Photo Credit: Ballet Hispánico School of Dance © Christopher Duggan This past weekend, I sat at Ballet Hispánico, watching my 15-year-old son perform in their annual Winter Showcase. His exhibition consisted of three performances: Ballet, Modern Dance, and Flamenco. My three children are not even a little bit Hispanic. When my older son spit in… Continue reading Is It Cultural Appropriation To Believe In School Choice For All?
Applications for New York City public schools were originally due today, Monday, December 3. However, last week, the Department of Education announced that they were extending their deadline to turn in your rankings to Friday, December 14. They went out of their way to stress it absolutely was not due to what an unmitigated disaster… Continue reading If Grades & Test Scores Are “Better” At Predicting Student Success Why Aren’t Screened Schools “Better” Than Specialized Ones?
This past weekend, 30,000 New York City 8th graders took the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) in hope of being among the 4,000 students accepted to one of the eight schools which use the SHSAT as its sole qualifying measure. This year, twenty percent of seats at every school are being set aside as… Continue reading Will Changing Admission to Specialized High Schools Change Specialized High Schools? How Do We Find Out?
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
The media is afire with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to diversify NYC’s most competitive high schools — Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech — by eliminating the SHSAT admissions test. Instead of basing student suitability for these ultra-competitive schools on a single test, he says, students will be admitted based on classroom… Continue reading The Lack of Diversity in NYC’s Elite High Schools Has Nothing To Do With the Admissions Test.
I didn’t grow up in New York City. My African-American husband did, though. He, now a teacher, was the one who first suggested that finding a school for our children might not be as simple as I assumed when he told me, “I know what happens to Black kids in public schools.” I didn’t know… Continue reading I’m on a One-Mom Mission to Help All NYC Parents Find the Right School for Their Child
