Posted on 06/24/2019 7:09:22 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Richard A. Carranza, the city schools chancellor, insisted last week that the plan to eliminate the entrance exam that dictates admission into Stuyvesant High School and the city’s other top public high schools was gaining traction.
“There’s some real momentum,” Mr. Carranza said at the State Capitol.
Two days later, the bill died. The Legislature adjourned, having taken no action on the specialized school exam.
The contentious bill divided many of New York’s families along racial lines: Black and Hispanic students have seen their numbers at the prized schools plummet over the last two decades, while some Asian families argued that the mayor’s plan discriminated against the low-income Asian students who are now a majority at the schools.
But the extent of the proposal’s radioactivity was unusual in Albany, particularly during a session that was marked by the newly Democrat-controlled body’s willingness to take up issues that had long been considered off-limits.
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Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to scrap the entrance exam attracted national fanfare when it was announced, but it soon collided with stubborn realities.
The mayor, a Democrat, has few friends in Albany, and did not make new ones in his approach to the bill, which some lawmakers dismissed as grandstanding. It touched off the same racial divisions among black, Hispanic and Asian lawmakers as it had among parents in New York City. And a well-funded opposition effort led by a billionaire graduate of one of the specialized schools sent African-American parents to lawmakers’ doors, urging them to reject the bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Improving certain under performing middle schools in poorer neighborhoods, by turning them into charter schools and giving vouchers to parents in those districts, will do massively more to improving the demographics of who enters the elite public high schools, than any bureaucratic policy trying to merely dictate forced changes in those demographics.
The current demographics are 100% NOT about the exams to enter the elite public schools. They are 100% about which groups of students do not obtain the education they need BEFORE high school that would put them in better stead to pass those exams. Some % of that is about (a) the middle schools they attend, and some of it is about (b) their family & home life and the degree of their own academic dedication. The split between the two would vary with each student.
For Whom the Bell Curves.
Standards be rayciss, man.
More evidence, once again, vindicating that Herrnstein & Murray’s “The Bell Curve” was correct all along.
PING
The biggest impediment to educational progress is the fantasy of equal potential. (The fantasy has the effect of hurting just about everyone, as it interferes with the recognition of actual needs and potentials.)
The “potential” does and will vary, that is true.
But college SAT acceptable scores are among a range of the highest scores, not merely 100% of all the absolute highest scores, for a variety of reasons. So, even based on some of the best SAT scores, some who are accepted will have - and even maybe already seemed to demonstrate - greater potential that others who will also be accepted. Not all schools can get 100% of their “1st picks” and the others are alwaya a judgement call - whether biased or not.
And, there are plenty of cases where the negative issues I pointed to can fail to produce some potential that is actually there. Yes, even then perserverance - to overcome obstacles - can sometimes unleash a potential anyway, but often it is not through the academic process, but in spite of and outside of it.
I went to high school (and also found pleny of examples later in life) with quite a number of the “highest scoring” kids in our school. I have kept up with quite a number of them. It seems high high school and college entrance exam test scores, were not necessarily a marker for really great success. I also hired such people and among all my workers fround them to NOT be my best. I really do wonder sometimes if the SAT does actually measure “potential” - in the life writ large sense.
Yes, success is a relative thing, and usually involves complex factors, both in terms of aptitude and motivation. What it is less likely to involve—as a cause—is bureaucratic theorizing. Here, as most where, big Government tends to get in the way.
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