
New York’s Single Test for High School Defined My Life - ajiang
http://time.com/2866400/new-yorks-single-test-for-high-school-defined-my-life/
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jal278
> I worry that the proposed changes will simply create a new market for
> consultants to help affluent parents prepare their children to ace that
> competition, too. I wonder how well disadvantaged students and their parents
> would be able to navigate a complex and difficult maze of details,
> requirements and tasks.

It's interesting how standardized tests seem to birth eco-systems of 'test-
prep' designed to circumvent to some degree what the test is designed to
measure.

For example, how many of us simply memorized stacks of words to achieve higher
scores on the SAT -- did that kind of memorization somehow quickly make us
more 'prepared' for college? Of course not, it was just a way to game the
metric. And many of us joined clubs in HS and attempted to become officers not
because we really wanted to, but simply because it would look good on our
college apps.

While one could make the argument that ability and motivation to jump through
these exploitative 'hoops' is indicative of ability to achieve in college, it
is far from the original motivation of the test, and distorts high school life
in strange ways; i.e. makes participation in H.S. clubs and organizations
disingenuous, and needlessly wastes hours upon hours on vocab flash cards.

More on topic: I'm not sure what distinguished the original test that the
author took -- what made it less amenable to buying performance through
specialized classes or courses -- but that perhaps is where the interesting
research lies: In trying to create incorruptible tests, if that is even
possible; for example, perhaps if the format and material changed wildly from
year to year?

~~~
yummyfajitas
There may be an ecosystem designed to circumvent the test, but it's mostly
snake oil. Test prep generates very small improvements in scores.

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/03/the...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/03/the-
sat-test-prep-income-and-race.html)

If test prep did work, it would _reduce_ racial gaps since blacks do more test
prep than average.

~~~
kenjackson
This assumes all test prep is equal quality. Having worked in this field while
in grad school I can assure you it is not.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It does not assume this. If you read the study Tabarrok links to, you'll see
that different sorts of test prep get different outcomes.

Private tutoring (the best kind) tends to get the largest (but still small)
improvements.

~~~
kenjackson
I didn't mean different classes of prep, but different quality. You would be
surprised how much test prep gives detrimental guidance. I had to unteach a
lot of poor or dated suggestions.

And I should note I did this for free... Not party of a program or company.

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throwaway452435
I went to Stuyvesant HS and I believe this is the classic quick fix that wont
work. The nice thing about the test is that it is objective, simple to
administer, and most of all ensures that all entering students have an
educational baseline.

I agree that it's awful that there were very few minorities other than asians
while I was there (2001-2005) but introducing a process that allows for
favoritism and the introduction of underprepared hard cases will change the
nature of the school. There is a certain esprit de corps amongst the students
since you know that no matter how shitty someone is doing in a class or how
weird they are, you both passed the same hard measuring stick which encourages
a baseline respect for your peers. Introducing underprepared students means
that teachers will need to expend disproportionate resources on them or
they'll just not do well.

The real, and hard fix is that the schools around the city have to do better.
That's a hard multilayered problem, but I don't think relaxing standards or
replacing objective with subjective measures is the way to go.

For what it's worth, if you allow the school administration to o much leeway
in deciding who gets in, bad things will happen. Specialized school
administrations are just as shitty as others. It's the student body and
teachers that make these places rock. Keeping the test objective will prevent
the grubby hands of politically motivated ambitious administrators from
screwing things up.

~~~
cm2012
"Specialized school administrations are just as shitty as others. It's the
student body and teachers that make these places rock."

