Blasio: Tests shouldn’t be only way kids get into NYC elite schools (War on Asians)

NY Daily News ^ | 06/22/2014 | RACHEL MONAHAN , BEN CHAPMAN , JENNIFER FERMINO

[Kid Shelleen]

Bill de Blasio vowed Wednesday to overhaul how children are chosen for New York City’s elite public high schools, saying the high-stakes admissions test should no longer be the only factor in the selection process. Tackling an emotional issue for parents and schoolchildren across the city, the Democratic mayoral nominee blamed the reliance on the test for creating schools that he said did not reflect the city’s diversity.

[ladyjane]

There is nothing worse he could do to a bright young minority person than put her or him into an elite school like Bronx Science. It’s fine if the kid tests as well as the rest of the students and if the child has the background. If she/he doesn’t the experience will grind the kid into the ground.

[Holdem Or Foldem]

I saw the sarcasm tag so this is not aimed at you, but the laws of Physics and his queen Mathematics are not answerable to the wishful thinking of social “scientists”.

[sunrise_sunset]

I think Chinese heritage students make up 50% of National Merit winners.

[ExCTCitizen]

I guess he will use a Magic 8 ball for nomination to elite schools.

[Myrddin]

What good does it do to force a kid into a school where he or she will do poorly or flunk out?

Depending on the instructor, the result may be a single kid flunking our or a whole ROOMFUL of kids being slowed to the performance level of the poorest performer in the room. The latter consequence is more common in the K-12 schools. Colleges tend to prefere the "let 'em fail" mode.

[SevenofNine]

I got a question if Anglos African Americans and Latinos want shot open a damn book LOL!

Asians do their homework

[wiggen]

Kinda funny. Holder went to Stuy. Axelrod graduated in my class. So Holder would still get in but maybe Axelrod wouldn’t?

[wiggen]

Those are the other metrics? Guess what, the same kids will get in.

[wiggen]

They run the big 3 like colleges. Stuy,Brooklyn Tech and Bx science.

[EDINVA]

The powers that be tried altering the admissions standards at our local “elite” high school. THO, the admission process was always multi-tiered, with the test just setting a student into a semi-final pool (or not). After making that cut our kids had to write an essay, and fill out a questionnaire about interests. Their grades were blended with the test score. The result was terrific. Kids were actually chosen by ability.

That wasn’t producing a large enough #/% of minority students. They switched the standard so that middle schools from more “diverse” neighborhoods increased by quota the # of kids who’d go to Elite High.
They diddled and daddled with the entry requirements until the school faced some cheating scandal(s), and it fell from #1 in the USA.

And now in cleaning it back up, it is more than 50% Asian!!! Still don’t have the #/% of minorities they so desperately want. Those kids, most of them, don’t want to ‘act white’ and go to Elite High, but don’t try telling the powers that be.

[GeronL]

You realize the essay is usually just a cover to let them get some unqualified kids in for “diversity”

[SharpRightTurn]

“the reliance on the test for creating schools that he said did not reflect the city’s diversity.”

The Marxists just cannot abide having a system based on merit and hard work.

[driftless2]

I remember more than twenty years ago having a conversation with a teacher who was the wife of one of my friends. She was a very nice person and devoted to her job. I brought up the subject of the habit that was being initiated of putting slow or troubled kids in regular classrooms....mainstreaming or some phrase like that.

I asked her what good would it do if the other children had their education disrupted by the troubled kids? She was adamant that the troubled or slow kids needed to feel wanted. I said, that's fine, but what about all the other children. She just repeated her mantra about not excluding the troubled kids. I gave up.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Suspect being able to throw a football 70 yards or catch passes or shoot 3 pointers will get you in as well regardless of test results.

[EDINVA]

“You realize the essay is usually just a cover to let them get some unqualified kids in for “diversity””

Not in this case. Actually, the essay at one time was written after a kid made the cut. Then, it turns out that too many yuppie parents were writing or strongly editing the kids’ essays, so essays became part of the test itself. The school I’m talking about is science and tech, but the kids DO have to know how to write. (spelling, grammar, punctuation, those kinds of things, even for techies, are important).

There HAD been a special program to go into minority dominated schools to work with kids who showed promise, to prepare them for the exam and ultimately attendance if accepted. But it was a very tough academic program at the school, so just accepting a kid to set him/her up for failure was not going to happen. Out of 400-450 per graduating class, the *AVERAGE* SATs are in the 700 per category range every year. You’re not going to throw a kid into that environment just to make your numbers look good. S/he would be out in a semester.

[samtheman]

In this case, maybe the mayors own kids.

[EinNYC]

That's just great. Every decent school in NYC has been ruined by ghetto rats who, having ruined their own neighborhood schools and gotten them closed, were then transferred to the still well-functioning schools. Which are now no better than the ghetto schools were before the hoodrats went to work. A colleague and I were just discussing this earlier this evening. Now DuhBlasio the Commie ("there can be none who excel and none who fail; everyone must be EQUAL")wants to let the destroyers into the last sanctums of real learning in the system, the "elite" schools. I doubt the destroyers could even fill in the application for such schools properly, let alone come near to passing the entrance exams. For the first time in these schools' history, you'd start to see filthy graffiti and crude renditions of genitalia on the desks and walls. You'd see student work vandalized and ripped from walls. The Chinese kids would be bullied by the ghetto rats, sure enough. It already happens in the regular schools. You'd smell burning urine in the hallway radiators (typical), and there would be fires set in the stairwells and bathrooms. Classes could not be conducted because of dumb disruptive pranks pulled all period because Doofus was bored with what they could not possibly grasp.

Sounds like a plan, DuhBlasio. But for what?

[Myrddin]

I taught an embedded systems course for 3 1/2 years. I structured it as self paced with 3 hrs lecture and 4 hours lab. The best students finished work ahead of the average. I rewarded them with more intricate challenges. They returned the favor by helping to tutor the slower end of the group. The course was co-sponsored by the college and the Regional Occupational Program. ROP tracked successful hires from the program. 91% of my students were hired by DEC or IBM over the 3 1/2 year period. I stopped teaching when my software work at PacBell left no room for outside work.