http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/18/education/18schools.html?ex=1313553600&en=0b40e7c591df4b47&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

NYTIMES, August 18, 2006

In Elite N.Y. Schools, a Dip in Blacks and HispanicsBy ELISSA GOOTMANMore than a decade after the city created a special institute to prepare black and Hispanic students for the mind-bendingly difficult test that determines who gets into New York’s three most elite specialized high schools, the percentage of such students has not only failed to rise, it has declined.

The drop at Stuyvesant High School, the Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School mirrors a trend recently reported at three of the City University of New York’s five most prestigious colleges, where the proportion of black students has dropped significantly in the six years since rigorous admissions policies were adopted.

The changes indicate that even as New York City has started to bridge the racial achievement gap in the earlier grades, it has not been able to make similar headway at top public high schools and colleges. Asian enrollment at all three high schools has soared over the decade, while white enrollment has declined at two of the three schools.

City education officials said they were at a loss to

explain the changes at the three high schools despite years of efforts to broaden the applicant pools.

Andres Alonso, the city’s deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, described the figures as “extraordinarily surprising,” even though they are the Department of Education’s numbers. Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott called the schools “true gems of our system,” saying, “We have to make sure they’re open to all of our students.”

Robert Jackson, the chairman of the City Council education committee, who is from Washington Heights, was more pointed in his criticism.

“The statistics clearly show that black New Yorkers are being shut out,” he said. “If we’re looking to be inclusive in the greatest city in the world, I would think that the chancellor and every educator has to ask themselves why is this, and what do we need to do to reverse that. Is it institutional racism or is it something else?”

Debate over the racial composition of the city’s specialized schools, and the schools’ reliance not on interviews or grades but rather on a test alone to determine admissions, has captivated New York for decades.

Supporters of the specialized exam, which tests verbal and math skills, say it ensures that admissions are based on merit, while critics argue that elite colleges would never judge applicants on test results alone.

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein has not challenged the testing system, but he has expanded the preparatory program, known as the Specialized High School Institute, and created dozens of new small high schools to broaden opportunity. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has also promised to create more elite high schools.

Still, during 2005-6, blacks made up 4.8 percent of the Bronx Science student body, according to city figures, down from 11.8 percent in 1994-95, when the institute was created. At Brooklyn Technical High School, the proportion of black students has declined to 14.9 percent from 37.3 percent 11 years ago, and at Stuyvesant, blacks now make up 2.2 percent of the student body, down from 4.4 percent.

Hispanic enrollment has also declined at the three schools, as has white enrollment at two of the three although it has risen at Brooklyn Tech. At the same time, the Asian population has reached as high as 60.6 percent at Bronx Science, up from 40.8 percent 11 years ago. Dr. Alonso said he could not explain the numbers without more information about how many black and Hispanic eighth graders take the specialized high school exam, and how many may favor other top city schools that are smaller or closer to home. He said he would insist that the department start collecting such information.

“My immediate question is, this is a far greater variance than the data shows in terms of our test scores, so what is going on here?” he said.

Over all, Hispanic students are the largest group in

the city’s schools at 36.7 percent, and black students are next at 34.7 percent. The 1.1 million-student system is 14.3 percent Asian and 14.2 percent white.

In the 1960’s, civil rights groups and some education officials charged that admissions tests were racially biased and that they screened out black and Puerto Rican children. The tests had strong defenders, though, and in 1971, the State Legislature passed a law requiring that entrance to the specialized schools be determined by competitive examination alone.

Now parents, educators and academics explain the racial makeup of the schools by pointing to a variety of factors, including increasing competition from an influx of immigrants, paltry guidance counseling at many middle schools with predominantly low-income students, the hiring of private tutors by the middle class and continued use of the admissions test alone.

Gary Orfield, director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, called the schools’ racial compositions “absurd,” saying, “I don’t think someone would want to hire somebody just on the basis of a test score, and we don’t admit them to a great college on the basis of a test score, and we shouldn’t admit them to a great high school on that basis.”

Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, however, said the enrollment figures showed “that we’re not yet managing to close the achievement gap and that this remains a

serious problem for our schools, for our families and for our culture.”

“But we shouldn’t be blaming the messenger,” she said. “It’s not the specialized schools’ fault for maintaining legitimately high standards.”

Angela M. Howard, who graduated from Stuyvesant in 1982 and founded the Stuyvesant High School Black Alumni Association two years ago, after noticing fewer and fewer black faces at Stuyvesant events, said she opposed changing the admissions system but was trying to start a mentoring program.

“Let’s face it — the playing field isn’t level,” she said. “People are paying tons of money to get their kids tutored to go to Stuyvesant.”

For years, exclusive public schools throughout the country have been places where advocates of strict, color-blind standards have clashed with proponents of racial diversity.

Courts imposed a race-based admissions system on the Boston Latin School, but a federal appeals court struck the system down. In the 1990’s, Chinese-American families whose children were rejected from San Francisco’s selective Lowell High School sued; the resulting settlement reversed a citywide admissions system that took race into account.

New York’s Specialized High School Institute was designed to enlarge the pool of black and Hispanic candidates eligible for admission to the selective schools by giving them extra lessons and test-taking

tips, without resorting to the kinds of preferences that had drawn lawsuits elsewhere.

Chancellor Klein has expanded the institute, which started with one location and 419 students. It has grown to 17 locations and 3,781 students, who spend 16 months preparing for the test, starting in the summer after sixth grade.

The chancellor is also trying to increase the proportion of black and Hispanic students participating in the institute, which officials said dwindled in the earlier years of the program as large numbers of white and Asian students signed on.

“The intended goal going back to 1995 was not realized,” said Jean-Claude Brizard, the Department of Education’s executive director of secondary schools. “If a kid is a nonminority, they’re supposed to be excluded, but there are a couple of places where we’ve seen quite a bit of pushback.”

In the hallowed, sunlit classrooms of Stuyvesant itself, students from Manhattan and the Bronx spent the summer sweating over scientific concepts, math formulas and new vocabulary words.

Melanie Tirado, 12, said the very act of striding through Stuyvesant’s gleaming hallways made her feel smart.

“You can be like, ‘I could be here, I could be in these desks in a year or two,’ ” she said during her lunch break one day.

For Yusrullah Abdul-MalikDunn, 12, who got an “overall excellence” medal at his sixth-grade graduation, the experience has been humbling.

Yusrullah’s teacher at Public School 108 had called him a “walking dictionary,” but in the first seven pages of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a book he read for the institute, he found 71 new vocabulary words.

“My science teacher told me we are all big fishes in our own pond, but now we’re inside a bigger pond,” he said.

Since 2002, students like Yusrullah can also pick from three new, small specialized schools: the Queens High School for the Sciences at York College; the High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College; and the High School of American Studies at Lehman College. These schools have larger proportions of black and Hispanic students, but even in their short lives, the schools’ black enrollment has declined. Hispanic enrollment has climbed at two of the three.

The Queens school opened with a student body that was 30.1 percent black and 13.6 percent Hispanic. In the most recent school year, those numbers were down to 19.7 percent and 10.1 percent, respectively.

Elite NYC Schools Must Admit More Students With Disabilities• by Kristina Chew• January 29, 2012

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/elite-nyc-schools-must-admit-more-students-with-disabilities.html#ixzz1kx9vSyTs

New York City school chancellor Dennis Walcott has ordered the city’s elite high schools to admit more students with disabilities. The city’s screened high schools admit students based on test scores, essays and interviews. In an email to principals last month, Walcott informed them that they must admit as many students with disabilities as neighboring schools, or his department will place the students for them.

According to the New York Daily News, 11 of the city’s 103 screened high schools had fewer than three students with disabilities last year. Fewer than half of the screened high schools took as many students with disabilities as non-screened neighboring schools. In many cases, students with disabilities may simply not have been informed that they could apply to screened high schools, perhaps due to unacknowledged (and incorrect) assumptions about them not being able to perform well academically. Advocates also note that schools may have been “simply shutting out” students with disabilities.

