"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Friday, March 22, 2019

Stuyvesant High School's Talented .00878 Percent

A hundred years ago W.E.B. Dubois advocated for selecting that most "Talented Tenth" of African Americans to receive the best education available and, thus, become the leaders for efforts to integrate a virulently-racist American society. 

Today black youngsters seeking to attend New York City's best high schools must view Dubois's goal as purely aspirational.

Like thousands of other school systems in America, New York City's public school system is using the same standardized testing techniques that public and private schools (and colleges) have been using for over hundred years to keep back the black, put down the brown, and detour the poor. 


The students pictured above (from the New York Times) are some of the 29 black students of the 3,300 students of Stuyvesant High School.  Story here.

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