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Billionaires, Alumni, Asian Parents Prevail… and Admissions Tests Continue in NYC
Over the past several weeks, I’ve written posts on NYC’s decision to push to change the admissions process to the city’s elite high schools, which is based solely on one test score. The result of using this test is a disproportionate number of Asian students in the elite schools and a substantial under-representation of African-American and Latina students in those schools. To remedy this imbalance, the Mayor de Blasio and his education commissioner Richard Carranza proposed that Instead of using test scores as the exclusive means of admitting students the “elite” schools would admit the top three students from each middle school in the city IF those students scored above a certain level on the test. But, as NYTimes writers Eliza Shapiro and Vivian Wang reported earlier this week, the result of doing this would be the displacement of students who scored higher than those top students on the existing test, students who presumably “deserved” their placement because the test is a better predictor of student success than the grades the students earned in their Middle School.
As recently as a few weeks ago it seemed that the NYS legislators, who need to approve this change for reasons that are convoluted and intertwined with NYS politics, would endorse the Mayor’s proposal… but a coalition of billionaire donors, esteemed alumni of the “elite” high schools, and Asian parents joined forces to get the Mayor’s idea shelved. The Times writers described the backlash, which included “...a well-funded opposition effort led by a billionaire graduate of one of the specialized schools sent African-American parents to lawmakers’ doors, urging them to reject the bill.” But no billionaires or parents showed up to support the bill:
There were no rallies in support of the mayor’s plan on the Capitol’s grand staircase and almost no lobbyists pushed it — except Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Carranza and their staff members. During a visit to the Capitol last week, Mr. Carranza said he had not spoken with the bill’s main sponsor, Assemblyman Charles Barron of Brooklyn, about whether the bill might be brought to the floor.
Absent any groundswell of support for the bill, and given the extreme pushback from parents whose children were admitted and alumni who felt compelled to ensure the “elite” status of their alma maters, the bill to change admissions became so “radioactive” it was never even considered.
The Times noted that a “victory” would not change the demographics of the “elite schools”.
Even under the mayor’s plan to expand a program aimed at enrolling more low-income students in the specialized schools, offers to black and Hispanic students will increase to only 16 percent from 10 percent. Black and Hispanic students make up nearly 70 percent of the school system as a whole.
But that statistical reality notwithstanding, the Mayor sees the abandonment of tests as an important step the city needs to take if it hopes to increase the educational opportunities for ALL students in the schools:
“Cities all over the nation have turned away from completely unfiltered, high-stakes testing and our state remains stuck in the past,” Mr. de Blasio said Friday. “Session may have ended, but our quest to provide our kids with the best opportunity possible has not.”
The article noted that the Mayor’s run for the Presidency drew some energy away from this fight… but maybe if a Democrat wins the election they might consider replacing Betsy DeVos with Bill de Blasio… and he might be able to take his opposition to standardized tests to the next level.
DeVos Adopts Caveat Emptor Approach to Student Debt… Profiteers Smile!
In an unsurprising “Dog Bites Man” development, Betsy DeVos repealed the Obama era guidelines designed to punish for-profit schools for misleading consumers and replaced them with a set of guidelines designed to provide consumers with more information…. and letting the profiteers off the hook entirely.
NYTimes reporter Erica Green describes it thusly in her article on the topic:
The so-called gainful employment rule was issued by the Obama administration in 2014, right before huge for-profit chains collapsed, leaving students stranded with debt and worthless degrees. Under the new standards, career and certificate programs, many of which operate in the for-profit sector, would have to prove their graduates could find gainful employment to maintain access to federal financial aid. It also would have required schools to disclose in advertisements a comparison of the student debt load of their graduates and their career earnings…
Education Department officials have argued that transparency, not regulation, is the best way to hold all schools — public nonprofits, community colleges and for-profits — accountable for their results. Instead of any accountability measures, it promised to expand an existing database, called the College Scorecard, to provide information on student debt and earnings prospects. The database, which provides information, including loan debt information, for 2,100 certificate granting programs, was unveiled last month.