In addition, education officials are seeking ways to increase the number of students at the city’s eight specialized schools including Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science. Currently, admission to these schools is based entirely on scores on the city’s Specialized High Schools Admissions Test.

Increasing enrollments for students with disabilities at screened schools is part of the Education Department’s efforts to improve outcomes for all students. The New York Daily News quotes Walcott:

“Ensuring that incoming ninth graders with disabilities have the same access to screened high schools is just one way that we’re raising academic standards for all of our students.”

Walcott also said that the Education Department would increase supports for students with disabilities at the screened high schools. Disability advocates, while applauding Walcott’s announcement to mainstream more students by placing them in the least restricted environment, emphasized

the need for such additional supports, which could vary based on an individual student’s needs: Some students might need an in-class aide while others might need certain kinds of assistive technology, for instance.

I am hopeful that the NYC Education Department will indeed stick to its saying that it will provide adequate supports for students with disabilities at screened high schools. In addition, those schools’ communities will need to understand that such supports are not “extras” or “extra help” but accommodations that students with disabilities are entitled to under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), to help them learn in school environments that may not be set up to provide for their educational needs as defined in their Individual Education Plans.

With that said, Walcott’s insistence that students with disabilities be equally enrolled at screened high schools, and even, at some point, at all of the city’s schools, is commendable. Too often, standards are — consciously or not — lowered for students with disabilities who qualify for special education services. It goes without saying that, provided they meet the academic criteria, all students should have the right to attend the public schools they qualify for.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/elite-nyc-schools-must-admit-more-students-with-disabilities.html#ixzz1kx9l6wxy

Chancellor Wallcott orders top high schools to admit

more students with special needsTells principals to comply or Education Department would place kids

BY BEN CHAPMAN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, January 29, 2012, 6:00 AM

SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR Dennis Walcott has put the city’s elite high schools on notice to admit more students with special needs, the Daily News has learned.

In a sharply worded email sent to principals this month, Walcott told administrators to admit as many students with special needs as neighboring schools or the Education Department would place the students for them.

“We recognize that this transition is a substantial one,” wrote Walcott, adding that the department would beef up supports for disabled students to help them settle in the high-performing schools.

Last year, 11 of the city’s screened high schools had fewer than three students with special needs, a News analysis shows.

And fewer than half of the city’s 103 screened high schools took as many disabled kids as non-screened neighboring schools.

Screened high schools select students using a variety of criteria, such as test scores, essays and interviews. Advocates believe some students with disabilities may not have been encouraged even to apply or that schools were simply shutting them out.

Bryan Stromer, an “A” student with cerebral palsy who is a junior at the Lab School for Collaborative Studies in Manhattan, said the city can do better.

“Sometimes the bar is set so low, it’s like they’re saying they don’t have confidence in us,” said Stromer.

Walcott said his push to put more kids with special needs in screened high schools, such as Bard High School Early College and Beacon High School, is part of the agency’s effort to improve outcomes for all students.

“Ensuring that incoming ninth graders with disabilities have the same access to screened high schools is just one way that we’re raising academic standards for all of our students,” Walcott said.

The city’s eight specialized high schools, such as Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science, are exempt from the Chancellor’s new edict

because they admit strictly on applicants’ scores on the city’s Specialized High Schools Admissions Test.

But officials said they were looking for ways to increase the number of kids with disabilities in those schools as well, as part of an overall effort to move disabled students to the mainstream.

Advocates applaud the agency’s push to place disabled kids in elite schools, but said the city has to make sure adequate supports are in place.

“Placing more accountability on schools to ensure they admit more students with special needs is a good thing,” said Jaye Bea Smalley, co-president of the Citywide Council on Special Education. “The devil is in the details.”

With Rachel Monahan

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/chancellor-wallcott-orders-top-high-schools-admit-students-special-article-1.1013405#ixzz1kxAPQKQu\

School Ordered to Cease Race-Based Admissions

November 20, 1998|ELIZABETH MEHREN | TIMES STAFF WRITERhttp://articles.latimes.com/1998/nov/20/news/mn-45683

BOSTON — The public high school where Benjamin Franklin, John Quincy Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Leonard Bernstein all studied was ordered Thursday to dismantle its race-based admissions policy.

