As a student that has experienced both the New York City Public School system as well as the standardized examination to be admitted to a specialized high school, I felt very attached to the subject of elite school admissions. In his article “Paths to Legislation or Litigation for Educational Privilege: New York and San Francisco Compared” Floyd M. Hammack gives a comparison of the history of admissions at exclusive public high schools. Hammock states that “all educational credentials have not been created equal, nor do all citizens have equal access to educational opportunities. Race, gender, ethnicity, social class, and other background factors remain important in the process of attaining educational credentials” (372). The crux of this statement has been a reoccurring theme in our class discussion. Historically, at elite and better funded institutions have always been able to exclude students of a certain social class and race. Intentional or not, these numbers can speak for themselves when considering the demographics of admitted students. Despite the undeniable truth behind these numbers and statistics, I can’t help but dispute the generalization this idea creates on the students that are admitted to elite institutions. There are just too many individual stories to allow a blanket statement to be continually used when referring to student segregation and exclusion. When it came to the SHSAT for admissions, it has become a matter of learning to take a test rather than using prior academic merit as a criteria for admissions. However, I do believe this process is as unbiased as admissions can get from my understanding of school policy.
One example, is that through this test, a student regardless of their grade can still be admitted thanks to the score they receive. Unlike other schools that may take GPA and other academic factors into account, a student that is near failing can get admitted so long as they score above the cutoff for a desired high school. I knew a student in my middle school that did poorly in school but put everything into the SHSAT and was able to attend a specialized high school despite his middle school grades. I also know another student that was economically disadvantaged and used to study from SHSAT workbooks while helping at his family’s restaurant after school. I don’t deny the results of the specialized high school admissions is lopsided, but I do believe that the problem lies not on the SHSAT admissions test itself. Rather, students should be exposed more to what these high schools can offer them. I believe that when a student knows what is being offered, the desire to attend alone, should be enough to earn them a spot in the school.
One thing that changed my idea on school policy was the concept of “White Values” and “Black Values”. Prior to this reading I was not aware that these concepts were an actual cause for concern in schools nor did I know the teacher employment were based on this as well. White values were essentially the idea of teaching students in a way that promoted competition and individual success. Many educators and teachers in New York City felt the pressure of using this ideology to prepare students for the “white world”. “Black Values” on the other hand was more community focused and promoted cooperation and cultural legitimacy of the black poor. I think it was very interesting to read that teachers were removed and replaced based on these set of values. Again, this is another passage that portrays the complexity of school policy and the struggle in making more representative schools.
I also went to a specialized high school and the entire time I was there I heard debates over whether the test was fair or not. I used to think that testing was the fairest admissions method because everyone takes the same test, but now I realize that it isn’t fair because not everyone is given the same opportunities to take the test. The quote you pulled from the Hammock reading explains this idea.
Cleary specialized high schools have a diversity problem. I don’t think San Francisco’s focus on racial percentages or New York’s refusal to acknowledge them are the ways to alleviate this. We’ve already read so many takes on why testing isn’t fair, and now we should consider other solutions.
I don’t think it is fair that students with more access to test prep and other learning opportunities are competing on the same exact scale as students without access. I know if I couldn’t afford SHSAT prep I would not have been able to do as well on the test or at least I would have had to put in much more time to get the same score I did. A test score does not reflect the amount of effort a student put in to achieving that score, and this is where admissions processes get tricky.
I disagree with you about that a student’s desire would be enough to help them pass the tests because some students truly don’t have the access to pass the test but have the potential to do very well in a specialized high school. Ideally, an admissions process would be able to measure the potential of a student to have a suitable learning experience at the high school. Ways of measuring student ability and “desire to attend” could include teacher recommendations and personal essays from potential students.
You raised some interesting points about how complex specialized high school admissions are. I still think the test is still a solid way to measure academic achievement. Like you said, it can help measure the “desire to attend” because a lot of preparation goes into tests. Also, keeping a test would be more appealing to those who still support the current admissions systems at specialized high schools. I don’t think the test should be the entire application though.
As a fellow specialized high school alum, I can agree with the points made by Derek and Christina. Derek – you bring up the quote from the Hammock reading and it makes me think of the reason why specialized high schools along with their exams were created. They were not made for everyone, which is not equal or even fair and yes, they do have great opportunities, but they are not supposed to be for everyone. They were created for exceptional students who desire a rigorous curriculum and I believe that they were meant for the students who perform well in middle school as well. I remember when I was preparing for the SHSAT, I thought it was horrible that a single test score could completely wipe out what I had worked for, for the past three years and I thought that was not fair. To me, this was discouraging – why is my admittance into a school based solely on a test score? This is where I agree with Christina – there should be multiple aspects to the acceptance of students into a specialized high school instead of an exam score that is not reflective of what students have learned in middle school.
The Hammock reading did not change my view of these types of schools. The article mentions affirmative action and schools basing their admittance system off of race. In class, we discuss the uneven representation of races in New York City schools and how to create policies to adjust this and make it more even. When we see colleges today accepting and not accepting students based on their race, that is not fair to someone who worked hard for it to not gain acceptance due to his/her background. In addition, the specialized high schools exams are not fair either because of the way the exam is set up and the preparation required for it. All of these factors lead me to the question that I brought up in class, which is what is the ideal system? In what world would the education system be fair? Is there an existing school system today that is ideal and fair? Is having a fair school system/admittance policies even realistic or possible?
You are all asking great questions. It is easy to criticize today’s (and historic) results, but much harder to identify a solution. As I mentioned in class last week, identifying our goals is a good place to start. Another is to ask what purpose the existing system achieves. It admits students based on a universal test, and in that sense it can eschew accusations of bias. Yet what does the test measure? And how does what it measures relate to participation and achievement in the specialized high schools? These might be good questions to think about.
Derek, I appreciate your comments here about Hammack’s notion (drawn from the work of others) of “White” and “Black” values. Do you agree with his characterization? Or did you find it reductive? Or both?