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Page 38 Document A
Source:

Case: New York City Specialized High School Complaint

by NAACPs Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 9/27/12

Students who took the exam

Students who Percentage of testreceived an offer of takers who admission to a received an offer of Specialized High admission to any of School the Specialized High Schools

African-American Latino Asian-American Caucasian

6,382 6,143 7,119 4,101

319 414 2,490 1,253

5.0% 6.7% 35% 30.6%

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Page 38 Document B (Modified)

Achievement is the answer: Racism has nothing to do with why so few minority students make it to Stuyvesant
by John McWhorter (a prominent African-American linguist) New York Daily News, October 12, 2012

You know that weve come a long way on civil rights when the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is comfortable insulting black people. Thats what happened when the group filed a complaint with the federal Education Department against New York Citys use of the rigorous Specialized High School Admissions Test to decide who attends its flagship public schools. The complaint is saying that its racist to subject black and Latino kids to serious competition. The complaints reasoning goes like this: a) Black and Latino students tend not to do well on such tests; b) They are therefore rare at schools like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech; c) The use of the SHSAT is consequently unfair. The exam is designed to exclude blacks because its heavy on math, and black people cant do math, goes the charge, as quoted in a recent New York Times article on race at Stuyvesant. Id like to know what W.E.B. Du Bois or the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would make of a statement like that about black mental powers. Come, now: Even if there are only 40 black students out of 3,295 at Stuyvesant, as The Times reported, is racism really the only possible reason?

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Lets assume most people are beyond such thinking. They might think black and Latino kids simply dont have enough opportunities to develop the skills they would need to pass such a difficult test. Yet, in fact, the citys Education Department has made efforts (however imperfect) to recruit and prepare students for the SHSAT. There are even free test prep courses available. In recent years, school fairs and recruiting trips have spread the word about specialized high schools to minority-group communities. Stuyvesants parent coordinator has said that people in underserved communities often dont know about the entrance test and dont think these schools are for their kids. And how, if the custom isnt in the air in your community, could you figure out just how hard students elsewhere prepare for the test? Settling instead for crying racism here is applying yesterdays protest model to a different modern reality. After all, why isnt the most immediate response to the disparity to get the word out in black and Latino communities that being admitted to the top schools means working hard really, really hard on the test? It wont do to say, Oh, yeah, that too, either. This should be the principal response: preparation, not condemnation. We should shudder at the prospect of New Yorks best public schools scaling the test back to being just one part of a holistic evaluation process for the sole reason that black and Latino kids werent doing well on it. After all, that would suggest that black and Latino kids just arent bright enough to handle a real test and we all know it. There are times when being progressive means changing the rules. However, life will never be perfect, and sometimes whats progressive is teaching people how to get in the game.

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Page 38 Document C (Modified)

Single-Test Admissions: A Flawed Policy

From the report The Meaning of Merit
By Damon Hewitt and Rachel Kleinman of the NAACP and Lazar Treschan and Apurva Mehrotra of the Community Service Society of New York)

The test-only admissions policy used by New York Citys Specialized High Schools enforces an artificially narrow view of merit. For example, under the policy, a student who attended an under-resourced public middle school and navigated difficult life circumstances to achieve excellent grades and a pristine attendance record along with other significant accomplishments would be passed over for admission in favor of a student with lower grades and spotty attendance who took an expensive private prep course in order to get a higher score on the test. Educational experts agree that a single test cannot be considered a definitive measure of a students knowledge. Because all measures have some degree of uncertainty and imprecision, it is best to use multiple criteria in combination, especially when making important decisions. This is a universally accepted norm of the field of testing, known as psychometrics. But the NYCDOEs policy flies in the face of this standard. Experts on educational testing also agree that even when a test is used as only one of several factors to make educational placement decisions, there should still be some evidence documenting the relationship between test scores, educational programs, and desired outcomes. The SHSAT is not aligned to the curriculum students are expected to learn in middle school, nor is it aligned to expectations for performance in the Specialized High Schools. In fact, NYCDOE officials admit that the agency has never

