School & District Management Report Roundup

N.Y.C. Entrance Exam Questioned

By Christina A. Samuels — October 28, 2008 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

A graduate of one of New York City’s most competitive public high schools has written a policy brief suggesting that the admissions process for those schools may not produce equitable or valid results.

Joshua N. Feinman, the chief economist and managing director of the New York City-based Deutsche Asset Management in the Americas, an investment bank, said there are no studies that indicate the test used for admission to the schools is the best way to get the highest-achieving students.

The scores are also scaled in such a way that students with a very high score in one section and a lower score in the other have a better chance of admission than students with relatively strong performance in both sections, said Mr. Feinman, a graduate of Stuyvesant High School, one of the specialized schools that he cites in his policy brief.

Though he’s not a researcher, Mr. Feinman said he started digging into the issue when his daughter was preparing for the entrance test, called the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test. She is now a junior at Bronx Science, another long-established specialized school in the city. He based his contentions on data given to him by the district.

The other specialized high schools that require the test are Queens College, Lehman College, Brooklyn Technical, City College, Staten Island Technical, and Brooklyn Latin. Admission is governed solely by scores on the entrance exam.

Last year, about 26,000 students took the entrance exam, which is given on one day, with no makeup test allowed. About 5,200 students were offered seats, said Andrew Jacob, a spokesman for the New York City district.

Mr. Jacob said the test’s validity is demonstrated every year by the academic achievement and graduation rates of students at the specialized high schools.

The report is being published online jointly by the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University in Tempe and the Education and the Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the October 29, 2008 edition of Education Week

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management 3 Tips to Help Districts Navigate Educator Layoffs
Keep cuts in line with the district's overarching goals, an expert advises.
3 min read
Illustration of scissors cutting row of paper dolls.
iStock / Getty Images Plus
School & District Management Teachers Hate All Those Meetings. Can Principals Find a Workaround?
Principals can't do away with every meeting, but they can reduce some and make others more effective.
4 min read
Image of a staff meeting.
E+/Getty
School & District Management Q&A When This Principal Talks About Mental Health, People Listen. Here's Why
The NASSP Advocacy Champion of the year said he used stories from his school and community to speak with his state’s legislators.
6 min read
Chris Young, a principal from Vermont, poses for a photo in front of a Senate office building in Washington, D.C.
Chris Young, a principal from Vermont, stands in front of a Senate office building in Washington on March 13, 2024. Young was among the secondary principals to meet with legislators urging them to keep federal funding for schools stable.
Olina Banerji/Education Week
School & District Management Teacher Layoffs Are Mounting. How Districts Can Soften the Blow
Layoffs are coming in districts large and small. Here's how district leaders can handle them.
8 min read
Pencil Eraser Erasing Drawn Figure
AndreyPopov/iStock/Getty