NYC Keeps Access to Top High Schools Away from Black Kids

Ten years ago Catherine Rampell published a piece in the NYTimes that showed ever so clearly how standardized tests continue to protect the privileged and to punish the poor.  This chart sums up the connection between standardized test scores and family income.  The same correlations will be found, regardless of the standardized test used:

In 2019, the same standardized exclusion instruments are still used, even as the use of a single high stakes test to seat students in the best public high schools of New York is getting new scrutiny.  Politicians of all stripes continue their silence on the issue:

. . . Mr. de Blasio’s proposal to scrap the entrance exam for the schools and overhaul the admissions process has proved so divisive that the state’s most prominent politicians, from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have mostly avoided taking a definitive position — even as black and Hispanic students are grappling with increasingly steep odds of admission into the city’s eight most selective public schools.

Meanwhile, 7 out of 895 students at Stuyvesant High School are black.

Students gain entry into the specialized schools by acing a single high-stakes exam that tests their mastery of math and English. Some students spend months or even years preparing for the exam. Stuyvesant, the most selective of the schools, has the highest cutoff score for admission, and now has the lowest percentage of black and Hispanic students of any of New York City’s roughly 600 public high schools.

Einstein Never Would Have Passed a Standardized Test

Albert Einstein might or might not have had dyslexia but he didn't do well with the  standardized curriculum in Germany primarily because of its authoritarianism . That's a fact and his parents left Germany because they didn't like the rote memorization and mindlessness inherent in the German schools. It's all in his biography.

Mindlessness and blind obedience is not a recipe for a healthy society.

From the American Museum of Natural History:

He loathed Germany's rigid education system, which was based upon rote learning. "It's a true miracle," he commented years later, "that modern education hasn't yet completely smothered the curiosity necessary for scientific study." If Albert had remained in Germany until he was 16, he would have been obliged to perform military service. The sight of soldiers marching through the streets had always frightened and appalled him, and he was not willing to join them. So Einstein left high school and Germany, and joined his family in Milan.


Here's more info on people who had dyslexia and would have done poorly on a standardized test:

Agatha Christie - (15 September 1890 - 12 January 1976) Agatha Christie was the world's best selling book writer of all times only truly surpassed by the Bible and equaled by Shakespear, her books sold approximately 4 billion copies worldwide. Agatha suffered from dyslexia but in no way did it stop her from being creative and learning how to write, her mystery novels have always been some of the most captivating of all times. Her bestselling book was without a doubt "And then there was none" which was a source of inspiration for novelists and movie makers even many years after.

Albert Einstein - (March 14, 1879 - April 18, 1955) Being one of the most important great minds of his century Albert Einstein was then known to suffer from dyslexia mainly because of his bad memory and his constant failure to memorize the simplest of things. He would not remember the months in the year yet he would succeed in solving some of the most complicated mathematical formulas of the time without any trouble. He may have never learned how to properly tie his shoelaces but his scientific contributions and theories still have a major effect on all of todays current knowledge of science

.Alexander Graham Bell - (3 March 1847 - 2 August 1922) Well known as the inventor of the telephone Alexander was actually attempting to find a way that could make deaf people hear. His mother was slowly becoming deaf when Alexander was only 12 years old making him extremely sensitive to disabilities. Once older he was constantly seeking a way to cure them through technology. He himself had dyslexia which would cause him problems at school, but he always kept his interest for science, especially biology. He would show a great indifference for everything else and would have poor grades. Today Alexander Graham Bell is also well know as one of the founders of the National Geographic society.Cher - (Born May 20, 1946) Cher was a fatherless child and was most of the time very poor. Her mother tried to make money by singing and acting which ultimately brought Cher to follow into her footsteps. Due to dyslexia cher decided she would quit school and try to take some acting lessons in Los Angeles to finally do what she loved. One day while at the renowned Aldo's Coffee Shop her life changed upon meeting Sonny Bono, which was at the time successful in show business. They eventually made songs together and through fantastic duos with Sonny.

Dale S. Brown - Dale Brown is a strategic leadership consultant at Washington D.C and an author. Her most recent book is called "Steps to Independance for people with Learning Disabilities" which was published by Learning Disabilities Association of America in 2005. Dale suffers herself from dyslexia and wants to tell the world that learning disabilities does not have to stop you from being who you want to be. It does not have to stop you from striving or harm your capabilities to integrate to everyday life.