In short, the USDOE shifted the burden of proof and responsibility from profiteers to consumers… a move that likely foreshadows how the marketplace might work should Ms. DeVos and her libertarian minded charter school advocates have their way with vouchers. The consequence of this shift is described by Ms. Green:
But in rescinding the rule, the department is eradicating the most fearsome accountability measure — the loss of federal aid — for schools that promise to furnish students with specific career skills but fail to prepare them for the job market, leaving taxpayers on the hook to pay back their loans…
Bob Shireman, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and an architect of the rule when he was in the Obama administration, called the repeal “disturbing and shortsighted.”
“They are opening the door to operators whose singular focus on gobbling up federal grants and loans for their investors will steer the business toward manipulative recruiting and poor quality training,” he said.
Meanwhile, the relief for thousands of indebted former students of those schools “…whose singular focus on gobbling up federal grants and loans for their investors” is in limbo as the USDOE delays decisions on how to handle the money they owe to the government:
…Ms. DeVos has moved to overhaul that “borrower-defense” rule as well, hoping to give some students only partial relief. That process has been tied up in court proceedings, leaving more than 150,000 student claims in limbo.
“Borrower Defense” is replaced by “Caveat Emptor” and the businessmen “…whose singular focus on gobbling up federal grants and loans for their investors” are relieved and elated… and the edu-preneurs are getting their ads for charter schools geared up for the day when vouchers expand.
Kamala Harris Scores Points in Debate #2…. but Is Busing the Way Forward?
The NYTimes and myriad other news sources recounted an exchange between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden in the second Democratic Party Debate. Here’s a synopsis from a “Top Stories” email I received written by Lisa Lerer:
| Last night, former Vice President Joe Biden had a moment. And it wasn’t pretty. |
| It started when Senator Kamala Harris interjected into a conversation about racism with a request: “As the only black person on this stage, I would like to speak on the issue of race.” |
| She then laced into comments Mr. Biden made at a fund-raiser earlier this month where he fondly recalled his working relationships with segregationists in the Senate, as well as his active opposition to busing in the 1970s. |
| “It’s personal,” she said. “It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.” |
| She continued: “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.” |
| Mr. Biden, an experienced debater, looked defensive and a bit offended, and he struggled to respond. He noted he’d worked as a public defender in 1968, unlike Ms. Harris, who was a prosecutor. And then, he seemed to simply give up: “Anyway,” he said, “my time is up.” |
As noted above, in recounting her personal experience Ms. Harris DID unsettle Mr. Biden… but, as Ms. Lerer noted later in her synopsis, busing has not proven to be an effective means of desegregation. In an NPR report from 2016, which was linked to Ms. Lerer’s email, Arizona State professor Matthew Delmont offered this analysis of why busing failed:
A couple things happen that make it difficult to sustain busing programs into the ’80s and ’90s.
One is the tremendous amount of white flight that happens in cities like Boston, so there just simply aren’t enough white students to go around to have meaningful school desegregation. This is true in Chicago, in Los Angeles, in New York.
The other thing that happens is busing placed a tremendous burden on black students and on students of color. In most cases, they were the ones that were asked to travel to the suburbs, travel sometimes to hostile neighborhoods. For many parents, that simply isn’t worth it after a number of years.
If Democrats are committed to racial equity, they may want to avoid hitching their wagon to busing and instead look at ways to provide desegregated affordable housing in each and every district in the country and/or provide each and every student— rich or poor, white black or Latina— with the same opportunities for learning that students in affluent school districts receive routinely. The argument cannot be focused on busing as the ultimate solution, for there is no evidence that busing worked for the wider population of Africa Americans even though it clearly worked for Ms. Harris.
Vote even if you think it doesn’t matter…. and be grateful you still can!
Network Schools - Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for 