test-in dcps middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From those figures on the NYC test-in experience, it goes to show that AAs have absolutely nothing to fear or lose from test-in schools and in fact may benefit greatly from them.

NYC's AA is 25% but 1% of the student body at Stuy but have nothing to fear? You need to work on your reading comprehension.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From those figures on the NYC test-in experience, it goes to show that AAs have absolutely nothing to fear or lose from test-in schools and in fact may benefit greatly from them.

Ha ha - but the NYC specialized schools all use the same test, the SHSAT - what specifically in the SHSAT is the race-based barrier that trips students up?

NP. Nothing other then they are not in the top 3% of test takers which is what is required for admission. Admission is strictly test score based, no interview, recommendations, grades, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From those figures on the NYC test-in experience, it goes to show that AAs have absolutely nothing to fear or lose from test-in schools and in fact may benefit greatly from them.

NYC's AA is 25% but 1% of the student body at Stuy but have nothing to fear? You need to work on your reading comprehension.

NP here. Actually, you need to work on your reading comprehension, as clearly the first poster was talking about some statistics about magnet schools across NYC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From those figures on the NYC test-in experience, it goes to show that AAs have absolutely nothing to fear or lose from test-in schools and in fact may benefit greatly from them.

NYC's AA is 25% but 1% of the student body at Stuy but have nothing to fear? You need to work on your reading comprehension.

NP here. Actually, you need to work on your reading comprehension, as clearly the first poster was talking about some statistics about magnet schools across NYC.

No, he was talking about the NYC's demographics not demographics of kids in magnet schools.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/3651000.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From those figures on the NYC test-in experience, it goes to show that AAs have absolutely nothing to fear or lose from test-in schools and in fact may benefit greatly from them.

NYC's AA is 25% but 1% of the student body at Stuy but have nothing to fear? You need to work on your reading comprehension.

NP here. Actually, you need to work on your reading comprehension, as clearly the first poster was talking about some statistics about magnet schools across NYC.

No, he was talking about the NYC's demographics not demographics of kids in magnet schools.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/3651000.html

PP here. I assumed that meant the demographics of all NYC magnets combined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From those figures on the NYC test-in experience, it goes to show that AAs have absolutely nothing to fear or lose from test-in schools and in fact may benefit greatly from them.

Ha ha - but the NYC specialized schools all use the same test, the SHSAT - what specifically in the SHSAT is the race-based barrier that trips students up?

NP. Nothing other then they are not in the top 3% of test takers which is what is required for admission. Admission is strictly test score based, no interview, recommendations, grades, etc.

Whenever something like this happens, the automatic assumption of some is that there is racial bias in the questions. So tell us, wouldn't there need to be some kind of universal secret non-AA extracurricular enrichment happening outside of school, which teaches the non-AAs how to decipher the code and answer those magic questions correctly? Just how does this grand conspiracy work, EXACTLY?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While it might skew high-SES, there will also be plenty of low-SES kids who can and will make the cut. So why deny the low-SES kids the opportunity also? Seems like cutting your own nose off to spite your face.

And also, how would a test in school get a bigger slice? There's no inherent greater cost in running a test-in school - and in fact potentially LESS as the test-in group will probably also have less overhead in terms of disciplinary issues, special needs, et cetera - the areas that do rack up significant costs.

But what if there weren't? Do you think the powers that be in DC would let this happen? DC has the largest black/white performance gap of any place in the nation based on many different tests. Any reasonably difficult test would skew very heavily white.

Yes, it would obviously skew white, but not necessarily very heavily if best GT practices, e.g. from MoCo, were adopted. You need screening of gifted and advanced kids at the ES level, and strong support for them in the upper elementary grades, to keep MS test ins from being overwhelmingly high SES/white. My nanny's kid was passed over for a MoCo MS test-in magnet, although he was in an ES GT from for the "highly gifted" because he didn't do well enough on the RAVEN admission test the county uses. After she appealed the decision through a standard appeals process, collecting recommendations from teachers as part of the appeal, he was admitted over the summer before 6th grade. MoCo even paired the kid with a foundation that paid for him to attend a Johns Hopkins CTY camp for math that summer. Well-designed GT programs (I'm not including NYC's here) never offer just one route in. You need comprehensive support for gifted low SES kids, e.g. that provided by NYC's Prep for Prep non profit, to identify and nurture low SES talent well before HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read more carefully. You are proving my point. Yes, we know that the deal neighborhood was not using deal in big numbers until after dr.kim. But the fact that the school is located in a wealthy, well-educated neighborhood--with successful feeder elementaries--allowed the school to build on its momentum by having automatic entry for large numbers of successful students coming from a) the neighborhood and b) the strong feeder elementary schools.

That won't work in other parts of the city where a neighborhood school gets a great principal, great curriculum but the large numbers of inboundary students have academic and social issues and the feeder elementary schools are failing to teach the basic academics to a 6th grade level.

