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January 12, 2021

The Education Department will administer an entrance exam for its gifted and talented programs to four-year-olds this spring -- but it will be the last time.

The city’s gifted and talented programs have become a flashpoint in recent years, as Mayor de Blasio has pledged to diversify city classrooms, which are among the nation’s most segregated. 

What You Need To Know

• The Education Department will administer an entrance exam for its gifted and talented programs to four-year-olds this spring -- but it will be the last time

• The programs have become a flashpoint in recent years amid pushes to diversify city schools

• The city will spend the next year getting feedback to create a new accelerated program

Like the controversial specialized high school admissions process, entrance is determined by a single, high-stakes exam -- but in this case, an exam given to four-year-olds. Critics say that makes it a better determiner of privilege -- some toddlers are tutored for the test -- than of talent.

But the program has supporters from across the political spectrum -- and among many parents -- who have argued the city ought to increase the number of seats available rather than scrap it.

Students applying to attend city kindergartens in fall of 2021 will still take the exam this year, and it will be given in person beginning in April.

“For our youngest learners, we must move forward and develop a system that reimagines accelerated learning and enrichment,” NYC Department of Education spokeswoman Miranda Barbot said. “At the same time, we want to honor the fact that families have been planning kindergarten admissions for many months now. We will develop new plans for identifying and serving exceptional students and release them for the next enrollment cycle.”

A proposed contract for the test company Pearson to administer the exam was posted Tuesday evening, ahead of a vote by the Panel for Education Policy on January 27. 

The test is normally given in January, but the department says families will receive scores in the early summer, and will have enough time to apply to gifted and talented programs before the school year start.

While the test will be scrapped next year, the future of the program is less clear; the DOE plans to spend the next year determining what it might look like through a community engagement process.

“We will spend the next year engaging communities around what kind of programming they would like to see that is more inclusive, enriching, and truly supports the needs of academically advanced and diversely talented students at a more appropriate age,” Barbot said. “We will also engage communities around how best to integrate enriched learning opportunities to more students, so that every student – regardless of a label or a class that they are in – can access rigorous learning that is tailored to their needs and fosters their creativity, passion, and strengths.”

In 2019, a task force assembled by the mayor to help increase diversity in schools recommended that the city no longer track students deem gifted and talented into separate classes from their peers. The task force was co-chaired by Maya Wiley, who is running for mayor.

The classes are disproportionately Asian and white compared to the school system at large: 20% of all kindergartners this school year were Asian, but Asian students accounted for 43% of kindergartners in gifted and talented programs. White students accounted for 20% of all kindergartners but 36% of gifted and talented students.

Meanwhile, while 40% percent of all kindergarten students are Hispanic, they make up only 8% of the kindergartners in gifted and talented. And while 17% of all kindergartners this year are Black, just 6% of gifted and talented kindergartners were Black.

The programs see high demand for comparatively few seats: about 15,000 students apply each year, for just 2,500 kindergarten slots. Those seats are seen as a track for getting into the city’s most competitive middle and high schools.

Students who are already in gifted and talented programs, and those who start this fall, will be able to complete their elementary school program.

While the mayor has been outspoken about his opposition to using a single, high-stakes test for high school admissions, he's previously not taken a clear stand on the gifted and talented exam. This change comes in the final year of his mayoralty, and would go into effect essentially as a new mayor takes office.

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December 18, 2020

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Sweeping changes to New York City’s specialized high school and competitive middle school application process were announced Friday by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and vocal critics calling for more diversity in the city’s most esteemed schools.

“The COVID-19 crisis has exposed longstanding inequities in our city’s public schools,” said de Blasio. “Now, as we rebuild our city, we are expanding opportunities for all public-school students and doubling down on our mission to provide a quality education for all, regardless of a child’s ZIP code.”

Among the changes: Middle schools will temporarily pause academic “screens” to select students. Instead, they will select students through a lottery system. This means students applying to middle school will not be selected based on previously used screening criteria, including grades, student interviews, school-based assessments, behavioral evaluations, standardized test scores and attendance

The city Department of Education (DOE) will evaluate this one-year pause on middle school screens in the enrollment cycle for the 2022-23 school year, depending on the availability of data for next year’s applicants and the outcomes.

HIGH SCHOOL ADMISSIONS TEST

At the high school level, the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) will be administered in students’ own middle school to reduce travel and mixing of different cohorts of children.

Eight specialized high schools in New York City currently offer admission to students based on the score on the SHSAT.

These schools are: Staten Island Technical High School in New Dorp; Stuyvesant High School; Bronx High School of Science; Brooklyn Latin School; Brooklyn Technical High School; High School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College; High School for American Studies at Lehman College; and Queens High School for Sciences at York College.

SHSAT registration will close on Jan. 15, 2021. It will be administered beginning in late January. Families can complete applications via the MySchools portal, by calling P311, or through a virtual Family Welcome Center.

The city will also temporarily eliminate a district-based admissions preference for high schools for the upcoming admissions cycle. Other geographic priorities, like borough preferences, will be eliminated for the following admission cycle, the DOE confirmed.

Opponents of district-based admission argue that the system has allowed some of the city’s wealthiest ZIP codes an easier path into the desirable schools in their community.

In other pandemic-related changes, performing arts auditions are going virtual. Students will only need to create one audition that can be submitted for all schools that require it.

Schools will also be required to publicly publish their rubric criteria on MySchools, and the ranking process will be centralized to ensure equity and transparency.

EMPOWERING STUDENTS

“It is my responsibility to deliver the highest-quality education possible to each child, so that they are prepared for a successful, productive life, and empowered with the skills they need to chase their dreams and lead us all forward,” said Carranza. “This year, we have faced the unknown together, and as we look ahead, we know that opening up more of our schools to more of our students will make our system stronger and more equitable for all.”