Danny Glover - (Born July 22, 1947) A great actor in both Lethal Weapon with Mel Gibson and Predator 2. Danny Glover suffered dyslexia at school when he was younger and the school staff would label him retarded. This definitely was not very encouraging for him but he ended up finding ways to feel better about himself. He says that dyslexia had given him the feeling that he was not worthy to learn and that the people around him would not care of what would happen to his education. With time he eventually regained his self esteem and became a great actor.George Burns - (January 20, 1896-March 9, 1996) An Academy-Award winning Jewish-American actor and comedian George Burns was a man filled with joy. He and his wife Gracie Allen would frequently team up on radio and television which made them both well known. George was an entertainer until a few years before his 100th birthday. Dyslexia never kept him from being who he was, a legend who had one of the longest American careers in show business history

.Hans Christian Andersen - (April 2 1805 - August 4 1875) Being an author of children's fantasy stories, he was a victim of dyslexia and showed the world that when you want something, nothing can stop you from obtaining it. The books that he wrote have been translated into hundreds of different languages and continue to be distributed even today in millions of copies. Hans wrote books such as "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Princess and the Pea" "Thumbelina", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Mermaid".

Henry Winkler - Henry Franklin Winkler (born October 30, 1945) is a Golden Globe Award-winning American actor, director, producer and author. He is perhaps most famous for his role as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli on the popular sitcom Happy Days (1974-1984). Winkler attended the McBurney School and received his bachelor's degree from Emerson College in 1967 and his MFA from the Yale School of Drama in 1970. In 1978, Emerson gave Winkler an honorary doctorate of humane letters. Winkler has also received a Doctor of Humane Letters from Austin College. Having struggled throughout his school years with unidentified dyslexia Winkler, at age 31, finally understood what he'd been grappling with all his life, when making a documentary about dyslexia, Winkler himself found that he was dyslexic.

Jackie Stewart - Sir John Young Stewart, OBE (born 11 June 1939 in Milton, West Dunbartonshire), better known as Jackie, and nicknamed The Flying Scot, is a Scottish former racing driver. He competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships. Former F1 champion Sir Jackie Stewart, said he thought he was "thick" at school before discovering he was dyslexic. Sir Jackie said "word blindness" meant he had to race to keep up with other pupils. In those days dyslexia wasn't something that got identified in many schools.Leonardo Da Vinci - Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, (April 15, 1452 - May 2, 1519) was a Tuscan polymath: scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptualising a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. He also had the gift of dyslexia. Most of the time, he wrote his notes backwards. Although unusual, this is a trait shared by many left-handed dyslexic people. Most of the time, dyslexic writers are not even consciously aware that they are writing this way.Magic Johnson - Earvin Effay Johnson, Jr. (born August 14, 1959 in Lansing, Michigan) is a retired American National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers. Johnson is acknowledged as one of the most popular NBA basketball players of all time, being well-known for his uncanny passing and dribbling skills, and for his cheerful nature on and off the court. In the words of Magic Johnson: "The looks, the stares, the giggles . . . I wanted to show everybody that I could do better and also that I could read.

"Thomas Edison - Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 - October 18, 1931) was an American inventor of Dutch origin and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph and a long lasting light bulb. In school, the young Edison's mind often wandered. He was noted to be terrible at mathematics, unable to focus, and had difficulty with words and speech. This ended Edison's three months of official schooling. The cause of Edison's deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle ear infections. Thomas Edison was dyslexic, a problem child, and a mischief-maker. He talked when he was supposed to be listening and did not listen when the teacher talked. He had no patience. He was not well-coordinated and did poorly in sports. He applied himself with a passion to whatever caught his attention, but his attention was easily diverted.

