Elite-school selection up in air
New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said he doesn’t have “a nefarious plan” to use the coronavirus crisis to overhaul middleand high-school admission policies, but so far he has given no hint of the “tweaks” he has in mind.
Carranza was caught on tape last month telling national Latino school leaders to “never waste a good crisis to transform a system.”
Both Carranza and Mayor de Blasio have long voiced their disdain for selective “screened schools,” although their own children attended them.
Eight specialized schools such as Stuyvesant HS use a single test, the SHSAT to determine admission. But many other schools used state tests, grades and attendance to cherry-pick the best pupils.
The coming admission adjustments will first affect current fourth- and seventh-graders who will apply to selective middle and high schools for the 2021-22 academic year.
With state math and English exams canceled due to COVID-19, a softer grading policy enacted by the DOE, and the tossing of attendance as a factor, traditional screening criteria are kaput.
In the fall, if school buildings open, students will be re-acclimating at the same time some face the daunting task of researching prospective high schools, then preparing applications due Dec. 1. These applications are complex — students list up to 12 schools or programs — and rank them in order of preference.
Parents and experts are buzzing about the following possibilities:
A lottery system: Eliminate “screens” and accept students randomly, possibly with priority for the disadvantaged.
Use prior test scores: Rank by scores on the third- and sixth-grade state exams. But it’s not the fairest way to go, parents say, because kids were told that the fourth- and seventh-grade scores counted for admissions and tried harder then. Some schools, such as elite Hunter College HS, already rely on fifth-grade state exams in selecting six-graders to take an entrance exam.
Use pre-virus report cards: Grades earned from September 2019 through March 13, when Mayor de Blasio shut down classrooms, would count. Watered-down grades given during remote learning — “meeting standards” or “needs improvement” — could be ignored.
Submission of classwork: Activist mom Alina Adams says this alternative lets “students themselves pick the five pieces of work that showcases them at their very best.”
Teacher “narratives”: A written description of each student’s abilities or performance “is better than nothing, but it’s still too subjective,” said father and activist Lucas Liu.
Delay: “Just push it off,” Laura Zingmond, editor of InsideSchools.org, said of the application process. “It’s the one stress right now that no one needs.”