Repeal the Hecht-Calandra Act👩🏿‍⚖️⚖️

@Ed_Realist @EdWatcherNYC @ycinnewyork SHSAT prep gets kids into specialized HS, not their regular classes.

Oh, bullshit. Somehow the same teachers manage to prepare the Asians and whites. Whites, blacks, and Hispanics with abilities to go to the specialized high schools don't want to go. They don't like the schools. Inside NYC, specialized high schools aren't as highly regarded as outside.

Haimson sees Asians as “white adjacent”, not POC. In NYC’s Specialized High Schools, Asian students are majority low income and most from immigrant households. Former Mayor De Blasio commissioned a study *hoping* to discredit the SHSAT, but results show the test is predictive of academic performance. “But on Friday, the city’s Education Department released for the first time a study it had commissioned in 2013 that showed a strong positive relationship between doing well on the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test and high school academic performance.” Many academic screened and audition schools that use multiple factors yield extreme gender bias. Townsend Harris and LaGuardia HS had/has >70% girls yet crickets from Haimson. nytimes.com/2018/08/03/nyr…

@GaTechAlum_IE92 @JohnHMcWhorter No one is saying that about Black students. This is a strawman argument. This test also shuts out Latino students. White students, girls, and poor students are all underrepresented at these schools because of this test.

@JohnHMcWhorter I don’t think there’s any serious narrative that black kid shouldn’t take standardized tesst. That ship has failed (ahem…sailed)

A lot of people out there think it's just inappropriate to make Black kids take a standardized test. Quite a few who think that are Black, and some even say it out straight. One of them is quite famous and wears dreadlocks. 1. They're wrong. 2. Do these people realize they sound just like the crowd who shout to the heavens that Black people are the world's dimmest (ON AVERAGE, blah blah - yes, but still)? nytimes.com/2026/07/16/opi…

@CapitainPants @o____five @JohnHMcWhorter We have grades to measure academic achievement. And grades are superior predictors (and grades are free). So why are we spending millions every year sorting middle school kids with a 100 m.c. test when we have their grades?

@o____five @JohnHMcWhorter Academic achievement. It's determined by gaining academic mastery. Students tend to perform very close to what testing predicted. That's not a 100% accuracy rate, but if you can tell me about something more accurate, I'm all ears.

@PaulLeach51 @o____five @JohnHMcWhorter The acronym means little, and the SHSAT is not as predictive of SHS grades as middle school grades. SHSAT isn't measuring anything. It RANKS sts who are taking the same exam. 26k sts take the 100 m.c. math/English exam, and top ~4k scores (to fractions of a point) get offers

The "A" is SHSAT stands for "aptitude" not "intelligence", and the second "S" is for scholastic. The test is intended to measure preparation for further academic work, and lots of evidence shows that it does just that. Students who score lower need to helped with less intensive instruction, not thrown into an environment where they are likely to fail.

@o____five @JohnHMcWhorter Out of hundreds of responses this cycle, believe yours is the first I've read asking "what's in the test?" It's telling that people who overwhelmingly support the SHSAT have NO idea of its psychometric attributes. This is a ~100 math/English m.c. above-grade exam.

@JohnHMcWhorter Who developed the tests? What’s their background and education? What is their understanding of intelligence, how did they learn this? How much experience do they have living and learning in different cultures with different understandings of intelligence and pedagogy?

@davidmantweet @JohnHMcWhorter I don't believe that was her point. She correctly predicted that the law considering gender when evaluating will be used against women in the future. Like the 14th Amendment being used to strike down diversity initiatives.

@JohnHMcWhorter The notorious RBG famously litigated against a law that gave women the ability to buy beer for less money than men. She argued that any time a law gives a benefit to women, there's a sexist assumption that underlies that law.

@Banglaphile @JohnHMcWhorter @PeterMoskos Hochul's statements are racist. I don't hear many on either side arguing otherwise.

@JohnHMcWhorter @PeterMoskos I don’t say this to be edgy, but it seems like some liberals believe the same stereotypes as racist conservatives, but simply have a different reaction. Like, Hochul’s “black kids don’t know what a computer is.”

@ArosenDoc @JohnHMcWhorter You didn't know that because it's not true. Did he cite a source? Black students are not getting into prestigious private schools because they otherwise would have gone to Stuy.

Regarding your op-ed in the print edition of my NYT, I commend you for tackling the unpleasant issue of the paucity of black students at highly competitive high schools like Stuyvesant, which solely (and ‘blindly’) rely on standardized achievement tests like the SHSAT for admission. My granddaughter, who graduated a few years ago from Stuy, decided to take the test and leave a privileged Jewish day school because she wanted the diversity and challenge her fellow Stuy classmates offered. She found it and loved her experience. I am a neoconservative who hated to see racists take the raw numbers as proof that “analytical reasoning required by standardized tests is incompatible with blackness”. However, you explain that other confounding variables are present that dramatically and understandably shrink the pool of potential black applicants to these schools; like the fact that numerous programs early identify and sift out promising black students in public and parochial schools in order to funnel them into “scholarship programs at private schools, boarding schools and parochial schools intended to increase the diversity of their privileged student bodies”. I wasn't fully aware of that; I'm glad you found that to be the case; and thank you for the rigor of your analysis. My only qualm is your using Charles Murray as a punching bag for fighting racism. While reading Murray is controversial, (and taboo in some places), I’ve never found him to expound racist ideas. In my view, to say otherwise is unfair.