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studied the SHSAT to determine whether it predicts success in the Specialized High Schools. The SHSAT does not have a standard cut-off score that guarantees admission. Instead, the NYCDOEs reliance on rank-order scores means the score needed to gain admission to any Specialized High School can change every year. So, a score that yields an admissions offer this year may lead to denial of admission the following year, and vice versa. In other words, there is no actual standard. A 2008 study found that thousands of students who were offered admission to a Specialized High School had SHSAT scores that were statistically indistinguishable from thousands of students who were denied admission. So, many students who deserve an opportunity are being arbitrarily excluded. The Specialized High Schools admissions policy is far outside the mainstream of Americas elite public high schools. None of the other top public high schools we examined across the nation rely upon a sole criterion, such as a test, to make admissions decisions. Even other top high schools within New York City do not base their admissions on the results of a single admissions test. Instead, they consider multiple measures of student achievement, ranging from grades and other test scores to student essays, class rank, and other considerations. When examined holistically and in context, these factors are better indicators of students achievements and their future capabilities.

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Page 38 Document D (Modified)

Dont Abolish the SHSAT, DeBlasio
Stuyvesant Spectator, November 21, 2013

Our new mayor, Bill de Blasio, hopes to change the entrance requirements for the New York City Specialized High Schools by striking down the SHSAT as the sole means of admissions. While Im convinced his goals are noble in intent, in practice, his attempt to move away from the current admissions method would only create a process thats more unfair and biased in nature. The SHSAT must not be changed. De Blasio has argued foremost that the SHSAT creates a rich-get-richer phenomenon. As the Daily News explained, since wealthy parents can afford more expensive tutoring for their kids, the test is biased towards the rich. While its true that we have more members of the middle class than many of NYCs local high schools, Stuyvesant students are definitely not rich. In fact, we qualify for Title 1 funding, which is reserved for schools where more than 40% of the students are on free- or reduced-price lunch. Beyond that, more than threequarters of Stuyvesant students are either first- or second-generation immigrants, hardly a group renowned for its material wealth. For many, English wasnt their first language, and others live with parents who work 12-hour shifts. Students admitted to Stuyvesant arent rich, Mr. de Blasio theyre just the hardest working. The reality is that wealthy parents are sending their children to private schools, not to Stuyvesant. The preparatory classes are being taken by students who, hungry to succeed, are willing to sacrifice their summers or weekends for an extra 50 points on the test. The classes are paid for by parents who want the brightest possible future for their kids, even if the classes come at a burdensome cost. The basic principle here is one with which weve all been acquainted through our history textbooks and the tale of the American Dream: work hard and make sacrifices to get ahead. Dont criticize the hard workers for striving.

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What makes the SHSAT special is that it is objective and not reliant upon opportunity. Yes, many kids prep for it, but those classes are available to everyone. What it tests is reasonable: basic algebra and some geometry, reading comprehension and logical analysis. Every middle-school student is given access to the Specialized High Schools Handbook, which provides a practice test, and both McGraw-Hill and Barrons offer review books that, at minimal cost, can make the difference between a 400 and a 600 on the 800-point scale. And the kids who are admitted are truly the best New York City has to offer, in almost all fields. We cant ignore the facts, however. The majority of enrollees in NYC public schools are African-American or Hispanic; at Stuyvesant, according to Gotham Schools, only nine black and 24 Latino students were accepted out of 963 admitted applicants. We shouldnt change the SHSAT, but we should try to make it possible for more non-Asian minorities to be admitted. One concrete action would be to expand the scope of the New York Specialized High School Institute (SHSI), a free, 22-month program designed to give good but economically disadvantaged students a way to improve their scores. While it might be impossible to take everyone who applies (the current means of selection is random), the SHSI should certainly take more than the 3,800 it currently does. Another option would be to send out representatives from either the city bureaucracy or the specialized high schools themselves to poorer schools throughout New York. One of the key reasons why more minorities dont do well on the exam is that they are either not aware of the test until the beginning of eighth grade, at which point they only have little over a month to prepare. Its a simple fix and one that should be made before any overhaul of the program. In the end, the SHSAT is effective in creating a stellar learning environment for New York Citys best students, and its objective in a way that other criteria could simply never be. Lets focus on the roots of the issue before trying to fix something that just aint broke.