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Top Stories
Alternatives to Affirmative Action
We Tried to Create a Diverse College Class Without Affirmative Action
NY Times, 3/9/2024
After the Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action in 2023, many selective colleges said they still prized racial diversity and planned to pursue it. But how might they do that?
Selective colleges and universities can no longer use race-based preferences in admissions to create a more diverse student body. But what if they gave a break instead to lower-income students? Or those from high-poverty schools? Or those who do relatively well academically despite challenges all around them?
To explore those questions — and how much racial diversity is possible without “race-conscious” admissions — the Upshot worked with Sean Reardon, a professor at Stanford, and Demetra Kalogrides, a senior researcher there, to model four alternatives to affirmative action.
Under Pressure
NYC may encourage principals to hire teachers over other roles to reduce class sizes
Chalkbeat, 2/29/2024
Principals with vacant positions next year might start feeling more pressure from the city to hire teachers over other roles to comply with the state’s class size law, officials said Thursday at a New York City Council hearing.
…to make sure the city is still in compliance by next September, and begin preparing for the stricter requirements in coming years, the department is considering some policy changes next school year, Deputy Chancellor for Operations Emma Vadehra testified on Thursday.
That could mark a significant shift in a system where principals have traditionally had wide latitude to manage their hiring decisions and decide how to distribute their dollars among classroom teachers and other positions including aides, administrators, deans, and counselors and social workers.
Crowded Out
NYC parents worry students will be turned away from high-performing district under call to cut class sizes
NY Post, 2/18/2024
Parents whose kids are in one of the city’s highest-performing but most overcrowded school districts are rebelling against a controversial state law requiring across-the-board reductions in class sizes.
The group of perturbed parents in District 26 in northern Queens are particularly concerned that a proposed cap on enrollment to comply with the law could prevent their kids from attending their neighborhood school.
“If there are enrollment caps to comply with class-size law, where are the kids going to school? Kids can’t attend their neighborhood school. That’s kind of crazy,” said parent Albert Suhu, president of CEC 26.
Flawed Top 10% Scheme
Kathy Hochul’s SUNY/CUNY admission scheme is simply more unfair racial discrimination
NY Post, op-ed by Wai Wah Chin, 2/6/2024
New York state Sen. John Liu was fortunate to graduate from the State University of New York at Binghamton, earning a degree in mathematical physics.
Starting next year, someone like him may not even get into SUNY Binghamton.
…a Bronx Science student in the other 90% could still be eagerly admitted to a very fine school like SUNY Binghamton (ranked 73 by U.S. News & World Report) and train his mind in awesome majors like mathematical physics.
Well, no longer.
Advocacy Corner
What next? A Parent to Parent Conversation on High School Offers
PLACE NYC
Date: March 19, 2024
Time: 7:30pm
Zoom Registration: tinyurl.com/placenyc-highschooloffers
Pay It Forward
2024 High School Lottery Admissions Results
Amelie Marian
This form is to crowdsource information from families whose students participated in the HS school match in 2024. Our goal is to identify the cutoffs and selectivity of different schools.
Elections Watch
New York Democrats reject bipartisan congressional map and draw their own lines
CNN, 2/27/2024
Chu challenging Stavisky for Senate
Queens Chronicle, 2/6/2024
The Secretive Court Fight Roiling New York’s Democratic Socialists
NY Times, 1/25/2024
NYC Council’s Progressive Caucus shrinks (for now) while Common Sense Caucus grows
City & State, 1/22/2024
New York state Legislature 2024 races to watch
City & State, 1/12/2024
Ex-Rep. Carolyn Maloney eyes comeback in possible newly drawn district after court tossed NY’s maps
NY Post, 1/21/2023
Other Headlines
The Most Confusing, Chaotic College Admissions Season in Years
Wall Street Journal, 3/12/2024
Lawmakers reject NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ bid for mayoral control extension: ‘Teachers know best how to educate’
NY Post, 3/12/2024
Testing Matters
U. of Texas at Austin Will Return to Standardized Test Requirement
NY Times, 3/11/2024
The University of Texas at Austin said Monday that it would again require standardized tests for admissions, becoming the latest selective university to reinstate requirements for SAT or ACT scores that were abandoned during the pandemic.
