What do you do when tests results don’t provide the desired ethnic results?
From the link:
But backers of the existing format — especially those representing Asian city groups — blasted Ross-Porter’s characterization.
“What is unacceptable is the targeting of one particular group,” said activist Wai Wah Chin. “Especially with what we see happening on the streets of this city. What is unacceptable is telling Asians that they don’t belong in these schools despite their hard work.”
Heh. I went to one of those “Specialized Science High Schools” in NY.
It’s not about race, it’s about class. it’s about who can pay for the prep classes.
I taught one of those prep classes, for a little while - to an entirely Han class of 50 people.
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In the high school I taught at, which was predominantly white, the AP science classes were overly represented by Asian and Indian students.
One of the major reasons I relocated from the east coast is when I asked the local school about gifted programs, they sneered and said, “all of our students are gifted”.
Really, how many fist graders do you have reading at ninth grade level? My first born, now a fourth year med student. They made her “partner” with the worst student in class. Horrible little boy, rude, sexist and racist. That was their idea of reward for little gifted white girls. Didn’t keep them from trotting her out as an example of their excellence in teaching though, put her on a reading to other students circuit.
Thank God for the midwest.
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That sounds like more of an issue with your local school district, rather than the east coast as a whole.
After all, the “Gifted” schools in the OP are on the east coast, too. And they’re very good schools, from my personal experience.
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So you have totally missed the backlash against gifted programs? Where ya been?
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Of course I’ve the seen the “backlash” - all overblown nonsense.
My uncle teaches at the same school I went to. They’re still going strong - in fact, when I was a student, there were only 3 “SSHS” schools in NYC. Today, there are 8 or 9.
Doesn’t change what my particular local school told me and did.
As I already said, sounds like a local problem.
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Dumb us down and “we” will all be the wiser for it…amirite? 
Local but hardly unique.
I too went to one of the three specialized high schools in NYC. (At least back when it was three.). There was a single test used for admission but a different cut off, depending on the class size of the school.
Nobody I knew took a prep class for the test. I don’t think there were any prep classes back then.
There was however a program in place to admit some number of local community students. Most of those didn’t last into the 10th grade.
The answer is to improve education in the lower grades, not to expect unprepared students to suddenly be ready for a demanding school. Or, the alternative, water down the curriculum to the point where the “specialized” is no different than any other school.
As someone who worked in education I can tell you that the problem lies in this liberal idealistic view that all students are equal and can all achieve the same level of academic success with “good teaching” techniques and of course ■■■■ loads of money. It’s this ■■■■■■■■ idea that all students can be well rounded scholars and can be anything they want no matter what their actual natural academic ability and interests.
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I think this also has to do with having parents who place high value on things like AP classes.
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In all my years in education, which included knowing many other educators who taught in inner city schools, the fact is that black and Latino students by and large had little to no interests in science.
Maybe the emphasis on STEM in elementary schools will help to change that.
And I think the NYC Schools chancellor is right in trying to change the admissions procedures for the selective high schools for the reasons stated in some of the above posts.
I went to a gifted program for JH and most of HS. For all of JH, I was in class with only six students, and we were free to pursue our own course study, as long as we tested out of the State requirements.
The problem isn’t ‘gifted’ programs. The problem is a hundred years of Prussianizing everyone else.
Now, I have an IRS accountant and a circuit board designer as parents, and there was no subject (sport, or skill) I was allowed to shirk, to the point of abuse, and most of the other ‘gifted’ kids came from similar situations: professional parents with disproportionate ambition for their children.
That is generally what occurs in Han, Korean or Gujarati households, for better or worse.
They don’t need a leg up, or gatekeepers. The rest of the children need the Prussian boot off.
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I’d like to add that not all kids shine in elementary school- but some go on to do very well in HS when they are allowed more freedom to choose according to their strengths and interests.
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Education is particularly important to immigrant families trying to make it in America. Possibly more so for some than for others.
In the 1950s and 1960s first generation Jewish kids were considered the smartest students. Today it’s first generation Asian kids.
By the time their second generation kids are Americanized and attending school it will probably have changed.