The ruling by a federal appeals court here held that Boston Latin School, the country's oldest public school, could no longer maintain admission standards that promote minority attendance. Founded in 1635, Boston Latin is the most prestigious of the city's three exam schools, and one of only a handful of such public schools in the country.

The court, in overturning a judge's decision, acknowledged that attaining racial balance at Boston Latin was a difficult task, and expressed admiration for the motives of the Boston School Committee, which oversees the city's educational system motives. But, said the court, "noble ends cannot justify the deployment of constitutionally impermissible means."

The case was brought on behalf of Sarah Wessmann, a Boston ninth-grader who complained that she was denied entrance to the school in favor of less-qualified minority students. School Supt. Thomas Payzant said Boston Latin would immediately implement the court's order to admit Wessmann, who is white.

But Payzant said in an interview that it would take some time to revise the entrance policy that was introduced two

years ago. With the current admission procedure deemed unconstitutional, Payzant said he was uncertain whether the school committee would launch an appeal.

Payzant staunchly defended Boston Latin's admissions procedure, in which half the 2,300 students are selected solely on entrance exams scores and grades, and admissions for the remaining half are weighted by race. Under the current policy, for instance, if 20% of the remaining applicants are African American, 20% of those admitted must be African American.

"As an educator, I am still very committed to the importance of having diverse student bodies, and I think it's a legitimate function for the public schools of America to help young people understand diversity by experiencing it, not just by vicariously talking about it," Payzant said.

Boston Latin's student body is 51% white, 19% African American, 21% Asian and 9% Latino.

The school's present admissions system was devised after a 1995 court challenge by Boston lawyer Michael C. McLaughlin on behalf of his daughter, Julia. McLaughlin, who also represented Sarah Wessmann, contended that both formulas for racial preferences amounted to quota systems. In his argument, McLaughlin cited statistics showing that both black and white city school students were underachieving.

"More attention should be paid to the schools and less attention to the race of the kids," said McLaughlin, who called Thursday's appeals court decision "a complete vindication of our position."

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011, 11:15 AMFostering Diversity in Specialized Public Schools

http://fort-greene.thelocal.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/fostering-diversity-in-specialized-public-schools/?pagemode=printBy NANCY BRUNI

Soon, 8th graders across New York City will compete for placement in New York City’s best high schools. Some of the stiffest competition will be for entrance into the city’s specialized schools, selective public high schools, established and run by the New York City Department of Education to serve the needs of academically and artistically gifted students — Stuyvesant High School is one of the most coveted.

However, Stuyvesant may feel out of reach for many minority students. Last year, only 12 African-American and 13 Hispanic students were accepted, out of a total 937 freshman slots. The stats are sad, but help is on its way.

Enter Renee Eubanks, a Prospect Heights/Clinton Hill resident, 1981 Stuyvesant graduate, successful attorney for an international law firm and a founding member of the Stuyvesant High School Black Alumni Diversity Initiative. The diversity initiative, which strives to increase the minority population at

Stuyvesant High School, will be hosting a free Specialized High School Admission Test bootcamp from Sept. 13 to Oct. 22, just in time for the admission tests on Oct. 29 and 30.

Local contributor Nancy Bruni sat down with Ms. Eubanks to discuss the SHSAT bootcamp and the challenges of high school admission for minority students.

Nancy Bruni: What is the Stuyvesant High School Black Alumni Diversity Initiative?

Renee Eubanks: The Stuyvesant High School Black Alumni Diversity Initiative consists of a group of Stuy alumni that are committed to seeing the Stuy student body become more diverse. Currently, Stuy not only lacks significant racial diversity, but the majority of Stuy students come from a relatively small number of middle schools.We would like to see more middle schools sending students to Stuy and have committed ourselves to giving students the resources, mentoring and support to make the transition to Stuy and make the most of the Stuy experience.

NB: What can you recommend to our local students in terms of preparing for the SHSAT?

