh
Because the dirty little secret is that it is not the schools and teachers that make a difference - it is the critical mass of bright, motivated and focussed students that push each other that create the environment.
A regular HS with a full range of AP's teaches the exact same things.
And this is why setting quotas for less gifted students would be disastrous.
11
@Jane Haigh People pushing to eliminate the test tout a false narrative that well qualified poor kids that miss out on admissions to specialized high schools have no alternative but to attend a failing or non-rigorous neighborhood school. NYC, students may apply to any high school across its 33 school districts. A large percentage of these schools have competitive rather than neighborhood admissions and some offer academic rigor and college placement success on par with the specialized high schools but with different admissions criteria (like grades).
In addition, NYC has a significant number of very successful charter schools mostly catering to Black and Hispanic students, some of which offer even more rigor and placement success than the specialized high schools. And then there are NYC's vaunted private schools that offer scholarships to many disadvantaged Black and Latinx kids.
So well qualified NYC students have plenty of academic opportunity outside the specialized high schools, but it is far easier for Pols to decry an "unfair test" than it is to fix the real problems of (1) under-resourced elementary and middle schools in poor neighborhoods failing to adequately prepare kids for the most rigorous high schools and (2) parent community attitudes that under emphasize education relative to those attitudes in poor Asian communities.
4
Is the NYT able give us the statistics/demographics for all those that applied to Stuyvesant and were rejected or steered to a different specialized school in a more remote area of the city? Sadly segregation is a choice for some people. Most thirteen year old’s would not think to go where they are not wanted & welcomed.
3
One of the main reasons not all advocacy groups have joined the Mayor or the battle to eliminate the test is that by measures like socio/economic diversity and percentage of people of color vs. whites, the current admissions procedure is producing pretty good outcomes.
The percentage of White students at Stuyvesant is only 18% which is roughly equal to the percentage in NYC schools. In fact, since Stuyvesant is in lower Manhattan and gets more interest from Manhattan and nearby Brooklyn where there is a far higher percentage of white kids (just as Brooklyn Tech gets more interest from kids of color), one could even argue that white kids are somewhat under-represented at Stuyvesant.
Further, with 44% of the kids on free or reduced price lunch vs. 70% for the city and then adjusting for the economic diversity of neighborhoods that are a reasonable distance from Stuyvesant, it is not way off base in reflecting the economic diversity of its constituency. It is certainly more economically diverse than most highly selective public high schools around the country.
What the test is producing is a disproportionately high number of poor Asian students and disproportionately low number of poor Black and Latinx students. While most agree that some adjustment like the 20% Discovery program is a worthwhile change, it is not as clear that a vast overhaul that would effectively guarantee admission of poor Black and Latinx students over poor Asian students is the right thing to do.
22
It’s an anti Asian campaign. Deblasio resonates more with blacks. Even more than his own race.
1
I am a 1948 graduate of Stuyvesant. I took that test. There were no prep coursed offered along Northern Blvd where you paid to get coached. That is one of the current problems. Flushing extends along Northern Blvd to Great Neck. There are scores of places that promise your kid 'can get in'.
In the absence fo coaching classes the field would be flatter. Right now admission is based on one difficult test and lots of coaching from families with adequate funds. If 'friendly ' elementary schools pooled resources and established a coaching class for top students that might help.
5
Lowering admission standards to include students who are otherwise unprepared, without also lowering standards for graduation, means that those students will almost certainly experience a higher drop-out rate than their peers.
This disparity will be used as further evidence of “discrimination”, and if graduation standards are lowered in response, an elite school is no longer elite.
Equality of outcome, or “equity”, in theory, means raising the bottom; in practice, it means lowering the top. People can’t be made to do more than they can do, they can only be made to do less.
38
The author's comment "Your point about black and brown kids starving isn’t so far from the truth in some parts of the city" is sheer hyperbole.
In 2016 NYC's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) spent $2.97 billion, not including nutrition-related funds provided by non-governmental agencies and individuals, and in-school food programs. (Source: Office of the New York State Comptroller)
By the way, SNAP is funded by the federal government, not NYC.
Anyone who is aware of any black and brown kids (or any other kids) starving in NYC has a moral responsibility to report their situation to the city's social service agencies, including those government- and privately-supported, which will ensure that any children in danger of starving will get enough to eat.
34
Your article was about about diversity. I expect that the statistics on Asians accepted by New York's elite schools are themselves problematic. Asians are a very diverse group, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Southeast Asians, etc. It would help if one looked at the composition of these various Asia groups vis-a-vis their diversity.