This times 1000. The administration at Bronx Science was comically inept and
somewhat corrupt, at least when I was there. A painted turtle would have
gotten the same results, given the student filter they are gifted.

~~~
company
That's cute.. Brooklyn Tech.. well our principal was legendary... (not in a
good way)

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whiddershins
Since many people reading this aren't familiar with the NYC public school
system, I think it is important to emphasize NYC has many, many, opportunities
for students to get specialized education at the high school level that is not
dependent on standardized tests. When i was in High School there was The Urban
Academy, the School for the Arts, City as School, and many high schools had
"magnet" programs that students could apply to and if accepted, they would
attend a school that was "better" than their local (zoned) school on a
academic track with a particular emphasis (journalism, science, etc.) This
system was byzantine, and made going to high school much like applying to
college, but there was no lack of options. Since that time many more
alternatives have been introduced, not only charter schools but many other
schools based on particular theories and approaches to education. The only
schools predicated on a single standardized test are the ones referenced in
the article, and i think it is great there are schools with objective criteria
for admission.

I attended Stuyvesant in the 90s, and the student body wasn't very diverse.
However, changing from a single objective test to an array of subjective
criteria does nothing to alleviate the root problem, that some kids are
getting better primary education than others. All such an initiative can do is
weaken those schools and make them more like every other school in the city.

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WalterBright
Any admissions criteria will be inherently flawed. I share the author's
concern that more fixes will be worse than the flaws.

So, ironically, I propose my own 'fixes'. Leave the admissions test as is, but
reserve 10% of the student body to be admitted by random lottery.

~~~
wan23
That could work, though it should probably be random lottery among people who
are in some way determined to be students capable of handling the work.

~~~
WalterBright
Again, that's back to having a flawed admissions test.

The criteria should simply be those who apply.

~~~
wan23
That defeats the purpose entirely. There are plenty of schools that take
anyone who applies. These specialized schools only take kids who are capable
of handling a more advanced workload. And on top of that, the average NYC
public school student is in a pretty bad place in the eighth grade. A quarter
of them won't make it to graduation no matter what school they attend.

------
narrator
>They want to introduce a broader range of criteria into the admission
process, with the hope of addressing what is a current, and striking, lack of
diversity at elite schools where the numbers of lower-income, Latino, and
African-American students have sunk to disproportionally low levels. In
addition to the current test, admissions officers would possibly consider
things such as grade point averages, attendance, interviews, community service
and extracurricular activities.

So.... I have one question, is the test racist, and if so how? If it's not
racist, you might want to focus attention on improving performance of the
primary schools that less represented minorities are enrolled in instead of
just lowering the bar for them such that they fail when presented with
challenging course work or hold other students back by slowing down the rest
of the class because their previous schooling left them unprepared for that
work.

~~~
crassus
It's racist in the same ways that SAT, IQ, and PISA tests are racist - Asians
and whites do better than other groups.

~~~
xenadu02
As a reasonably successful white male, let me explain:

It is quite obvious, if you bother to look, that the majority of black and
hispanic students do not have as much access as us whites. They are more often
from single-parent households or households where both parents work multiple
jobs. They live in worse neighborhoods (because they can't afford anything
else), and their older social peers are of worse character. Because of where
they live, they attend worse schools. They may not have a computer or internet
access at home.

The abject failure you see at the high-school level has its ground-work laid
way, way back in elementary school, both in-school and at home. It takes a
whole system to grind kids down and eliminate creativity, inquisitiveness,
confidence, and a desire to succeed. Sure, some people will just meander
through life and there's nothing you can do about them, but in my experience
the majority of young kids have at least some area they show promise in and
some level of curiosity. __By the time they reach junior high-school, a
greater percentage of black and hispanic kids have been put through the meat
grinder and ruined. Further, since far more of their social peers are a result
of the same failures, they spread an attitude of despair and pessimism about
school and the potential for a better life. Just think back at the stupid crap
you did when you were young as a result of peer pressure, now imagine everyone
is peer-pressuring you to quit school because it 's a waste of time.

This negative feedback loop continues to recycle people back into the same old
situations and set them up for failure. Sure, some will overcome that and
succeed, but it takes far more effort than it took for someone like me to
succeed. Now we are just talking averages here, any individual case may be
different. Chris Rock's kids live a life of luxury much greater than the vast
majority of white children in the US, but that doesn't prove or disprove
anything about the overall picture.

