Iirc, there was a similar effort a few years ago where test prep was offered to Black and Hispanic students. Other parents successfully sued so the test prep was opened up to everyone. Asians took full advantage of the services and the original targeted group, not so much.
The problem isn’t the exam, but the lousy elementary and middle schools the underrepresented groups attend which are not doing the job of providing a rigorous education to enable them to compete in the SHSATs.
“I think there is a real risk that offering test prep courses (but no other academic enrichment) to black and Hispanic NYC kids could lead to kids getting into the exam schools and then being unable to succeed there.”
It’s reasonable to be concerned about this, but it’s not obvious that it will be a problem. First, how well does the test predict readiness? There are probably data, but I’ve never seen them. Second, how different are the kids above and below the cutoff? I mean, most kids waitlisted at Ivies would do just fine there if they were admitted. If the scores are densely clustered at the top, there might be thousands of kids who missed the NYC cutoff by a few points and are functionally indistinguishable from the average admit.
From the NYPost 2012
[QUOTE=""]
Want your kid to get into a selective public high school? Better get them into a competitive middle school first.
[/QUOTE]
New data obtained by The Post shows that nearly all the top feeder schools for Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science and La Guardia high schools are selective-entry schools themselves.
From the list of 19 stand-outs, two Brooklyn middle schools in particular — IS 187 in Borough Park and IS 239 in Coney Island — got a huge chunk of their students accepted at the city’s top-tier high schools for the past three years.
Last year, IS 187 got 226 of its eighth-graders offers from Brooklyn Tech and Stuyvesant.
<<<
I realize that middle schools probably don’t rank their students, but if these selective public high schools could borrow an idea from UC admissions in Calif, it may help. The UCs place a higher weight to GPA and being in the top X% of your class is meaningful. If GCs would indicate on an applicants transcript that this student is top 5% of his/her middle school class, maybe that could provide more “weight”
The UCs do this so that the UCs aren’t exclusively students from the best K-12 systems. It gives that A student from an inner city or rural school with a modest SAT score a chance to get into a top UC.
@zoosermom:
I totally agree with you with what you wrote, and my comment about those who assume they will get into a specialized high school being upset wouldn’t bother me in the least bit. And yes, you are right about NYC, while much of their public schools are not so great (from once being literally the envy of the world) do offer a lot of programs. A friend of my son’s went to the Bard high school, where they basically come out of high school with the equivalent of 2 years of college classes, and there are other specialized programs which do some amazing things. One of the ironies of the NYC education system is they actually have some pretty strong G and T programs, which my supposedly high achieving suburban area doesn’t really have (don’t get me started on that). The the specialized high schools have a dark side to them, something a friend of mine ran into with his daughter with Bronx Science, because of the culture and other factors there are significant problems with substance abuse and alcohol abuse that can trap kids, and yes, the schools tend to focus on certain things and areas, and may not be good for all students. A friend of mine at work, whose daughter went to Stuyvesant, also said that the elite schools, for the well off, represents getting a stellar education without paying 45+ for an elite private school. I personally think that they may want to spend the 15 million to encourage kids from underserved areas to find and get into the G and T and other top level schools, another advantage the kids getting in Stuyvescant and the like have is they have parents savvy in finding the top programs and getting them in there, in the Asian community for example, event recent immigrants learn from other members of the community what resources are out there and how to get their kids into them, which is something kids in other communities don’t have, so getting that information out might help kids who otherwise are deserving get into the right programs.
