Stuyvesant will not remain Stuyvesant if it must accept (and therefore graduate) many students who are not proficient in math and reading. A gifted program that accepts many non-gifted students will no longer be a gifted program.
Stuyvesant, Other Elite New York Public High Schools Could Admit Students Who Didn’t Pass State Tests
Mayor’s proposed changes would have given seats to hundreds of students who didn’t pass exams, data show
By Leslie Brody
Wall Street Journal
Oct. 18, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to change admissions for eight specialized high schools could lead to students with markedly lower state test scores getting into these competitive schools, according to a review of New York City data.
His plan would offer seats to the top 7% of performers in each public middle school. If that method had been in place for this fall, data show the city would have offered spots to more than 300 students who didn’t pass state tests in seventh grade.
In addition, offers would have gone to about 1,000 fewer students who excelled on state tests, judging by city Department of Education data obtained through a public-records request.
Who should get into in these prestigious schools, including Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School, has been a matter of heated debate in recent months. Supporters of the current admission system called this new data evidence that the mayor’s proposal would enroll students who aren’t well prepared for their demanding academics. About 5,000 eighth-graders are offered spots in these schools yearly, and nearly 4,000 choose to attend for ninth grade.
“What happens if all 300 kids below proficiency decide to go?” asked Larry Cary, president of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation. Either the schools would need to provide intensive remedial help, he said, “or you’re going to have a large number of kids who can’t hack it, through no fault of their own, and you’ve set them up for failure.”
Under the current system, applicants must ace the famously difficult Specialized High School Admissions Test. Critics say it unfairly bars exceptional students who lack years of test preparation, don’t test well or simply had a bad day during their one shot at the exam.
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The department says that under the mayor’s plan, admitted students would collectively have state test scores in seventh grade averaging 3.9 in math and English, nearly the same as the 4.1 average of students admitted this year, on a scale of 1 to 4.5.
But the individual scores underlying that assertion suggest a wider disparity. Data obtained through a public-records request show the state test scores of 4,959 students who would have received offers for this fall through the mayor’s model, and the scores of those actually admitted.
By the state’s definition, a score of 3 on state tests denotes proficiency, and scores below 3 signal students aren’t meeting expectations for their grade. For this fall’s freshman class at specialized high schools, only two students admitted failed to get an average of 3 or better in math and English, according to the city data. Under the mayor’s plan, 318 students scoring below 3 on that measure would have gotten seats.
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Bobson Wong, a math teacher at a public high school in Queens and graduate of Bronx Science, said “it would be tough to imagine” students scoring below proficiency on state tests in math succeeding at a specialized high school, where calculations become far more complex.
“However, that doesn’t mean they should automatically be excluded,” Mr. Wong said. “It is possible that kids who scored low on state tests may have other skills that would enable them to do well.”
