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I don't know the exact details of the NY State law about this, but I don't believe it requires schools other than Stuy, Bx Sci and Brooklyn Tech to use the exam. If more specialized schools are established, they should be able to establish their own admissions criteria without repealing any state laws.
I don't know the exact details of the NY State law about this, but I don't believe it requires schools other than Stuy, Bx Sci and Brooklyn Tech to use the exam. If more specialized schools are established, they should be able to establish their own admissions criteria without repealing any state laws.
Not necessarily. Think of the SHSAT in medical terms: It produces very few false positives, but a LOT of false negatives. That is, of the kids who get admitted to the elite eight, almost all will do well (though there are always some who don't, or who do and are miserable for four years). But there are also lots of kids who don't make the cutoff and would ALSO do well. I think most parents and educators will admit to that.
How we help those kids--and there are a great many black and Hispanic teenagers in that cohort--is the point. And no one is suggesting "lowering the bar" to do so. In the best outcome, those kids would all be admitted to the best selective high schools around the city, many of which (Beacon, Bard, Baccalaureate School, NEST-M, Townsend Harris, et al) have reputations among college admissions people as good as or better than the specialized high schools. This does happen in some cases. But not nearly enough IMO. (But that's for another thread sometimes).
Ultimately, using a more holistic measure of admissions, which is what every other public selective high school in the US except New York City does,, would go a long way toward eliminating racial disparities at these schools. Every specialized high school in the U.S. rerquires some sort of standardized test. But they also consider things like teacher recommendations, or grades, or socio-economic circumstances, or special talents, or unusual life experiences or some combination of all of those. In some cases the principal is even given discretion to pick a handful of students he/she thinks will be successful regardless of their showing on the other metrics.
Would that ramp up the anxiety of applying to the specialized high schools? Yep. But the angst of getting into Stuyvesant or Bronx Science is already high anyway. Would fewer Asian students gain admissions? Probably. And would you end up with an intellectually more rounded student body? I'd say yes you would. And it would be worth it.
New York State is woefully behind the times in basing admittance to so many of its top NYC schools on one test given on one day. Nobody else in the country does it like that. And if it weren't for racial hysteria we wouldn't be doing it either. But there you go. It's about time we learned from the rest of the country and change this narrow, stupid system.
If they considered socio-economic circumstances, and unusual life experiences I think it would have been 99% Asian in the 80s and early 90s with their superior grades, poor background, non-english speaking parents...
So you're implying that Asians can't be well rounded as well. Great I'm sure that was what white coaches thought about black basketball players back then. I see it's going to be an uphill battle for Asians to get their fair shake for the foreseeable future when objective subjects like math and science can become subjective. 1+1=2 unless you're Asian since people need to like the way you look and talk and feel that you deserve what you earn. If its a quota that you're looking for just say it don't try to come up with stereotypes of what Asians aren't good at with no academic value particularly as it relates to math and science as new entrance criterias. If we're going that route let's have min SAT scores for professional sports because I can list lots of reasons why having academically accomplished athletes is good for society especially for the minorities that you're so concerned about versus having less smarter kids competing in STEM fields with the rest of the world.
Last edited by bumblebyz; 03-07-2016 at 09:37 PM..
It is even more complicated than that. There are compelling studies that children of lower-income families are exposed to far fewer vocabulary words, and fewer complex grammatical constructions, than higher-income children and that this impacts brain development from early childhood. Along with diet and related things; how much sleep a child is permitted. Many of the lower-income people around here have their children up and out on the streets at all hours. You will see them in the movie theater very late at night.
How well someone does in life has quite little to do with "connections," as at least one ridiculous litigant tried to argue in order to receive compensation for his own failure. It has everything to do with these foundations which, apparently, lower-income people are far less likely to provide. There are always exceptions, but we should try to reach those people who do not seem to "get" it. Or won't, even for the sake of their children.
Have posted pictures from what many areas that are housing projects today were back in the day, and they can be described in two words; slums and tenements. One of the best things NYC did was bulldoze down those vermin infested buildings and build new.
As for Mr. Cosby and his message the man was spot on; success begets success at least where academics are concerned. Again poor Asian and Indian kids go to the same public schools as other minorities and somehow they manage to out perform blacks and Latinos.
Stop blaming other persons and or looking for an out. That is much of the problem today with AAs, everything is someone else's fault. This despite laws that for the past fifty years have pretty much handed them things on a platter. Standards have been lowered, quotas established, various groups forced to accept on paper at lest lower qualified applicants "because"; and yet somehow that still isn't enough.
The City rolled out the red carpet and went to bat for AA and other minorities to get them the "assistance" needed to ace specialized high school entrance exams, and we can see what that has gotten. Will say it again what people are after is what always happens in these situations; lowering of the bar.
Cosby was a fraud and a rapist. Over 50 women have ACCUSED him. Good bye and good riddance.
Would you leave him alone with your female relatives?
First of all I've attended two Ivy League universities, so my education has gone FAR beyond your own.
With that said, I got very little financial AID and I paid for grad school out of POCKET/in CASH.
You don't have poor people at top graduate schools, regardless of RACE because it's extremely expensive to attend unless one gets a teaching fellowship or a research fellowship.
Back to what I said, nothing Cosby says is going to get those poor people out of housing projects ANY TIME SOON.
As for Chinese, they didn't move up just because some kids got As in school. You had major economic development in China itself, and they invested that money in businesses and places in Flushing, where you now have major developers, financiers, and the like.
You yourself even do Asians a huge disservice. Your typical poor Asian from a neighborhood like Elmhurst, Queens isn't going to a top school. Chances are even with a high GPA and high test score, they'll be rejected. And it's not because these top schools love African Americans so much (there are few African Americans at top schools). It's because these schools love MONEY so much.