And yes, I think @rebeccar and others have hit the nail on the head, that this test prep may not do what they think it will, even if it gets kids access to the program, they may not get much benefit out of it. The reality is that schools in NYC face a lot of challenges, you are talking kids from very poor families, many of them the kids of single moms, all the ills attendent with that, and the schools are trying to work against the very real problems these kids face. There are different kinds of poor, and I suspect that this program might help a few kids whose only obstacle is the test, but many more either won’t even with tutoring be able to score well on the test, or if they do, might find out they can’t handle the rest. No one has come up with a solution to these problems, charter schools haven’t necessarily done what they should (I haven’t seen any figures, but are the charter schools turning out kids capable of going to these programs, and if so how come they aren’t going there?). The real answer is finding a way to make the schools work for all kids, but given the perpetual issues around that, politics, the underfunding of NYC schools (NYC gives a lot more money to the state than it gets back for education, they are almost totally at the whim of the NY State legislature), and various agendas, it just never seems to happen.
Back in the dark ages, the “prep” program started in sixth grade and mentored the kids through middle school. The program did good things for those kids, whether they got into or wanted to attend one of the specialized schools. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but what is?
The thing that those obsessed with Stuyvesant also overlook is that if your kid is very successful in school and/or ECs, there can often be financial aid assistance at private schools. I just think limiting the focus exclusively to such a small group of very specific schools is foolish.
I also think that it’s probably not great for some of the Asian kids at the specialized schools to be so “enclaved” in their own ethnic groups at home, in school and in all of these prep programs. I’m not sure I would consider that truly educated, despite high test scores.
There is the rub, admission is based totally on the test, and that is state law. I suspect that like many weird laws in NY state, they did that to prevent nepotism in admissions, for example that a politically connected kid didn’t get admitted because dad was a state senator and so forth. In theory, it is like why they went to civil service exams, the theory behind it is tests like this help prevent nepotism and such. The problem is that basing everything on a test like this might seem to be ‘objective’, but it also leaves out that single measure tests like this are not necessarily fair, that someone who is connected or has the resources can de facto make sure their kid gets in, it can be gamed and so forth.
Maybe it would be better if it is test scores plus other factors, the way it supposedly is in college admissions, but those who run the test prep business and those who spend a lot of time and money making sure the kid does well on this test may not be happy, because focusing on a single test is a lot easier than figuring out what the broader based standards are and making sure the kid can meet them. I suspect this kind of program will always be unfair in one way or another, and that maybe rather than focusing on this, it woujld be better to find ways to make the whole system work and not focus on a handful of specialized high schools like this.
There are multiple and very different groups of kids whose families come from different Asian countries. I suspect the “enclaving” was far greater when the vast majority of the kids at the exam schools were Jewish. The Jewish kids would have had more of a common identity.
I see no problems with this…
No one gives it a second thought that white students are “enclaved” in schools/functions that are plurality white.
I gave it a second, third and 20th thought when I chose schools for my children, and diversity is an important characteristic of many educational policies. One could even call diversity an industry. But of course you knew that.
Personally I am not a big fan of test prep for anyone and certainly not the mania for testing that has overtaken the nation’s schools, NYC system included. While there is a place for test prep I think using additional funds for enriching elementary and middle school is a better investment. No matter what admission system is in place, there will be people who find ways to game the system.
Part of the overall problem is that the philosophy of the classroom and best approaches can change radically from what is the emphasis of the moment, changes in direction and administration, parental involvement and so on. Not too long ago there was an article in the NYTIMES about teachers working together to plan a curriculum for specific goal but when finished the entire curriculum had been eliminated because the “emphasis and direction” had of course changed yet again. Sometimes you have the administration and the faculty on different pages all together.
Yes I agree that the pressure is really in the NYC public school system on first choosing the right middle school and then the nightmare of the high school application process beyond the elite admit schools.
One of our family friend’s daughters will be attending La Guardia in September. She came relatively late to a love of acting and went through the audition season for several schools Yes she had coaching for her auditions and she is pretty excited about the opportunity. Her parents are also excited about not spending $40,000 for tuition at Calhoun the private school she has attended PK-8. The mother of this family also attended private school in NYC PK-12. She did not make Stuy when she took the test. She made BX HS of Science but back in those days it was not really safe to travel on the subway from the Upper West Side to the Bronx.