Tom Cruise - Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962), more commonly known as Tom Cruise, is an American actor and film producer. Cruise has said that he suffered from abuse as a child. This was partially due to him suffering from dyslexia. He stated that when something went wrong, his father came down hard on him. Having gone through fifteen schools in twelve years, Cruise, who dropped his father's name at age twelve, was also a victim of bullying at school

.Walt Disney - Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 - December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Disney is notable as one of the most influential and innovative figures in the field of entertainment during the twentieth century. Walt Disney had dyslexia, which is a learning disorder characterized by reading difficulties. While Walt Disney was attending high school he also went to the Academy of Fine Arts. This caused him to have double the school work than an average student on top of the fact that he also dealt with being dyslexic

.Whoopi Goldberg - Whoopi Goldberg (born November 13, 1955) is an American actress, comedian, radio host, TV personality, game show host, and author. Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in New York City. Whoopi had a lot of difficulty in school, but it was not until she was an adult did she learn that she had dyslexia. Despite her dyslexia, Whoopi Goldberg has gone on to have a highly successful film and television career.

Winston Churchill - Churchill described himself as having a "speech impediment", which he consistently worked to overcome. After many years, he finally stated, "My impediment is no hindrance." Although the Stuttering Foundation of America has claimed that Churchill stammered, the Churchill Centre has concluded that he lisped. Churchill's impediment may also have been cluttering, which would fit more with his lack of attention to unimportant details and his very secure ego. According to several sources Winston Churchill was not dyslexic and had no learning disability whatsoever. In his autobiography he played up his low grades at Harrow, undoubtedly to convince readers, and possibly himself, how much he had overcome; but in this he exaggerated. He was actually quite good at subjects he enjoyed and in fact won several school prizes.

Woodrow Wilson - Former president of the United States. Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856-February 3, 1924), was the twenty-eighth President of the United States. Wilson did not learn to read until he was about 12 years old. His difficulty reading may have indicated dyslexia or A.D.D., but as a teenager he taught himself shorthand to compensate and was able to achieve academically through determination and self-discipline. He studied at home under his father's guidance and took classes in a small school in Augusta.Fanny Flagg - (born September 21, 1944) is an American author and actress. Flagg has spoken publicly about being dyslexic. Flagg has said she was enormously challenged as a writer because she was "severely dyslexic and couldn't spell. So I was discouraged from writing and embarrassed". Her burgeoning writing career was put on hold for much of the 1970s, but Flagg overcame her fear and completed several novels and screenplays.George Patton - George Smith Patton GCB, KBE (November 11, 1885 - December 21, 1945) was a leading U.S. Army general in World War II in campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, France, and Germany, 1943-1945. Patton not begin his formal education until age 11, most likely due to dyslexia. Patton attended high school in Pasedena. Upon graduation, Patton was accepted at the Virginia Military Institute. He spent a year at VMI before being accepted to West Point.Harry Belafonte - Harold George Belafonte, Jr. (born March 1, 1927) is an American musician, actor and social activist. One of the most successful Jamaican musicians in history, he was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style in the 1950s. Due to problems with dyslexia, Belafonte dropped out of high school and at the age of 17, he joined the US Navy for a couple of years. After that, he returned to New York and settled there. Belafonte became involved with the American Negro Theatre and soon began singing in clubs around the city.Richard Branson - Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English entrepreneur, best known for his Virgin brand of over 360 companies. Richard Branson has been involved in a number of world record-breaking attempts since 1985, when in the spirit of the Blue Riband he attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the fastest recorded time. Branson has dyslexia, resulting in poor academic performance as a student. School was something of a nightmare for him. He was the captain of football, rugby union and cricket teams, and by the age of fifteen he had started two ventures that eventually failed, one growing Christmas trees and another raising budgerigars.Nelson Rockefeller - Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 - January 26, 1979) was the forty-first Vice President of the United States, governor of New York, philanthropist, and businessman. Rockefeller was born in Bar Harbor, Maine. He was the son of John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. He was the grandson of Standard Oil's founder and chairman John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. Nelson Rockefeller died on the evening of Friday, January 26, 1979 at age 70 from a heart attack under circumstances whose details have never been completely revealed.Neil Bush - Neil Mallon Bush (born January 22, 1955 in Midland, Texas) is the fourth of six children of former President George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush (Barbara Lane Pierce). Neil is the younger brother of President George Walker Bush, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and the late Robin Bush. At age 11, he entered the exclusive private St. Albans School in Washington, DC. He struggled through school. A counselor told his mother that it was doubtful the boy had the potential to graduate. He was later diagnosed as having dyslexia, and his mother spent much time coaching him through his learning disability. Eventually his grades 
What else is there to know?

