Reply to Is walls ever bringing back the test for admissions?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, that problem played into the Mayor's decision to nix the Walls test two years ago, or so she claimed.  What a misguided approach to leveling the playing field.  The obvious solution is for the District to pay to level the playing field.  ES GT programs could be introduced in Title 1 schools. DCPS could make sure that all applicants have a chance to learn the requisite math.  They pour money into renovating mostly empty MS buildings instead, e.g. Jefferson Academy ($60 million, still more than half empty five years later).  NYC provides the prep at free test prep centers for MS and HS students scattered around each of its four boroughs.  Kids can freely pop into the centers for test prep after school and on weekends to supplement the math instruction they get at school.  In NYC, kids who want to prep for HS magnet tests are given thick learning packets and support to learn independently on Khan Academy. Most NYC middle schools have a computer lab where students are encouraged to work on academics after school, under the watchful eye of staff with tutors on hand.  There are ways and ways to provide the prep some low SES kids will need to score high enough on the exam to test into academic magnets.  DCPS bothers with none of them. Eliminating the Walls test and standardized test requirement on the application was much cheaper and easier.

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I'm all for standardized tests and free test prep, but New York has been dealing with the same issues as DC because all of that test prep is still not getting them a population that can pass the entrance tests for specialized high schools that looks anything like their overall population. The difference is that they have a parent and alumni population that's been more able to push back again killing the exam schools.[/quote]

Even if we assume the desired outcome is a school population that mirrors the city population, the question is what a jurisdiction does to close that gap. Do they double down on test prep and extra resources to close that gap? Or do they just throw up their hands and eliminate standards.

At some point personal responsibility has to come into play. If resources are available and parents don't take advantage of them then those parents need to own that. The people who argue that systemic racism and oppression are causing people to not take advantage of resources are infantilizing those populations. They are also screwing over kids within those communities who are willing to take advantage of available resources and work hard. Their efforts are dismissed. The kids most negatively impacted by lowering the bar are POC in poor communities whose hard work is diminished and goes unrewarded. The kid in the middle-bottom of a MS who didn't want to take advantage of tutoring or test prep isn't going to go to MIT. The kid who did all the right things but is shut out because "equity" loses out on the Walls opportunity because we decide rewarding that kid and her efforts is...racist?      [/quote]

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