A few years ago, about 2,000 colleges across the country began to move away from requiring test scores, at least temporarily, amid concerns they helped fuel inequality. But a growing number of those schools have reversed those policies, including Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, M.I.T., Georgetown and Purdue, with several announcing the changes in recent months.
…“We looked at our students and found that, in many ways, they weren’t faring as well”
Virginia bans public universities from considering legacy in admissions
NBC News, 3/11/2024
The Urgent Need to Fortify Student Data Security
Epoch Times, op-ed by Danyela Souza-Egarov and Shannon Edwards, 3/10/2024
Toughing It
First all-digital SAT exam, tough math section puts students to the test: ‘Worst one yet’
NY Post, 3/9/2024
The test results might not be in yet but the verdicts are.
The first sitting for the new all-digital SAT exam took place on Saturday and put students to the test, many parents have reported.
One Brooklyn student, who already took two tests the old-fashioned way — with pencil and paper — called Saturday’s college admissions exam “the worst one yet.”
A mother’s fight to end discrimination and protect merit-based public education
Pacific Legal Foundation, 3/6/2024
Adding it Back
S.F. election: Prop G Algebra in middle schools measure endorsed by voters
San Francisco Chronicle, 3/5/2024
San Francisco voters sent a clear and decisive message to the city’s school board Tuesday, demanding through Proposition G that the district bring Algebra 1 back into middle schools.
The result was evident from the first election returns, with 82% backing the measure as of Friday afternoon.
Four More Prestigious Colleges to Settle Price-Fixing Suit for $166 Million
Wall Street Journal, 2/24/2024
Why One School District Spent $1 Million Fighting a Special-Education Student
Wall Street Journal, 2/23/2024
ICYMI
Yale reinstates standardized testing requirement, allows AP and IB scores
Yale Daily News, 2/22/2024
After four years with a test-optional policy — which allowed students to decide whether or not to submit standardized test scores as part of their Yale College applications — the College will resume requiring test scores for the next application cycle. But now, in addition to SAT and ACT scores, Yale will allow students to submit Advanced Placement, or AP, and International Baccalaureate, or IB, scores to fulfill the standardized testing requirement.
At Harvard, Some Wonder What It Will Take to Stop the Spiral
NY Times, 2/20/2024
SCOTUS Pass on Admissions Case
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Diversity Efforts at Top High School
Wall Street Journal, 2/20/2024
The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a case seeking to block selective public schools from using race-neutral admissions policies that conservative activists argue are illegally designed to increase Black and Hispanic enrollment.
The case, involving Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., was seen as a follow-on to the court’s decision in June ending affirmative action in university admissions. It more directly involved a 2007 ruling that barred school boards from promoting integration by using race as a factor in pupil assignments but that suggested officials could consider the racial impact of broader policies such as where to build new campuses.
New high school in Queens will prepare students for careers in health care
ABC 7, 2/14/2024
‘Most educated’ state revealed in new report — and it’s not New York
NY Post, 2/13/2024
朱雅婷參選白石鎮州參議員
Sing Tao, 2/8/2024
Inflection Point?
In the Battle Over Early Algebra, Parents Are Winning
Wall Street Journal, 2/4/2024
San Francisco’s public school district set off a yearslong fight with parents when it decided to prevent students from taking algebra until high school, an attempt to combat racial inequities in math by waiting until more students were ready.
Parents in favor of letting students start in middle school launched petitions, a ballot measure and a lawsuit, sparring with school officials over questions of equity and privilege.
Now, it appears the parents who are pushing for eighth-grade algebra are winning.
See the NYC school cafeterias with the most health code violations
Gothamist, 1/31/2024
Gifted under-identification: How to improve diverse student access to gifted programming
Fordham Institute, 1/31/2024
ICYMI
The New Digital SAT: 4 Important Details Educators Need to Know
EdWeek, 1/29/2024
The digital version of the College Board’s college admissions standardized test known as the SAT officially launches across the United States this spring.
The test still measures students’ abilities in math, reading, and writing but is now shorter, more adaptive to students’ performance, and more secure from possible cheating, said Priscilla Rodriguez, who leads the SAT and related PSAT programs for the College Board.
Few NYC public school parents taking advantage of free money for college savings
Gothamist, 1/29/2024
No Entry
Brooklyn parent board bans attendees from public meeting, censors speech in violation of state law
NY Post, 1/24/2024
A controversial Brooklyn parent board blocked parents and press “not in alignment” with its extreme leftist agenda from attending its monthly public meeting this week — a brazen violation of state law.
At least a dozen people were blocked from joining Wednesday’s Zoom meeting, including a Post reporter who was apparently forbidden simply for identifying as a journalist for New York’s favorite newspaper.
“If people are not in alignment with our community agreements, they may not be allowed in this space,” Community Education Council 14 President Tajh Sutton told the 40 comrades allowed to attend.
NYC DOE employees who claim racial discrimination over demotion can pursue bombshell $90M lawsuit, judge rules
NY Post, 1/24/2024
Eric Adams says social media is a public health threat to students
Chalkbeat, 1/24/2024
The Fix
Yale, Duke and Columbia Among Elite Schools to Settle in Price-Fixing Case
NY Times, 1/23/2024
For almost a quarter of a century, a coterie of the nation’s most elite universities had a legal shield: They would be exempt from federal antitrust laws when they shared formulas to measure prospective students’ financial needs.
But the provision included a crucial requirement: that the cooperating universities’ admissions processes be “need-blind,” meaning they could not factor in whether a prospective student was wealthy enough to pay.
A court filing on Tuesday night revealed that five of those universities — Brown, Columbia, Duke, Emory and Yale — have collectively agreed to pay $104.5 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of, in fact, weighing financial ability when they deliberated over the fates of some applicants.
Biden has forgiven billions in student loans. Who has gotten the relief?
The Hill, 1/23/2024
Side Stepped
Whitestone mom leads lawsuit alleging anti-Asian discrimination in state science program
QNS, 1/23/2024
Parents claiming that a statewide STEM program discriminates against Asian and white students in its admissions criteria are suing the New York State Department of Education.
The lawsuit filed in federal court on Jan. 17 alleges that the admissions requirements for the Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP), which was initially founded 39 years ago to give historically underrepresented students a leg up in college admissions, are racially discriminatory.
…Yiatin Chu, a Whitestone mother of two, joined the lawsuit after hearing about the effort from a fellow member of CACAGNY several weeks ago.
One-on-one with Chancellor David Banks on mayoral control
Spectrum News, 1/23/2024
Surprise, Surprise
Even if They Didn’t Apply, Some Students Get College Admission Offers
NY Times, 1/19/2024
Some high school seniors have already received offers of admission to college for the next academic year — even though they didn’t formally apply.
Under so-called direct admissions programs increasingly being tried by states, colleges and third-party services, seniors who meet minimum academic qualifications are receiving unsolicited notifications of admission. Once they are identified as qualifying candidates, the students can complete an often-simplified application online.
The Truth About Banned Books
The Free Press, 1/19/2024
A groundbreaking study shows kids learn better on paper, not screens. Now what?
The Guardian, 1/17/2024
Real Young Sheldon
9 year old named one of world’s brightest students
AsAm News, 1/16/2024
The John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth named 9-year-old Preesha Chakraborty one of the world’s brightest students.
The third grader is from Warm Spring Elementary School in Fremont, CA, according to Times Now News.
This Is the Actual Danger Posed by D.E.I.
NY Times, op-ed by David French, 1/14/2024
Boston exam school admissions just changed. Here’s what you need to know.
Boston Globe, 1/11/2024
Proposed Equity Admissions for SUNY
SUNY, CUNY to automatically admit top NY students under Hochul proposal
NY Daily News, 1/9/2024
The highest-achieving graduates at every high school in New York will automatically be accepted to the state’s public university systems under a plan unveiled by Gov. Hochul on Tuesday.
The policy, one of the governor’s State of the State priorities for higher education, was billed as a way to boost equity and enrollment, while promoting New York’s public universities and keeping talented youngsters in state.
NYC school suspensions spiked 13% last year, returning to pre-pandemic levels
Chalkbeat, 1/8/2024