Yesterday a friend, whose 8th grade daughter is applying to public high schools, called in a panic because she’d heard a rumor that the students who score into the specialized high schools (Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, etc.) get their pick of the other high schools and the rest of the students get their left-overs.
My friend’s daughter isn’t planning on taking the specialized test because she isn’t interested in attending Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Latin, etc. Still, my friend was concerned that not taking the test would put her at a disadvantage for getting into the high school of her choice.
I knew it couldn’t be true that kids who didn’t take the test were in this way penalized so I called Joyce Szuflita of NYC School Help, who is something of a public high school admissions guru in these parts. We spoke on the phone for an hour and then she said she’d do a blog post on the subject. I was relieved because my notes were a mess and I was a little confused about the whole thing anyway — all the talk of algorirthms, etc. Here is an excerpt from her very informative blog post called, “Don’t shout “algorithm conspiracy!” in crowded middle school.”
It has been brought to my attention that there is a belief among 8th grade parents that the students who score into the specialized HS get their pick of the high schools and the rest of the students get their left-overs.
To the best of my knowledge this is untrue. I have been chasing the details of this process for years, and here is what I understand from talking to the people who understand the algorithm, the timing of the running of the algorithm and the people at the DOE who work in the secret magic cave where the computers do their work.
First, just to throw a trickle of water on this fire, the DOE can be accused of a lot of things but no one can doubt that they go to crazy lengths to try to be fair and whether they succeed or not (and often they don’t), the conspiracy theorists can calm themselves knowing that this is one of the DOE’s first mandates…