This upcoming school year is different from all others, because of the Corona virus. In any other year, parents in NYC would be fighting with each other over the apparent disparity existing at the specialized high schools.
- The Bronx High School of Science
- The Brooklyn Latin School
- Brooklyn Technical High School
- High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College of New York
- High School of American Studies at Lehman College
- Queens High School for the Sciences at York College
- Staten Island Technical High School
- Stuyvesant High School
The only way to gain entrance to these high schools is via the SHSAT, the 3 hour test comprising of 100+ multiple choice questions. It doesn’t care about your gender. It doesn’t care about your race. It only cares about your score. It’s color blind. It is the ultimate fair benchmark to get into these specialized high schools.
NYC’s school system is about 70% Black and Hispanic. Yet for 2020, only 11% of the students granted admission into the specialized high schools were Black and Hispanic. Asians, though they comprise of 14% of the city’s population, received about half of all the admissions.
Admission rate hasn’t changed much in the past year.
At Stuyvesant, there were 766 total admissions. 10 were to Black students, up from 7 in 2019. 20 were to Hispanic students, down from 33 in 2019.
At Bronx Science, 24 Black students gained admission, up from 12 in 2019. 46 Hispanic students gained admission, about the same as 2019.
Wow.
Those are awful numbers.
Why such a drastic disparity?
Some say it’s poverty, that Black and Hispanic students from poor neighborhoods just don’t have a chance when taking this test.
And yet, Asian Americans have the highest poverty rate in New York City…
Well, I guess it can’t be that.
Richard Carranza, NYC School Chancellor, who personally hates Asians, who created a work environment mocking Asians, thinks that Asians are the problem.
In a New York Times article from March 3, 2020, said this of Asians after announcing his intention to get rid of the SHSAT back in 2018:
Mr. Carranza’s striking defense of the plan that summer — “I just don’t buy into the narrative that any one ethnic group owns admission to these schools.”
This “galvanized Asian-American parents to oppose the plan and the chancellor himself.”
This got Asian-American parents out in droves. Feeling that they’re always overlooked in racial justice issues, they protested. Feeling constantly marginalized as the ”model minority”, they marched. Why are Asians, the ones who study so damn hard, being punished for their efforts? Why do poor Asian families, some who earn as little as $25k a year and yet still spend $5k on SHSAT prep courses, the ones who have to pay more? I thought this was a country where success is based on merit. Those who work hard will prevail. But the chancellor, and to a lesser degree, the mayor, want to punish Asians for all their hard work.
Black and Hispanic parents and legislators are fighting for their children, and rightly so. Their children are absolutely being screwed. Those admission numbers listed above are horrid. They believe that the SHSAT is the problem. They believe that a color blind test is the issue.
They’re directing their anger at the wrong thing.
The SHSAT is not the cause of the disparity. It’s the canary in the coal mine. It’s highlighting the disparity in resources BEFORE taking the SHSAT.
Here’s the proficiency rate for math and reading for NYC students, from 2013-2017:
(Please note that I do not agree with everything that author wrote in that last linked article. There’s a lot of data thrown at you in there and it requires a deep dive into it to fully understand. I’m only taking out the proficiency rates from the article. The author states somewhere that Black and Hispanic students only do homework for an hour a day, as opposed to Asian students who do homework for twice as long. This implication that Black and Hispanic students don’t work as hard is TERRIBLE and WRONG. I have no doubt that Black and Hispanic students work JUST AS HARD as their Asian counterparts. All children of all races want to succeed and will do anything to achieve their goals. The stereotype that some kids are lazier as a race, needs to be abolished. The children and their passion and work ethic are equal. It’s the playing field that is not equal.)
Look at that. Black and Hispanic students are proficient in math and reading below 30%.
How in the Hell do you expect these children to do well on the entrance exam into the specialized high schools, if 70% of them struggle with math and reading proficiency??? It is obvious that the Black and Hispanic students coming from poor neighborhoods, are being denied the same resources as others. They are being screwed over in elementary and middle school. The playing field is not level for them.
For comparison purposes, and to show more recent data than 2017, here’s the 2019 proficiency rate for math and reading for all of New York State
Children are supposed to be taught and nurtured every step of the way towards adulthood. And yet, NYC has neglected and failed the Black and Hispanic communities. You can see it in the above charts. When 70% of the students are not proficient in math and reading, that’s on the chancellor, the system, and the mayor.
Don’t just take my word for it. Take the word of Amir Davis. Amir Davis is an African-American student from Queens. He’s a 2020 Brooklyn Tech graduate who will be attending Stanford University in the fall. He saw the disparity and decided to do something about it:
Perhaps most significantly, my father and I founded a tutoring program designed to prepare underserved middle school students for the SHSAT in my home neighborhood of Southeast Queens. It was during this program where I saw so clearly that students simply weren’t receiving adequate tools to succeed from the New York City public school system. Throughout the course of this tutoring program, I have had the opportunity to interact with dozens of students. Ultimately, I have been impressed with their enthusiasm and engagement, yet frustrated by the students’ inadequate preparation — many did not have simple multiplication and division skills.
It upsets me that all of these students have ample potential, but they don’t stand a chance during the specialized high school admissions test due to the lack of strength in curriculum and pedagogy at their elementary and middle schools. It became quite apparent to me that the mayor and other anti-SHSAT officials have used the test as a scapegoat for the lack of diversity in the specialized high school system, rather than aiming to reform the weak learning environments, standards, and curriculum in the city’s public elementary and middle schools.
There it is. Many students did not have simple multiplication and division skills. And you expect them to do well on the SHSAT???
The system, led by the chancellor and the mayor, have failed Black and Hispanic students in elementary and middle school. The chancellor hates Asians and wants to blame them for his failings. The mayor doesn’t care about Asian people. They failed to provide those bright young minds with adequate resource, and instead have decided to blame Asian success in test taking for all the shortcomings of the education system they run.
Black and Hispanic students’ desire to succeed is exactly the same as that of Asian students. They yearn to improve and to be taught. But if you’re not going to give these students the same books, the same learning materials, the same safe schools, the same curriculum, etc, then the disparity in admission rates for specialized high schools we see today, is what you’re going to get.
Kudos to Mr. Davis and his father. They saw a massive disparity. Rather than just complain about it to the nearest reporter, they founded their own tutoring program to try to help other students. They tried to level the playing field. They became part of the solution, rather than just complain. He went about to be the change he wanted to see in the world.
If you leveled the playing field and gave all students the same resources, then you can let the best and brightest students of all races, rise to the top. It would be fair to all students and families.
Keep the SHSAT.
Fire Carranza.
Get rid of Mayor DeBlasio.
Pour more resources into under served neighborhoods.
Level the playing field.
Let’s see who comes out on top when all things are equal.
mruvula 