Are Standardized Tests Helpful?

from the most recent PDK/Gallup poll:

A Breath of Fresh Air from Denver

Denver will be hosting this year's United Opt Out event in a few weeks. This event was held on the front steps of the Department of Education building in Washington, DC for the past two years.

I am an employed social studies and history teacher now for 6th grade and a lot has changed in two years.

Finding a public school that is not suffering under the current policies is extremely difficult. However, the situation is unsustainable and the voices from all walks of life and society are getting louder. People are breaking free from the chains of NCLB and the cages of Common Core run by profiteers instead of educators. Everyone is tired of policies dictated by those who have never taught or spent time as a teacher in a classroom

Education activists continue meeting, learning, teaching and sharing ideas and strategies to end this madness once and for all and get rid of the test and punish accountability monster. An entire generation has been subjected to this public education nightmare that has destroyed schools and communities, teaching careers, families and the teaching profession itself. How about a few more civics classes and nutrition classes instead of more tests?

Some basic common sense would also be a lot less expensive than the cost of the next six weeks of testing ELL students, children of recent immigrants here in New Jersey who will be subjected to three weeks of testing and another three weeks of testing when they return from Spring break. Do we need all those hours of testing to figure out how these kids are doing?

Teachers desperate to hold on to jobs and benefits just follow orders or quit if they can. Principals and administrators are also feeling the heat and are either leaving, retiring or beginning to stand up and speak out. Is this a good use of funds when budgets are tight and money is scarce? Nothing like the bare reality of poverty and scarcity to wake people up to what is really important.

From the Denver Post: Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Energy in Lakewood and the author of "Energy Victory" (Prometheus, March 2009).

In short what we've managed to learn is that the children of doctors and lawyers do better on standardized tests than the children of day laborers and welfare recipients. This raises an interesting question: Why are we funding this program?

At a time when school funds are scarce, why are we wasting tens of millions of dollars per year statewide, and close to 20 percent of classroom time, on a testing program, only to find out nothing that we didn't know before? Does anyone actually believe that Evergreen students do better than Jefferson students because of the superior quality of the staff? If we switched school staffs, but kept the students in place, would the high scores move with the staffs or stay with the students? So, do we punish the teachers at the lower ranked schools because they are willing to take on the tougher jobs?

Ontario Teachers Call For 2 Year Moratorium on Standardized Testing in Grades 3 and 6

Which one of the prostituted and top-heavy U. S. teachers' unions will be the first to follow the ethical and pro-student lead of British and, now, Canadian teachers?  From the Ottawa Citizen (ht to Monty Neill):

. . . .Teachers say the standardized tests have created opportunities for professional development, fostered more collaboration among teachers and helped some plan lessons.

But those benefits could have been achieved through cheaper means and some teachers add EQAO is of limited or no use for informing parents about their child's progress in school, or assessing the quality of the education system as a whole.

The report suggests the goal of making all children capable of performing to a specific level in EQAO is at odds with the Ministry of Education's goal that learning should be geared toward a child's specific needs.

Teachers say EQAO testing means non-test subjects such as arts, drama, music and even science get less attention than the subject areas of the tests, which focus on literacy and numeracy skills.

Teachers also say the pressure on students, particularly those in Grade 3, is too much.

"They are starting to think of school as a series of hoops to jump through," one participant was quoted as saying.

The standardized tests also have "huge drawbacks" to special-needs and English-as-a-second-language students, as well as those from different cultural backgrounds, students with behavioural issues or learning disabilities, and highly gifted students.

And despite the tests being "standardized," the report claims EQAO tests are not uniformly administered, putting test results, comparability and tracking over time into question.

According to the teachers, schools administer tests differently, and the standards of marking have changed over time, as have the difficulty of the tests.

Finally, there is the cost -- in both class time to prepare and resources spent to administer the EQAO tests.

"School boards are always cutting back and saying 'we can't afford this' -- things that I would say are essential, like educational assistants and more personnel, yet they're willing to put tons of money into EQAO," says another participant.

