Low-income students with dreams of attending one of New York City’s specialized high schools will finally have an equal shot at admittance if new legislation is passed.
State senators Jamaal T. Bailey, representing Norwood, and his colleague Toby Ann Stavisky introduced a legislative package geared at widening diversity in specialized high schools by making the admission process more equitable.
Black and Latino students accounted for only 11 percent of those admitted to specialized high schools in 2016, despite making up 68 percent of the city’s entire student body.
According to Department of Education (DOE) admissions data, black and Latino students account for just eight percent the Bronx High School of Science’s 2016 student body, down from 19 percent in 2003.
According to Bailey and Stavisky, low-income middle schoolers can’t afford expensive prep courses for the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), putting them at a disadvantage compared to wealthier students. The bill would also target the disproportionate levels of pre-test tutoring between black and Latino students, and Asian-American students, who have the highest rate of admittance to specialized schools.
The lack of economic and racial diversity in specialized high schools has personal implications for Bailey and Stavisky, who both attended Bronx Science High School. “Attending Bronx Science opened many doors that led to my success. Income status and ethnic background should not be factors of whether a student has the opportunity to attend these schools,” said Bailey.
The proposed bill would create a pre-SHSAT exam to prepare students for the real test, along with expanding test prep initiatives like the DREAM-SHSI (Specialized High Schools Institute) and the Discovery Program, which are geared toward low-income students yet are not widely available or publicized throughout the public school system.
The bill would also establish a diversity commission to monitor the fairness of admissions policies and programs.
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
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They need to start their prep programs and academic enrichment much earlier in middle school this time around AND have it all run right up to the test. In 2017, the program ran for a few weeks in the spring to prepare kids for a test happening months later (in Oct) – I doubt that was the best plan.
They should prepare the students for elementary level, all the way to the middle school level, and offer them free test prep before taking the real SHSAT. What good is it to offer 6 months of test prep to students who are never ready nor proficient in English/Math since elementary school levels? This so-called quick fix for low-income middle school students will better benefit academic ready low-income Caucasians and Asians who shall not be excluded in any public school programs due to racism. In this way, this quick fix program will be backfiring at the diversity. Let’s start with a program to support parents who are the backbones of their children’s early learning development.