RE: In order to prepare, students need to obtain as many former tests as possible and begin tackling the

questions on those tests. Students should start their study as early as possible. Beginning at least one year prior to the test date is not unreasonable. Students should develop a structured study program and remain consistent. More time should be devoted to areas that give the student difficulty, but areas where the student is strong should not be neglected. Lastly, students should practice time management skills and attempt to take a practice test at least twice immediately prior to taking the test under conditions that will most resemble the conditions that they will face on test day.

NB: How can parents help?

RE: Parents need to be active and definitive. It is important that students are disciplined in their study and parents can help to provide this discipline. Parents also need to give their children the tools to achieve by seeking out programs and information to help children master subjects that give them difficulty.  Too often parents are reluctant to direct their children into certain choices, but most Stuy students will tell you that their parents didn’t give them a lot of leeway.

NB: Over the past 18 years, I have volunteered to tutor many minority students from our neighborhood schools, the biggest problem I find is that they have not mastered their

fundamentals in lower grades, and are always playing catch up to their peers. What do you think should change in elementary and middle school education?

RE: This is a tough one. I went to a small private elementary/middle school in Brooklyn where the student body was 100 percent African-American. We were taught at a level that was higher than that of public schools from grade one and beyond and as students we were challenged to achieve. So I also come from the view that it comes down to the level of education that is provided at the elementary and middle school level.

It is not enough to learn the basics, students in our neighborhood schools have to start at a higher level and embrace those levels starting at the pre-kindergarten level. Parents have to seek out and demand public school educational programs that seek to be on par with the best private schools. Students can learn, but they need the environment and the encouragement to be successful and they need parents and educators to set the stage for the highest levels of success. Our children will follow our lead.

NB:  I am excited about the free SHSAT Bootcamp. What are the details?

RE: At this point we have five tutors on board and

we are looking to finalize the dates and the location for the bootcamp. Interested students and parents should forward an email to stuyblkalumnidiversityinitiative@yahoo.com expressing their interest in participating in the bootcamp. Please state “RSVP Bootcamp” in the subject line. Once we determine the number of participating students, we will contact those students with further details including a practice test that must be taken and returned for scoring before the bootcamp begins.

A Stuyvesant open house is also in the works, when we have the date, we will let The Local know.

Update | 12:52 p.m. – We just received word that the bootcamp will begin on Sept. 17 at 9 a.m. with students sitting for a practice test. That session will end at 12 p.m. On subsequent Saturdays, training sessions will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. All sessions will be held at Stuyvesant.

Nancy Bruni works at a non-profit organization for arts education. She is a public education advocate, volunteer and mentor, a mom of two and a resident of Clinton Hill and Fort Greene for 21 years.

October 11, 2011, New York Times

Alumni Tutoring Effort Strives to Raise Diversity at Elite Public SchoolsBy ANNA M. PHILLIPS

On a Saturday morning in August, Philip Cleary stood in a white, fluorescent-lit classroom in Washington Heights, facing a dozen sleepy seventh graders he and others are training to pass an entrance exam for the city’s seven specialized high schools.

“The inequality question,” he said. “Who was struggling with that?” He was asking about a problem on a math practice sheet, but it might as easily have been a question directed to the city’s elite public schools.

For more than a decade, the number of black and Hispanic students scoring high enough to be offered a seat at the city’s specialized high schools has been on the decline.

Last February, just 12 black and 13 Hispanic students were admitted to Stuyvesant High School,

which had 3,287 students. At Brooklyn Technical High School, which is the largest of the elites and offered seats last school year to more black and Hispanic students than any other specialized high school, the percentages are dropping. During the 2010-11 school year, black students were about 11 percent of the school’s 5,140 students, a drop from 21 percent in 2002.

Admission to those schools hinges on a single exam, given every October to thousands of eighth graders (this year’s test is on Oct. 29 and 30). Now a handful of graduates from the elite schools have started tutoring programs with a singular focus, meant to prepare low-income, minority students to pass it.