The study says most teachers think the testing should be eliminated. Otherwise, they recommend the government reduce the scale of the test to reduce pressure on students and teachers, consider random sampling, and take steps to reduce the importance of EQAO testing in the eyes of the public as the best or only way of evaluating a school. . . .

From a Scorer with 15 Years Experience Inside the Testing Industry

From an op-ed (ht to Monty Neill) in today's Christian Science Monitor by Todd Farley, author of Making the Grade: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry:

NEW YORK - President Obama's "Race to the Top" initiative promotes an accountability in education that links teacher evaluations with student test scores. While many will point to the potential problems this poses for the classroom, there's something else to think about. This position exhibits considerable confidence in the results returned to students by the standardized testing industry.

That's not a faith I share.The 15 years I spent scoring student essays and written responses to state K-12 tests revealed a process that was less "scientifically based research" (a heady phrase dropped more than 100 times in No Child Left Behind) than a theater of the absurd.

On one of the first tests I scored, I was hired (after barely flashing my college diploma at a human resources representative) to assess high school writing. It was a job granted with the caveat that as temporary workers, we could keep the position only if we passed a "qualifying" test.

We'd have to score enough student essays accurately during a training session to prove we could do the job in a standardized way, a process that allowed the testing company that hired us to claim just how capable, consistent, and qualified its employees were.

It was a nerve-racking experience to know our jobs hinged on those "qualifying" tests, but in the end we part-timers needn't have worried so much.

After two days of training, nearly half the 100 people applying for the job failed the tests and were fired. Our unemployment lasted only about 12 hours. The next morning nearly every one of us flunkies was hired right back, an employment rebirth that occurred just as soon as the testing company realized it was short on personnel.

I asked the HR representative about the 70 percent accuracy on the qualifying test we were required to get in order to keep the job. To which she informed me that they had decided 60 percent was good enough after all.

During my time in testing I was witness to (or party to) every conceivable manner of corporate chicanery and statistical tomfoolery, any shortcut imaginable that would help those for-profit companies get tests scored, deadlines met, and money made.

On one scoring project I managed, for instance, the government agency in charge passed down an edict stating that all scorers had to go through a remedial retraining (group discussions with their peers about scoring rubrics and training papers) after any work stoppage of 30 minutes or more, including their scheduled half-hour lunch break. The government agency in charge said such retrainings would help ensure the student responses were scored within the proper context of "psychometric rigor."

Those retrainings, however, also invariably devolved into time-consuming and contentious debates among the scorers about what score Anchor Paper No. 3 or Practice Paper No. 9 really deserved, theoretical arguments that completely interfered with the project's real goal of slapping scores on student tests.

Because the testing company that hired us was more concerned with scoring tests than achieving any sort of "psychometric rigor," they solved the problem of any extra retraining simply by changing the work schedule, eliminating from our workday any 30-minute breaks.

"From now on," I told the group of temps I was supervising, "we'll take a 29-minute lunch. Enjoy."

Obviously I can't just be pointing fingers here at big, bad corporate America because I am guilty, too, and during my time in testing there were few corners I didn't cut and few rules I didn't bend. I fudged the numbers like everyone else. Much of my career managing scoring projects was spent manipulating statistics to give off the appearance of a test-scoring process that was consistent and standardized even when it clearly was not.

And while I don't mean to imply such statistical skullduggery was the testing industry's official stance, neither could it have been unknown that such things regularly occurred.

Just before I left, for instance, I saw a temporary supervisor chastised and demoted for too obviously cheating on his scoring group's accountability stats, although that harsh reprimand barely slowed down the accused in his charge right up the company ladder. Within a month that same guy – the one whose blatant manipulation of test stats had earned him both a pay cut and a verbal redressing from company management – was given a full-time job as a project manager.

While accountability in education may be an important goal, it's critical to realize how difficult that might be to pin down. The lesson of my career should be that trusting massive corporations that answer to a bottom line to make decisions about American schools is a whole lot different than trusting those men and women who stand every day at the front of the classroom.

Too often in my career the test results we returned had to be viewed not as exemplars of educational progress, but rather as numbers produced in a mad rush to get things done, statistics best viewed solely through the prism of profit. Caveat emptor, Mr. President.

Todd Farley is the author of "Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry."