Diversity Debate Convulses Elite High School (Hunter College HS in NYC)

[alp227]

Once again, testing bites back. This story regards admissions to a New York City high school for gifted students:

With one of its alumnae, Elena Kagan, poised for confirmation as a justice on the United States Supreme Court, it should be a triumphant season for Hunter College High School, a New York City public school for the intellectually gifted.

But instead, the school is in turmoil, with much of the faculty in an uproar over the resignation of a popular principal, the third in five years. In her departure speech to teachers in late June, the principal cited several reasons for her decision, including tensions over a lack of diversity at the school, which had been the subject of a controversial graduation address the day before by one of the school’s few African-American students.

Hours after the principal’s address, a committee of Hunter High teachers that included Ms. Kagan’s brother, Irving, read aloud a notice of no confidence to the president of Hunter College, who ultimately oversees the high school, one of the most prestigious public schools in the nation.

The events fanned a long-standing disagreement between much of the high school faculty and the administration of Hunter College over the use of a single, teacher-written test for admission to the school, which has grades 7 through 12. Faculty committees have recommended broadening the admissions process to include criteria like interviews, observations or portfolios of student work, in part to increase minority enrollment and blunt the impact of the professional test preparation undertaken by many prospective students.

snip

When Justin Hudson, 18, stood up in his purple robes to address his classmates in the auditorium of Hunter College, those numbers were on his mind. He opened his remarks by praising the school and explaining how appreciative he was to have made it to that moment.

Then he shocked his audience. “More than anything else, I feel guilty,” Mr. Hudson, who is black and Hispanic, told his 183 fellow graduates. “I don’t deserve any of this. And neither do you.”

They had been labeled “gifted,” he told them, based on a test they passed “due to luck and circumstance.” Beneficiaries of advantages, they were disproportionately from middle-class Asian and white neighborhoods known for good schools and the prevalence of tutoring.

“If you truly believe that the demographics of Hunter represent the distribution of intelligence in this city,” he said, “then you must believe that the Upper West Side, Bayside and Flushing are intrinsically more intelligent than the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Washington Heights. And I refuse to accept that.”

As a result, the school principal resigned in June.

Although Hudson's speech got a standing ovation by many students and staff, some distanced themselves:

...Jennifer J. Raab, Hunter College’s president and herself a Hunter High alumna, looked uncomfortable on the stage and did not join in the ovation, faculty members and students said.

In a sense, Mr. Hudson’s message came from the faculty. To relieve some of the pressure on its students, the school does not name a valedictorian; instead, it invites seniors to submit proposed graduation speeches and a faculty committee selects one to be read. This year, it chose Mr. Hudson’s, to his surprise.

Irene Kwok, a graduate who was a co-president of the Asian Cultural Society, said she had heard more negative than positive comments from her friends afterward. “Some of my friends felt the reference to their neighborhoods was insulting,” she said. “They felt like their admission was an individual achievement, not because of some racial community they belong to.”

On the other hand, she added, “it really made us think about who we are and where we came from.”

Once again, privilege vs. merit rearing an ugly face.

Read Hudson's entire speech here.

[knitter4democracy]

1. He's entirely right.

I taught at a Catholic college prep school that had a similar test--but they made sure to include other assessments to make sure that the student body was diverse and that every student who wanted to go there could.

We have to turn around this testing insanity.

[tigereye]

2. my son was just admitted to a fairly selective private high school

they considered many factors, one of the main ones being character/ teacher recommendations. The ISSA (private school test) was not the most heavily weighted factor, from what I could see.


It seems to make for a very diverse student body, culturally and economically. And that's a good thing.

[bluestateguy]

3. I could never score well enough on those tests to earn the label "gifted"

I did good, but just not good enough on those stupid ass tests to be placed in the "gifted" classes. I was an A student, BTW, and I even asked the teachers of these classes if I could enroll in their special gifted classes based on my classroom performance, but the answer was always no.