 __Similarly, I see people claiming that "some people are just going to be
homeless", when actual experience shows that if you give homeless people an
apartment free of charge first, then work with them to find a job, etc a far,
far greater percentage of them do not go back to being homeless and end up as
reasonable employed people who pay their own bills and are productive members
of society. But that doesn't fit the story we like to tell ourselves that
people "get what they deserve", so if they are homeless they must deserve it.
Or the narrative that "some people are just losers/lazy/-insert adjective
here- and there's nothing you can do about it."

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
Blacks from wealthy families in wealthy school districts exhibit the exact
same test gap. Whatever the cause of "the gap" it isn't the schools or access
to opportunity. We really need to stop wasting literally billions of dollars
pretending otherwise.

~~~
crassus
Yep! I think you are referring to the SAT data. Fortunately, we have data to
test our beliefs: [http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/03/2008-sat-scores-by-
race-b...](http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/03/2008-sat-scores-by-race-by-
income.html?m=1)

------
mathattack
Studies don't bear out the idea that one test for a G&T program defines
someone's success. One study that compares folks on the margin (those who just
got in versus those who just missed) suggests that the programs don't matter
as much as we think.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/do-
gift...](http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/do-gifted-
programs-improve-learning/282532/)

That said, I'm a New Yorker who doesn't want to send my kids to the school
down the street where 85% of the kids fail the state exams. (The DOE's
response is "Perhaps the tests aren't capturing the learning that's happening
there.")

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nickbauman
I was a terrible student before college. But I developed a great love of
learning through my journalist father and bilingual mother and a few anti
establishment teachers. I'm not sure this would have worked today, as it seems
students are even more considered fungible commodities than ever before. So
perhaps the critical component missing is the behavior of his mentor, who
recognized the boy in the first place as a human being worthy of enough
encouragement. Because we exploit what we merely conclude to be of value. But
we defend and nurture what we love. Policy alone cannot fix this.

~~~
MaysonL
_of_ his _mentor, who recognized the_ boy

Jean Kwok is the author of two novels, Girl in Translation, and Mambo in
Chinatown, out June 24. _She_ was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Brooklyn
as a young _girl_.

~~~
nickbauman
Oops. Thanks for correcting me. I assumed an overwhelming male audience and
authorship that is typical of HN. Utterly my fault.

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EGreg
Once again we see how sad it is that things are so centralized. One test. An
interview system. To get into a few good schools where there are great
teachers and opportunities. Meanwhile, we could be flipping the classroom and
delivering great lectures to everyone, keeping school for actual remedial
tutoring and socializing. But that is too radical of a change because school
is used as a daycare center while both parents work.

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ASneakyFox
Its all a scam any way. Has any one ever attributed success in their life to
their great schooling?

~~~
ath0
I know I'm being trolled, but sure, I'll jump in.

My high school held me to high standards and introduced me to broad influences
- beyond technology - that help me see problems in a new light. Technically, I
had access to a modern computer lab that let me try new things; when I found
security holes, I didn't get kicked out but was tasked with fixing them.

In undergrad, I took a program that taught every new computer science class in
a different language - without teaching you the language; assuming you'd have
to pick it up in order to learn the underlying concepts. That kept me on my
toes, helped remind me that I wasn't an expert in everything, and made me much
more agile in keeping up with the languages and technology that have come out
since undergrad. (I graduated in 2001... so almost none of the languages I do
my daily work in existed then.)

In grad school, I expected to go in to study security but was exposed to
infovis by joining a program known for it -- meaning I got to interact with
people who knew the field forward and backward, giving me skills quickly,
something to strive for, and a peek into the future of the field. This took my
career in a different, and, I think, more exciting direction.

So what great schooling enough? Of course not. I worked my tail off, took a
variety of good and less good jobs, and tended to relationships outside of
school that helped me find other ways to learn and to do. And we'll never know
the counterfactual. But I can point to a bunch of specific ways where good
schooling put me on a successful path, and I'm honestly surprised that the
sentiment here is so negative.