Banneker works without the neighborhood because it is a selective admissions school that lets in the best, brightest and most motivated regardless of SES. The city outside of upper northwest maybe needs more of that

Banneker works? Ever met a Banneker student with SATs in the 700s? Banneker is too little, too late for most of their top performers. I quit interviewing Banneker students for my Ivy a few years back, after a decade of commitment, because I wasting my time and coming away from interviews shaking my head, year after year. The most promising students obviously weren't being well served by the system, without much in the way of ES or MS offerings for advanced learners. DCPS doesn't seem to want to face the reality that the best, brightest and most motivated parents and students rarely choose programs that are overwhelmingly black, if they have appealing alternatives, because the country isn't. Sadly, Banneker's leadership, and teaching staff, doesn't seem to want a highly diverse student body, which I see as a disservice to the kids. They aren't know to lobby for change, they merely pay lip service to it occasionally. The school is a throwback to days gone by. I'm looking forward to interviewing AA BASIS seniors in a few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My figures are not way off there are not enough whites in the system to make a difference in the school population to have such a test-in necessity. Do you own research on any DCPS school web-site the percentage of whites is there for everyone to see. Don't get excited just because you see 33% white at one school doesn't mean that all 33% will matriculate to the neighborhood walkable school. Also if you spread out the 33% over the school population like DCPS that's comes out to a mere 3%. Such the case a test-in middle school of 700 could have about 3-whites and we all know how whites don't like the fish-bowl effect of being the "white and lonely" in their school settings.

Your figures on whites in DCPS are way off. The system is more than 9% white this SY, 16% if you include charters. DCPS could easily support a majority white test-in MS program if it wished.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My figures are not way off there are not enough whites in the system to make a difference in the school population to have such a test-in necessity. Do you own research on any DCPS school web-site the percentage of whites is there for everyone to see. Don't get excited just because you see 33% white at one school doesn't mean that all 33% will matriculate to the neighborhood walkable school. Also if you spread out the 33% over the school population like DCPS that's comes out to a mere 3%. Such the case a test-in middle school of 700 could have about 3-whites and we all know how whites don't like the fish-bowl effect of being the "white and lonely" in their school settings.

Your figures on whites in DCPS are way off. The system is more than 9% white this SY, 16% if you include charters. DCPS could easily support a majority white test-in MS program if it wished.

You are not counting all the kids in privates who would choose public if there was a rigorous test in option.

[Anonymous]

They could support a majority white school populated test-in school if you wanted it to be less than 250 students divided amongst three grades. Such the case, it would never fly because if all the whites would leave Deal (won't never happen) the school would survive and probably become even more spectacular.

I am always stating that an all-white charter school movement should be implemented. I am all forward, we've seen what an all-black charter school can produced. What is good for the goose it is good for the gander.

[Anonymous]

^^^Fishy post

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read more carefully. You are proving my point. Yes, we know that the deal neighborhood was not using deal in big numbers until after dr.kim. But the fact that the school is located in a wealthy, well-educated neighborhood--with successful feeder elementaries--allowed the school to build on its momentum by having automatic entry for large numbers of successful students coming from a) the neighborhood and b) the strong feeder elementary schools.

That won't work in other parts of the city where a neighborhood school gets a great principal, great curriculum but the large numbers of inboundary students have academic and social issues and the feeder elementary schools are failing to teach the basic academics to a 6th grade level.

Banneker works without the neighborhood because it is a selective admissions school that lets in the best, brightest and most motivated regardless of SES. The city outside of upper northwest maybe needs more of that

Banneker works? Ever met a Banneker student with SATs in the 700s? Banneker is too little, too late for most of their top performers. I quit interviewing Banneker students for my Ivy a few years back, after a decade of commitment, because I wasting my time and coming away from interviews shaking my head, year after year. The most promising students obviously weren't being well served by the system, without much in the way of ES or MS offerings for advanced learners. DCPS doesn't seem to want to face the reality that the best, brightest and most motivated parents and students rarely choose programs that are overwhelmingly black, if they have appealing alternatives, because the country isn't. Sadly, Banneker's leadership, and teaching staff, doesn't seem to want a highly diverse student body, which I see as a disservice to the kids. They aren't know to lobby for change, they merely pay lip service to it occasionally. The school is a throwback to days gone by. I'm looking forward to interviewing AA BASIS seniors in a few years.

After spending time at the school and attending their open houses and other presentations, I don't believe this to be true. It's a mythical story that keeps getting repeated over and over again and that is a disservice to the school.

[Anonymous]

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but NYC's experience with merit-based ps admissions is not limited to Stuyvesant HS. There are a number of specialzed public schools that address specific talents and interests.

NYC's demographics as a whole, again, 33% white, 29% Latino, 25% AA and 13% Asian. The City's HS of Art and Design, for example, practices selective admissions, based upon academic performance and artistic talent, the latter being subjective, obviously.

A&D's demographics are 12% white, 52% Latino, 28% AA and 9% Asian. 63% are FARMS students. Among NY's performance measures is a school's "Stability Rate," a measure of how many enrolled at each grade level were enrolled the previous year. A&D's stability rate is 96%.

90% of A&D's graduates go to college. Looks pretty good to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't mean to hijack the thread, but NYC's experience with merit-based ps admissions is not limited to Stuyvesant HS. There are a number of specialzed public schools that address specific talents and interests.

NYC's demographics as a whole, again, 33% white, 29% Latino, 25% AA and 13% Asian. The City's HS of Art and Design, for example, practices selective admissions, based upon academic performance and artistic talent, the latter being subjective, obviously.

A&D's demographics are 12% white, 52% Latino, 28% AA and 9% Asian. 63% are FARMS students. Among NY's performance measures is a school's "Stability Rate," a measure of how many enrolled at each grade level were enrolled the previous year. A&D's stability rate is 96%.

90% of A&D's graduates go to college. Looks pretty good to me.