Now if one's Asian parents are multimillionaires or BILLIONAIRES and one writes a few checks, one's chances of getting into a top university improve DRAMATICALLY. I've known many wealthy Asians at the Ivy League who are foreign nationals and who are paying in CASH. Or for that matter if your parents are wealthy Asian American businessmen from Flushing (or even Elmhurst) yes, the kids will get into top schools and do well.
The poor ones will go to CUNY, and even a 4.0 GPA will not enable them to go to top professional schools or grad schools for free (unless it's a fellowship for certain phds). I know as someone who attended two top schools. We don't get Asian kids with Chinese restaurant workers (or other low wage workers) as students.
So even among ASIANS, of COURSE money matters.
As far as Black people go, I maybe met ONE person who came from an extremely poor neighborhood in Newark, got full financial aid and graduated from Columbia undergrad. The vast majority of Black people I met at the Ivy League came from middle class to wealthy backgrounds (it's expensive to attend a top school and by far more wealthy students will be accepted undergraduate than those poor enough to receive full financial aid).
If they considered socio-economic circumstances, and unusual life experiences I think it would have been 99% Asian in the 80s and early 90s with their superior grades, poor background, non-english speaking parents...
So you're implying that Asians can't be well rounded as well. Great I'm sure that was what white coaches thought about black basketball players back then. I see it's going to be an uphill battle for Asians to get their fair shake for the foreseeable future when objective subjects like math and science can become subjective. 1+1=2 unless you're Asian since people need to like the way you look and talk and feel that you deserve what you earn. If its a quota that you're looking for just say it don't try to come up with stereotypes of what Asians aren't good at with no academic value particularly as it relates to math and science as new entrance criterias. If we're going that route let's have min SAT scores for professional sports because I can list lots of reasons why having academically accomplished athletes is good for society especially for the minorities that you're so concerned about versus having less smarter kids competing in STEM fields with the rest of the world.
Any Asian with the ability to write checks has a fairly good chance of getting their kid into a top school. The same is true of people of other races. Cash makes someone very well rounded.
Rich kids on their applications will have all sorts of rich kid supports and activities, study abroad, and interest that indicate resources.
Any Asian with the ability to write checks has a fairly good chance of getting their kid into a top school. The same is true of people of other races. Cash makes someone very well rounded.
Rich kids on their applications will have all sorts of rich kid supports and activities, study abroad, and interest that indicate resources.
This will be true for most things in life outside of academics. And that's also an incentive for anyone poor to work hard so that one day you'd be in that same position.
If you're well off chances are you have connections which goes a long way for your kids. It's pretty common to hear people calling up their friends and acquaintances to ask for favors for their kids. I've seen my share of kids with internships that never would have made it through the interview rounds.
I know a family where both parents are making good money and could have hired the best tutor for their daughter for SHSAT, she chose to study on her own using books purchased on Amazon, and she made it into Brooklyn Tech. Asians and Jews, especially, the Jews from the former Soviet Union have known for a long time that a way to escape poverty is through education and they have made it their priority, so seriously, I would appreciate everyone stop being politically correct. My father lost his Dad in WWII, he was 5 years old, and his brother was 12 at the time, the Mom never remarried and she raised the boys herself by working non-stop-did they become drug dealers or criminals? No-my uncle became a foreign language teacher, fluent in both English and German (with Russian being the native), and my father became chief engineer at a large manufacturing company. Was it easy for them both being Jews? Hell no-there was no affirmative action, quite the opposite, they both faced immense discrimination when applying to universities, my father was flunked twice on purpose, and this is the guy who has amazing skills in anything that has to do with math/science/technology, there is literally nothing that he cannot master, and after receiving his master's degree, he could not get a job so he worked in a shoe factory cutting leather, until a kind Ukrainian neighbor asked my Mom "Your husband is such a bright guy, what does he do for living" and was appalled when he learned the truth, he was the one who helped my brother get an entry-level job, and although the top leadership was very anti-Semitic, they could not do sh... without my Dad so they had no choice. When we came to this country, we lost everything, I had to wear hand me down clothes, buy underwear at 99 cents store, and work minimum wage jobs to put myself through NYU Stern.
As for Chinese, they didn't move up just because some kids got As in school. You had major economic development in China itself, and they invested that money in businesses and places in Flushing, where you now have major developers, financiers, and the like.
You yourself even do Asians a huge disservice. Your typical poor Asian from a neighborhood like Elmhurst, Queens isn't going to a top school. Chances are even with a high GPA and high test score, they'll be rejected. And it's not because these top schools love African Americans so much (there are few African Americans at top schools). It's because these schools love MONEY so much.
Now if one's Asian parents are multimillionaires or BILLIONAIRES and one writes a few checks, one's chances of getting into a top university improve DRAMATICALLY. I've known many wealthy Asians at the Ivy League who are foreign nationals and who are paying in CASH. Or for that matter if your parents are wealthy Asian American businessmen from Flushing (or even Elmhurst) yes, the kids will get into top schools and do well.
The poor ones will go to CUNY, and even a 4.0 GPA will not enable them to go to top professional schools or grad schools for free (unless it's a fellowship for certain phds). I know as someone who attended two top schools. We don't get Asian kids with Chinese restaurant workers (or other low wage workers) as students.
So even among ASIANS, of COURSE money matters.
As far as Black people go, I maybe met ONE person who came from an extremely poor neighborhood in Newark, got full financial aid and graduated from Columbia undergrad. The vast majority of Black people I met at the Ivy League came from middle class to wealthy backgrounds (it's expensive to attend a top school and by far more wealthy students will be accepted undergraduate than those poor enough to receive full financial aid).
Capitalism at its best. We should re-exam the tax free policy for the ultra rich universities.
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