I have a confession to make. I spend a lot of time on Twitter (@NYSchoolSecrets.com). As a result, I am often caught in multi-day, multi-participant conversations between various people, most of whom I only know as tiny avatar pictures. (Mine features my kids.) Here’s what I have learned from spending a lot of time on… Continue reading Doing the Math = School Choice
What To Expect When You’re Expecting a New SHSAT Plan (Part #4): Desperately Seeking a Silver Lining
In response to my post, What To Expect When You’re Expecting a New SHSAT Plan (Part #2): Who Will Win and Who Will Lose When It Passes, a reader commented: (W)ould be useful to also point out the specific types of students who would win under the new plan. Because, no way around it, some… Continue reading What To Expect When You’re Expecting a New SHSAT Plan (Part #4): Desperately Seeking a Silver Lining
In Part #1 of our four part series, I dove into the nitty-gritty of the Mayor’s plan to get rid of the SHSAT test in Specialized High School admissions, and speculated about his true motives. In Part #2, I laid out who would win and who would lose when the proposal is codified into law.… Continue reading What To Expect When You’re Expecting a New SHSAT Plan (Part #3): Whose Fault Is It, Anyway? And Who’s Going To Fix It?
Last week, I dove into New York City’s plan to diversity Specialized High School admissions by scratching the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), currently the only method of admission, in favor of a model wherein the top 7 percent of all public middle school students would be accepted at an SHSAT school, as long as… Continue reading What To Expect When You’re Expecting a New SHSAT Plan [Part #2]: Who Will Win & Who Will Lose When It Passes
It’s been a hell of a week. On Saturday, June 2, 2018, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio penned an op-ed, asserting that Our Specialized Schools Have a Diversity Problem. Let’s Fix It. On Sunday, June 3, he announced two initiatives to do so. He vowed to expand the Discovery Program so that 20 percent of… Continue reading What To Expect When You’re Expecting a New SHSAT Plan (Part #1): The Mayor’s Hidden Agenda
As soon as THAT video hit the internet, viewers assigned sides: The mother who whined she’d spent $5,000 on test prep so her child could attend the best public middle school in District 3 (Manhattan’s Upper West Side) was the villain. Henry Zymeck, principal of The Computer School who defended the proposal to set aside… Continue reading School Is NOT a Family: Why This Flawed Metaphor Hurts Your Kids
On April 6, 2018, I published a post called Cynthia Nixon on Education: Look At What She Did, Not What She Says. In it, I called out the gubernatorial candidate for standing with Mayor de Blasio on removing the screening process from New York City’s top performing public schools, and with the teachers unions on… Continue reading What Happened The Last Time NYC Took Over School Admissions (Hint: Not What They Said Would Happen)
We’ve all seen the infamous video by now: The Upper West Side mother objecting to a proposal to set aside 25 percent of seats in New York City’s District 3 middle schools for students who score either a 2 (below proficient) or a 1 (well below proficient) on their NY state standardized tests. The conceit… Continue reading How To Make Any School a ‘Good’ School – In One Simple Step
Transfers, a play about two students from the Bronx, one Black, one Hispanic, who are competing for a scholarship at an elite, Massachusetts liberal arts university, was originally developed in the summer of 2016 at Vassar College. But it arrives in New York City in 2018, smack in the middle of a raging controversy about… Continue reading Transfers: The Play On School Diversity NYC – And I – Needed
Shaming is bad. Fat-shaming, skinny-shaming, slut-shaming, gender-shaming, victim-shaming, and, of course, mom-shaming. Mom-shaming is the worst. Except, of course, when it comes to school choice. Then, it’s genius! After yet another speech where she criticized all parents (New York City parents, in particular) for choosing schools they believe are best for their children, MacArthur Genius… Continue reading School Choice, Mom-Shaming, and My Conversation With a Genius