@JCColtin @joeanuta Don't think that's entirely true about Adams. Though it's easy to say that bcs he's Black and hence his ethnicity appears front and center. Adams went around and told every group exactly what they wanted to hear; yes, including Black voters. But his pandering transcended race.

“No mayor in modern history was a better encapsulation of old-school ethnic politics than Eric Adams in his prime,” said Democratic Strategist Trip Yang. “Zohran Mamdani is the complete opposite.” Smart take by @JoeAnuta: politico.com/news/2026/07/2…

@RossBarkan @leoniehaimson Of all the verifiable facts she listed in multiple comments, this is what you respond to?

@leoniehaimson Also, aren't Asians "students of color"? That's what so dumb about this debate. Every SHSAT school is probably 60-70% students of color, maybe more honestly.

Wrote about the SHSAT because I am a glutton for punishment. rosselliotbarkan.com/p/the-story-is…

@saschasegan @RossBarkan Part of the issue is that this topic transcends race. But the race perspective is what generates views. Poor Asian students are disadvantaged by the exam. Also, female Asian sts would also fare better with multiple measures in admissions, compared to male Asian sts.

@RossBarkan No one is sure where Asian-Americans fit into the NYC ethnic-political landscape, and this is a story as old as Do The Right Thing

@pessoasclerk @RossBarkan This was being discussed in the 60s. The Discovery program was created in the 60s in response to complaints. Black students sued for access into Stuy/Bronx Sci in the 70s (they complained they were being herded into Bktech).

@RossBarkan “In the 2010s, that began to shift. It was becoming obvious SHSAT schools were not demographically representative of the city.” I went to Stuy in the 1990’s and this was even a discussion back then. I remember a news reporter interviewing my friends and me about it in fact.

@RossBarkan You wrote about the SHSAT because it's controversial and it gets you views.

@CMFrankMorano An admissions test that selects only 24 Black/Latine sts when they make up about ~60% of the student population isn't likely an accurate measure of ability. That's the part commenters are missing. Maybe there's BOTH an achievement gap AND an exam susceptible to expensive prep

3 Black students admitted to Stuyvesant is a problem. The solution isn't to abolish the SHSAT or lower standards. It's to create MORE specialized HSs, expand gifted programs & invest in free SHSAT prep so more Black/Brown students can succeed.

@bxgirl1741 @LincolnRestler @DOEChancellor Facts do matter. You can't indict someone for imagined corruption based on a single incident. Also, NYC's losing working families (including their school-age kids) because it's becoming too expensive.

@LincolnRestler @DOEChancellor Skirting the rules is probably the tip of the corrupt iceberg for NYC schools. Fire this corrupt loser and it’s time to make cuts. NYC is losing students in droves because the education is terrible

It’s absurd to suggest that our @DOEChancellor’s job should be in jeopardy. A procurement rule was skirted in service of bringing desperately needed multilingual teachers into classrooms. Instead we should focus on DOE procurement reform. I have ideas: nydailynews.com/2026/07/18/sch…

@Putney_Kotto @AmyShefrin @JillFilipovic NYC SHS are the ONLY schools in the nation where admissions is entirely a single exam. All other HS or colleges use a combination of objective measures. This is what we advocate: a combination of objective measures. It's ok to like the test, but please understand what it is.

@shsatsunset @AmyShefrin @JillFilipovic That's the thing. My primary concern is what's best for Black kids. In your abstract concern for equity, you are advocating for de-emphasizing standardized tests in a world where life outcomes are largely determined by them. That's bad for the kids I care about!

I am not anti-test and I am always annoyed at the idea that these outcomes are *solely* about test-based discrimination rather than the very complex forces of history, poverty, culture, under-investment, and so on, but it is kind of nuts that the whole admissions criteria is one test that doesn't have a written portion...? nytimes.com/2026/07/14/nyr…

@Gothamist This was always expected. We had the data and knew the students missing the cutoffs. The Discovery program was created in the 60s to get poor students into SHS, and that should remain its continued focus. Getting poor students from under-funded/represented schools into SHS.

A summer program meant to improve racial diversity at New York City's elite specialized high schools is itself lacking diversity, data from the education department shows: gothamist.visitlink.me/85VscP

@Putney_Kotto @AmyShefrin @JillFilipovic Most Black sts attend schools with 80% ENI. And SHS are all in the 90th percentile for wealth in NYC public schools due to the SHSAT gating. Also, families with $30k/yr will often put $3k/yr to prep 1 kid for the SHSAT. Finally, the SHSAT isn't simply a Black sts issue.

@shsatsunset @AmyShefrin @JillFilipovic Bk Tech’s Economic Need Index is 51% (roughly half of its students are classified as facing economic hardship). These families are not spending $$$$ on private tutors. Again, my point is make resources available to allow Black kids to compete. Your point is they can't compete.

@JoshuaParkhurst @SusanBEdelman According to the H-C, yes. But separately, the chancellor can simply use students' SHSAT results and not "officially" certify the school as an H-C for the purposes of the statute. But if they do, as Bloomberg/Klein did, then it would be similar to the existing Bloomberg SHSs.

@shsatsunset @SusanBEdelman I guess my ? is does that mean any school certified has to exclusively use the SHSAT. Or that the chancellor can create specialized schools but not formally "certify" them as such as to require SHSAT. Are there "magnet" programs that have some selectivity but not the SHSAT?

Only three of NYC's specialized high schools are required by state law to use the SHSAT test as the sole entry criteria. Mayor Mamdani can drop the exam or add criteria at five others, if he wants to distrupt the status quo.