Additionally, the DOE plans to expand District Diversity Plan grants, which Staten Island’s District 31 participates in, to five more districts. Those applications will open soon.

Integration advocates have been pushing for changes for years, noting a lack of diversity among the city’s specialized high schools.

The current middle school process favors wealthier families who have the time and connections to navigate through it, they say.

SPECIALIZED HIGH SCHOOL ENROLLMENT DATA

Two hundred and eighty-six students were offered admission to Staten Island Technical High School in the fall of 2020, including one student is Black and eight Latino students, according to numbers from the DOE.

And, for the third year in a row, the number of Asian students offered admission to Tech exceeded offers made to white students. Out of the 286 students, a total of 185 Asian students received offers to the freshman class, while 81 white students were accepted, data shows.

There were 27,831 students across the city who competed for seats at the city’s specialized high schools in 2020, according to DOE numbers. Across the city, 4,265 students received offers.

Citywide last year, 4.5% of the offers went to black students, and 6.6% went to Latino students. Fifty-four percent of offers went to Asian students, 2.3% went to multi-racial students, 0.9% went to Native American students, and 25.1% went to white students, DOE data shows.

According to the DOE, 2019-2020 attendance and punctuality will not impact applications to middle or high schools for students entering high school in fall 2021.

Parents and students can explore schools and programs with the searchable MySchools directory. 

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October 15, 2020

NEW YORK, NY – New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Education Committee Chair Mark Treyger today announced key findings based on remote learning attendance data from the city Education Department (DOE), which was received in response to a subpoena issued by the New York City Council last month. That data on more than 1,500 schools shows racial disparities in student engagement – loosely defined as attendance that was tracked by student emails or participation in remote check-ins – during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Highlights from the remote learning attendance data include:

• Schools where at least half the student population was Black and Hispanic were nearly eight times more likely to report low student engagement or poor attendance compared to schools with lower Black and Hispanic populations.

• Schools where 25% or more of the students were Black were nearly four times more likely to report low student engagement than schools with fewer Black students

• Schools where 25% of more of the population was white showed high student engagement.

• These racial disparities data mirror attendance data from 2019, highlighting that these inequities continued during our pandemic.

“By forcing the Education Department to release attendance data on the pandemic, the City Council was able to confirm what many feared – that there were racial disparities in student engagement during remote learning. But we are still not seeing the full scope of the inequities that exist in remote learning because we don’t have specifics on what type of instruction these students received. The school system’s policy is to say a student attended even if all they did was send a text or email. The de Blasio Administration needs to provide us with more clarity and understanding of remote learning during COVID-19 so we can properly address the disparities and provide the support New York City’s students need. I thank Education Committee Chair Treyger for his leadership on this issue and for always being our students’ biggest advocate,” said Speaker Corey Johnson.

“The City administration cannot dismiss the significance of this concerning attendance data. It further paints a picture of a city perpetuating the divide between well-resourced and under-resourced communities. At the May hearing on remote learning, I asked how many kids never logged onto a device. I asked for school by school attendance data because as a former teacher, I understand how attendance is a major indicator of student progress and school climate. We need this information to know how to target and fight for additional support for kids who need it the most,” said Council Member Mark Treyger, Chair of the Committee on Education.  

The data was originally requested in May by Education Chair Treyger at an oversight hearing titled, “Remote Learning: The Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on the City’s Schools.” The daily remote learning attendance data provided by the Education Department is from April 6 – June 26 for the Spring 2020 semester, July 6 to August 14 for the Summer 2020 semester, and September 16 and 17 for the Fall semester. 

New York City schools shut down on March 16, 2020. Schools transitioned to remote learning a week later but after six months there are still unresolved issues that are preventing students from receiving a high-quality remote education, such as access to the internet and mandated special education services.

Remote learning attendance data is critical, but it doesn’t tell us if the student is really interacting with the teacher. On Friday, during an oversight hearing on school reopening by Council Committees on Education and Health, the Council will review two bills designed to obtain better metrics.

The hearing will review Intro 2104-2020 (Treyger) which would require the Education Department to report on a series of metrics any time the department is engaged in remote learning such as participation in synchronous and/or asynchronous remote learning instruction, IEP evaluations completed as well as mandated services provided to students with disabilities, among other metrics. The first report would be due on August 1, 2021, for the 2020-2021 academic year, and the 2019-2020 academic year report would be due on February 1, 2021. 

The second bill, Intro 2058-2020 (Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Treyger), would require the Education Department to provide weekly mandated reports on student attendance data when remote learning is utilized fully or combined with in-person learning. The data would be required to be disaggregated by the school, school district, grade, race, individualized education plan status, multilingual language learner status and English language learner status.

You can access the DOE’s full data set on remote learning attendance here.

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[1] For the purposes of this table, a school encountered a significant barrier to student interaction if its median daily student interaction rate for the period was low enough to put it in the bottom 20% of all schools. For Spring 2020, this means an interaction rate below about 79%, and for Spring 2019, it means a rate below about 89%.

[1] DOE’s attendance data for Spring 2019 can be found on the NYC Open Data Portal athttps://data.cityofnewyork.us/Education/2018-2019-Daily-Attendance/x3bb-kg5j.

[1] Student populations were estimated using Fall 2020 enrollment data provided in DOE’s subpoena response materials.

[1] COVID-19 data for each zip code is maintained by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and can be found online at https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data. A “high” COVID-19 death rate means a death rate that would put the zip code in the top 20% of all zip codes.