In Washington Heights, graduates of Stuyvesant High School and the Bronx High School of Science run the Science Schools Initiative, a yearlong free tutoring program held for three hours every Saturday morning. To qualify, students must show promise on a diagnostic exam and meet the city’s benchmark for poverty.

“The whole point of this thing is basically to get economically disadvantaged kids into these schools,” said Mr. Cleary, who until recently was the program’s executive director. “I’m not looking to hit

a certain number; I’m looking for some equilibrium.”

Of the 53 students in the program who took the exam in 2010, 31 were Hispanic, 12 were Asian, 7 were black and 3 were white. Although they came from schools like Mott Hall II and Junior High School 54 Booker T. Washington, where many students are high-achieving, most of them lived in poorer neighborhoods and commuted long distances to school. Of that group, nearly 45 percent received offers to one of the seven specialized high schools. Others were given scholarships to private schools.

Darren Guez and Michael Mascetti, both 27-year-old Stuyvesant graduates, founded the Science Schools Initiative in 2007 with one class of 11 students. Mr. Guez, who is a lawyer, said the idea occurred to him while he was a student. “I was always alone on the A train going uptown” from his school, Mr. Guez said. “And I thought that was very strange.” He knew at age 17 that he wanted to help more students like him pass the entrance exam, he said.

As the program grew, he gradually brought in Mr. Cleary, a graduate of Bronx Science, as well as other young graduates. From the beginning, the program’s founders were aware that the city’s Department of Education had its own preparatory

program, known as the Specialized High Schools Institute. But they were critical of its results. So, Mr. Guez recalls deciding, “I might as well make one that works.”

Another specialized high school boot camp begun this year has a similar focus. That program, the Stuyvesant High School Black Alumni Diversity Initiative, was created by Renee Eubanks, a 1981 Stuyvesant graduate who was frustrated by the school’s decreasing racial diversity. For five weeks this fall, 120 students will study for the exam at the Stuyvesant High School building.

According to Pamela Davis-Clarke, another Stuyvesant graduate who is part of the preparatory program, a majority of its students are black and Hispanic, and there is no bar for entry.

The city’s preparatory program was designed by Ramon C. Cortines and expanded under Joel I. Klein, both former schools chancellors, and was intended to generate more black and Hispanic candidates for the specialized high schools. But after a 2007 lawsuit, the city stopped giving preference to black and Hispanic students. In 2009, a majority of the students in the program were Hispanic; by last year, most were Asian. Of the 864 city-prepared students

who took the admission test last year, 41 percent received an offer from a specialized high school.

Unlike the programs run by graduates, which are highly focused on test preparation, the city’s offering is more like an enrichment program. Students study science and read novels, and while they do prepare for the exam, there is also an emphasis on preparing for more demanding class work.

For the Science Schools Initiative, getting students to pass the test is the sole objective.

Classes are quick-paced, informal and devoted to running through multiple-choice questions and reminding students how many points shy they are of a spot at a top school. The classes are small, often no more than a dozen students. Tutors know their students well enough to tell which ones benefit from cheerleading and which ones respond to admonishments.

This year, about 60 students in the Science Schools Initiative program plan to take the exam. For many of them, racial diversity is not something they want to talk about; others describe the statistics as startling.

“For me and friends, we were looking at Stuyvesant’s Web site and the population, and it was like 1 percent black,” Moyosola Oshin, a student at Mott Hall III, said. “It’s like a challenge.”

Though the initiative has relied on some financing from City Council members — mainly Robert Jackson, chairman of the Education Committee — it is now moving into new territory. J.H.S. 80 the Mosholu Parkway, a struggling school in the Bronx, has contracted with the program to run test preparation classes for sixth and seventh graders this school year. One result of the tutoring program is that its students’ scores on the state’s standardized exams have gone up, something that appeals to school administrators. If the initiative can succeed with J.H.S. 80’s students, the tutors hope to expand it to other schools.

“There are kids who can do it, but there are not that many,” Mr. Guez said. “It’s almost as if the greatest challenge for the initiative is finding those kids.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/nyregion/graduates-of-elite-new-york-city-public-schools-tutor-students-seeking-admission.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion