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Activist Ambush?
Activist sneak attack could kill admissions test for NYC’s elite high schools
NY Post, op-ed by Yiatin Chu and Lisa Marks, 12/4/2024
Public school families are once again feeling a sense of dread — fearing the city won’t OK a contract for the Specialized High Schools Admission Test, which would leave their kids in a lurch about getting into those schools.
Of the 700 high-school programs the city offers, anti-merit activists have singled out the eight high schools that use the SHSAT as the sole criteria for admissions (and that have produced 14 Nobel Prize winners) as primary targets.
They’ve raised red-herring “concerns” about digitizing the exam and the cost of the contract with Pearson (a mere $3 million per year or $113 per student), forcing the city’s Panel for Educational Policy to postpone votes on it twice.
Now, 30,000 seventh-grade families — many low-income and first-generation Americans — may become collateral damage, despite the trend in higher education to bring back standardized testing.
NYC’s Math Problem
NYC Algebra Regents scores tank amid new ‘disaster’ math curriculum
NY Post, 11/23/2024
New York City has got a math problem.
Less than half of city kids passed the state Algebra 1 Regents exam this past school year, after the Department of Education introduced a controversial new math curriculum critics have blasted as “a complete disaster.”
Just 46.8% of Big Apple high schoolers tested “proficient” on the exam — a staggering 9-point drop from the prior year’s 56.2% pass rate, according to the state Education Department.
Adams Affirmation
Mayor Adams Reaffirms Support for Specialized High Schools Amid SHSAT Vote Delay
Brooklyn Voice News, 11/22/2024
Parents and educators are growing increasingly concerned over the future of the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), as the vote to renew the contract for the exam has been delayed indefinitely. The vote, originally scheduled for last month and again set for Wednesday, November 20, is now postponed with no clear timeline for resolution. This delay is leaving families, particularly those of accelerated learners, uncertain about the path forward for one of New York City’s most rigorous academic programs.
Mayor Eric Adams, speaking at a recent media briefing to New York Voice News, reaffirmed his support for the city’s Specialized High Schools and their role in providing a challenging academic environment for gifted students. “I believe in the Specialized High Schools,” Mayor Adams stated. “Instead of taking opportunities away from accelerated learners, we need to expand them.” The mayor also pointed to recent efforts by former Chancellor David Banks to open new schools as a step toward creating additional pathways for accelerated students.
Starving Arts School
World-renowned NYC school facing cash crunch that could gut acclaimed arts programs — leading families to ask star alums for help
NY Post, 11/30/2024
The world-renowned “Fame” high school is facing a cash crunch that could gut its acclaimed arts programs — a situation so dire some students and parents are begging the institution’s superstar alumni for help.
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts is struggling with unstable enrollment and urgently needs to raise roughly $500,000, according to parent leaders — even after the city Department of Education announced Wednesday it would not take money back from schools with fewer kids than expected this school year.
…Some parents believe a lowering of academic admission standards has driven some families away.
Currently, LaGuardia requires a minimal GPA of 65 from prospective students, down from 80 in 2019. It was lowered after ex-principal Lisa Mars was forced out, largely because she demanded more academic rigor.
Advocacy Corner
Sign the PLACE NYC Open Letter to Save the SHSAT
Open Letter to the PEP: Approve the SHSAT Contract
PLACE NYC Open Letter
Save SHSAT What You Can Do Today
Letter to PEP and other Take Actions
HS Admission Advocacy
PEP SHSAT Town Hall
Panel for Education Policy Engagement Committee Meeting – December 11, 2024
CEC2 Meetings Petition
Please Make CEC2 Meetings About Education!
Concerned D2 Parent
Elections Watch
On Politics: Adams’ flirtation with the GOP makes political sense for a second term
Crain’s NY, 12/9/2024
What makes a state legislator run for City Council?
City & State, 12/5/2024
Andrew Cuomo for NYC Mayor? Former Governor Prepares for Possible Comeback
Wall Street Journal, 11/27/2024
Biden-bashing Democrat Wall Street investor Whitney Tilson to run for NYC mayor
NY Post, 11/26/2024
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg faces re-election challenge from Republican Maud Maron
NY Post, 11/24/2024
Other Headlines
Is calculus an addiction that college admissions officers can’t shake?
The Hechinger Report, 12/9/2024
NYC school principals demand more safety agents, weapons scanners amid ‘persistent’ delays
NY Post, 12/7/2024
Naval Academy Can Use Race in Admissions, Judge Rules
Wall Street Journal, 12/6/2024
Discovery Discrepancies
Few English learners get into NYC’s specialized high schools. This student came achingly close.
Chalkbeat, 12/5/2024
Derek Sandoval seemed like a good candidate for Discovery, a program created to boost the numbers of disadvantaged kids in New York City’s elite public high schools.
…But a change made to the program six years ago rendered Derek ineligible for Discovery. Under the 2018 eligibility change, students must attend a school where at least 60% of their classmates are economically disadvantaged.
At Derek’s school, 59% of students fell into that category last year.
“They should qualify the conditions of the kid who’s applying for the program, not the zone where he lives, or the school where he studies,” Derek said.
A Conspiracy Against Specialized High Schools?
City Journal, 12/5/2024
NYC public schools loosen reading curriculum mandate after teacher, principal pushback
NY Daily News, 12/5/2024
You Survived the New York City High School Admissions Process. Now what?
Tara Altebrando, 12/5/2024
US Math Crisis
U.S. math scores drop on major international test
Chalkbeat, 12/4/2024
U.S. fourth graders saw their math scores drop steeply between 2019 and 2023 on a key international test even as more than a dozen other countries saw their scores improve. Scores dropped even more steeply for American eighth graders, a grade where only three countries saw increases.
The declines in fourth grade mathematics in the U.S. were among the largest in the participating countries, though American students are still in the middle of the pack internationally. The extent of the decline seems to be driven by the lowest performing students losing more ground, a worrying trend that predates the pandemic.
Make America normal again, what’s next for colleges and other commentary
NY Post Editorial, 12/4/2024
Curriculum Lawsuit
Two Mass. families sue famed literacy specialists, claiming reading curriculums were intentionally flawed
Boston Globe, 12/4/2024
In what appears to be a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, two local families on Wednesday sued literacy specialists Lucy Calkins, Irene Fountas, and Gay Su Pinnell, whose reading curriculums have been used in more than a third of Massachusetts school districts, alleging they deliberately ignored the scientific consensus about the importance of phonics to early reading to the detriment of their children’s learning.
Community College Classes for High School Students Explode in Idaho, Indiana
The 74 Million, 12/4/2024
Four Insights into U.S. Students’ Drop in Math & Science on International Test
The 74 Million, 12/4/2024
Asians in DEI Crosshairs
San Francisco’s $30,000 ‘Equity-Centered’ School Closure Plan—Put on Hold After Parent Uproar—Used DEI Formulas To ‘Target’ High-Performing, Majority-Asian School
Washington Free Beacon, 12/4/2024
Amid a severe budget crisis, the San Francisco Unified School District superintendent decided in March that some schools in the chronically dysfunctional, poorly performing public system needed to close. So it paid a Stanford University professor $30,000 to create an “equity-centered” formula that would determine which ones would shutter.
After the results were announced in October, parents revolted, the school superintendent was forced to resign, and the closure plan was shelved indefinitely. Two weeks later, city voters ousted their embattled mayor, London Breed. Now, as the school district tries to rebuild under new leadership, the Stanford professor’s DEI-focused closure plan is coming under increasingly harsh scrutiny, especially from San Francisco’s Asian community. Asian parents are enraged that the closure plan targeted a high-performing elementary school whose students are overwhelmingly low-income and Asian.
The now-paused closure plan, parents argue, used a custom formula that rewarded poor-performing black and Hispanic schools and targeted low-income, high-performing Asian children for cutbacks.
Lawsuit calls reading curriculum ‘deceptive’ and ‘defective’
APM Reports, 12/4/2024
Feeling the Pinch
Earn $800,000? You Might Get Financial Aid at an Elite N.Y.C. School.
NY Times, 12/3/2024
It’s one thing to be rich in New York City these days. It’s quite another to be able to afford private school.
The city’s top independent schools now charge around $65,000 a year and, increasingly, offer partial financial aid to parents who are among the highest earners in the country — but still make many millions of dollars less than the richest families in their communities.
This divide between the haves and have-mores helps tell the story of a city turned so upside down by rising prices that even the very upper end of the middle class is feeling squeezed.
NYC parents are turning away from Harlem schools, but a new plan has upset the neighborhood
NY Daily News, 12/3/2024
NYC High School Chances of Admission Predictions
Amelie Marian, 12/2/2021
Detracking Disaster
In Newton, we tried an experiment in educational equity. It has failed: ‘Multilevel classrooms’ are not working for teachers or students, writes the head of Newton South High School’s Faculty Council.
Boston Globe, 12/2/2024
In autumn 2021, against the already-challenging backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and remote learning, the Newton Public Schools decided to carry out a complex initiative at its two high schools known as “multilevel classrooms.” Previously, most classes at Newton’s high schools were given a label: honors, advanced college prep, or college prep, with honors offering the most challenging content.
…Three years later, some answers are becoming clear, and they are troubling. Newton South’s Faculty Council, an elected group that advocates on behalf of staff and of which I am chair, has been listening to complaints from teachers about how poorly these classes are going.
NYC expands career education program, offering students experience in HVAC industry and more
Chalkbeat, 12/2/2024
A Review of New York State’s Foundation Aid Education Funding Formula With Recommendations For Improvement
The Rockefeller Institute, 12/1/2024
Trump’s School-Choice Agenda Hits Pushback From Red-State Voters
Wall Street Journal, 11/29/2024
Fewer Students, Same Funding
NYC schools bring back controversial pandemic-era policy —and experts warn it is ‘rewarding failure’
NY Post, 11/27/2024
New York City public schools with fewer students than anticipated this fall will not have their budgets slashed, officials announced Wednesday — reverting to a controversial pandemic-era policy.
would have seen cuts totaling $157 million had the mid-year budget adjustments proceeded as planned, the city Department of Education said. The other half, which saw an increase in students, will get an $146 million total influx.
Facing legal threats, colleges back off race-based programs
Hechinger Report, 11/27/2024
CUNY chancellor blasted at NYC Council hearing over antisemitism policies after critical report on Gaza protests
NY Daily News, 11/26/2024
Suspensions declined last year, but NYC schools issued more lengthy punishments
Chalkbeat, 11/26/2024
Grading Issues
Survey: For Most Parents, Grades Have Lost Ground as Measure of Student Progress
The 74 Million, 11/25/2024
Parents have traditionally relied on grades to gauge how their children are performing in school.
But new data suggests that’s changing.
In a recent national survey of 20,000 parents, respondents said they trust communication from their children’s teachers more than any other source of information to judge whether their kids are on track. That was the case regardless of whether parents thought their children performed on grade level.
DEI programs can actually escalate hostility and racial tensions, new study claims; NYT accused of spiking story
NY Post, 11/25/2025
ICYMI
Linda McMahon’s Metamorphosis: Ed Nominee’s Journey Mirrors the GOP’s Turn to Trump
The 74 Million, 11/25/2024
Compared to others who have held the post, Linda McMahon, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the U.S. Department of Education, has a resume thin on school expertise. She made that clear when she auditioned for her first education leadership job in 2009.
“I don’t come before you today as an educator,” she told a Connecticut legislative committee reviewing her appointment to join the State Board of Education. “I make no bones about that.”
A theory for learning numbers without counting gains popularity
Hechinger Report, 11/25/2024
Push to digitize NYC entrance exam for specialized high schools reignites equity debate
NY Daily News, 11/23/2024
How Democrats Lost The Plot On Education
Daily Caller, 11/23/2024
He Said What?
NYC comptroller says ‘urgent need’ to fix school board election process before spring voting
Chalkbeat, 11/22/2024
A New York City comptroller investigation raised serious concerns about how the Education Department handled the 2023 Community Education Council elections, according to findings Comptroller Brad Lander sent this week to schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos.
…Lander said that [DOE] FACE mishandled its response to PLACE’s endorsements.
FACE did not consider PLACE endorsements as political, the letter explained, unlike endorsements made by another group, NYC Kids PAC, which tends to support integration and other progressive policies. Because Kids PAC is registered as a political action committee, FACE treated its picks as “political endorsements” and even disqualified one candidate because of her promotion of the endorsement.
…Lisa Marks, co-president of PLACE, said her organization was never contacted by the comptroller’s office and was unaware of the investigation.
School did nothing wrong when it punished student for using AI, court rules
ARS Technica, 11/21/2024
SUNY Has Adopted a Program to Hire Minority Professors
Minding the Campus, 11/20/2024
Boston U Suspends Admissions to Humanities and Social Science Ph.D. Programs
Inside Higher Ed. 11/19/2024
Gifted Neglect
Commentary: Meet California’s most neglected group of students with special needs: the gifted ones
Los Angeles Times, 11/18/2024
Schools have generally been working hard to meet the special educational needs of an array of students — those with learning disabilities, those learning English, those with behavioral issues and those whose households struggle with poverty. But they have widely neglected one major group of students with special needs: the academically gifted.
…To its credit, the Los Angeles Unified School District has retained gifted education, with programs catering to different academic and creative skills. One is for highly gifted students, who may be well into college material in some areas while still high school sophomores. But proportional underenrollment of students of color led the district to relax its requirements for entry before it recently reversed course. The criteria should be fairly simple: whether a student needs to and can advance extremely quickly through academic material.
LAUSD abruptly ends new admissions rules for gifted students amid parent fury over standards
Los Angeles Times, 11/18/2024
Did School Battles Hurt Democrats in Liberal Strongholds?
NY Times, 11/18/2024
What a School Performance Shows Us About Japanese Education
NY Times, op-ed by Ema Ryan Yamazaki, 11/18/2024
Moving Goalposts
NYSED Releases Months-Late Student Scores
Empire Center, 11/15/2024
The New York State Education Department has released data showing outcomes from New York’s 2024 state assessment tests, taken by students in grades 3 to 8 last spring. This is the third year in a row that state education officials have failed to release the data until well into the next school year.
The Empire Center has made the data, going back to school year 2013-14, searchable by school, school district, county and school type.
Unfortunately, the newest data say little about how outcomes have improved or declined due to repeated changes in the state Education Department’s definition of “proficient.”
Enrollment dips slightly at NYC public schools after Mayor Adams limits shelter stays
Gothamist, 11/15/2024