Additionally, what about gender; how well represented are the girls?
25
@Fitz
a funny and under-reported things happens at these selective schools - when you go a gender and color blind admittance test - Boys form a significant majority of students (54%) - go figure.
2
And all different shades including various shades of brown.
In the 1960s I did some of the earliest research on busing black children from public schools to white suburbs. The stresses (travel time, hostility, overt racism, increased academic competition) on the black kids were substantial, but even worse was the fact that the Boston schools had not remotely prepared their students to compete at the same grade levels as their peers in high-performing suburban schools.
Integration is a worthy goal, but it makes no sense to dumb down the entrance criteria for NYC's specialized schools in order to meet some politically-defined and arbitrary racial quota. Doing this will lead to failure for many or even most of the students so admitted, and will force many teachers to teach down to the lowest common denominators. Specialized schools will also need to set up tutorials and remedial classes for the "challenged" students, which will require more funds and personnel.
Such steps may result in a few more minority students making it into and through the specialized schools; however, many of these students will then be stigmatized as the product of affirmative action rather than having been selected on merit.
Unfortunately, de Blasio's plan will cause many parents whose qualified kids are shut out of the specialized schools to move to the suburbs or send their kids to private school.
The (very expensive) answer is not to water down the selection criteria for the specialized schools, but to improve all NYC schools from K on up.
26
an aside re: the public/private decision question - The stats we see regarding high school admissions do not seem to account for/separate out the bright Latinx & black students who leave the public system for private or boarding schools by way of lauded programs like Oliver Scholars, A Better Chance etc. Do those students even take the SHSAT? In what pool is the data considering them, if at all? The city knows the data here, and it should break it out publicly so one can gauge the impact of those numbers on the other data reporters are poring over.
The city needs to open additional rigorous gen ed high schools with lots of college-prep offerings, as well as create strong programs that focus instead on students pursuing a trade/non-college route.
11
The New York Times is doing this "story" to death.
Those kids, very many of whom are poor and have non-English speaking parents, who have formed study groups and pooled their resources, who take the admission test and earn above a certain score, get in.
End of story.
You want more kids of color to earn higher scores? Or even to apply in the first place? Fix their elementary schools, get them into pre-K with intelligent, articulate pre-K teachers, and get their parents on board with the idea that education is a great good -- but getting an excellent, free one takes effort.
A real education always does.
54
73% of the students at Stuyvesant are Asian-American, and Asian-Americans also make up 60% of all students at NYC's specialized schools.
Does that mean Asian-American students are innately smarter than white, black, Hispanic and other students? I don't think so.
Rather, I think the outstanding academic performance of Asian-American students is due to the fact that their culture and families clearly place a very high value on education, emphasizing the need for study and hard work in school and positively reinforcing student achievement. Perhaps the most important factor is that parents--and the culture--unambiguously convey the expectation that Asian-American students will do well in school, an attitude that is not as strong in the other groups noted.
The way to get more black and Hispanic students into the specialized schools is not to lower the admission standards but to improve the education provided at ALL city schools from K on up.
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My nephew was an ESL teacher in the Bronx. He Spanish so that it would help to communicate with and teach the elementary students more effectively. He said that some of them knew neither Spanish or English. His students were from Dominican Republic. How do you teach children the basics-reading, writing and math if parents hardly communicate with them in their own native language. So the kids do not have a foundation It seems as though the parents have the kids and expect the schools to babysit and teach. But they are not the teacher’s kids so can not be disciplined as such. The teacher can get in trouble.
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@Mal T Amen. There is no reason to suppose that Asians are smarter or that other races including white are dumber. There is good reason to suppose that cultural values placed upon education can have a powerful impact. Asians are woefully underrepresented in the NFL and in the NBA, should there be a rethinking of the pro draft process? We need to see more studies about cultural and social l norms and behaviors of different ethnic groups. If the study shows that some are hindering academic success put the emphasis there.
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@Mal T Amen. There is no reason to suppose that Asians are smarter or that other races including white are dumber. There is good reason to suppose that cultural values placed upon education can have a powerful impact. Asians are woefully underrepresented in the NFL and in the NBA, should there be a rethinking of the pro draft process? We need to see more studies about cultural and social l norms and behaviors of different ethnic groups. If the study shows that some are hindering academic success put the emphasis there. The other point is to ensure that the lower schools are actually supporting ALL students thru good teaching and a stable learning environment- no adminstrators who allow disruptive behavior and drugs in school. into