OP-ED: Educational Apartheid NYC – Stuyvesant posts diabolical number of Black students
Every spring, the NYC Department of Education releases the results of the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), a 3-hour long, 114 question test of reading comprehension and math questions that is the sole criteria for admission into NYC’s Specialized High Schools (SHS). The SHS represents some of NYC and the nation’s top high schools. Each year, the headlines shout, “Only, some single digit number, of students are accepted into Stuyvesant this year.” Stuyvesant High School has the highest cutoff score and is considered the most competitive of the 8 SHS. After the scores are released, there are some words of outrage by different concerned individuals and organizations and then we wait for next year for the cycle to repeat. No significant changes are ever made.
Let’s look at this year’s results. Only 11 Back students received offers to Stuyvesant and 7 have accepted those offers. Let us look at the larger but equally prestigious Brooklyn Technical HS. This year 56 Black students received offers out of the 1,498 offers that were made, a paltry 3.74%.
Some would say that maybe Black students are not taking the test. Out of the 27,667 students that took the test, 5,714 students were Black, representing 20.65% of all test takers. I would consider that a pretty significant number. Out of these 5,714 students, only 131 received offers, representing 2.29%. My heart goes out to the 5,583 students who did not receive offers and tried their best.
I would assert that the SHSAT is the most challenging High School entrance exam our students encounter. Its complex reading passages and challenging math questions are based on concepts that students learn in school but most have not experienced the intricate level of questions being asked on the exam. The SHSAT can reduce high performing students who are level 4’s on state tests to shells of themselves, guessing their way through the test, completely outmatched by a test like nothing they have seen before.
RELATED: Chancellor Banks addresses confusion over admissions policy
Despite these challenges, in the 80’s and 90’s a school like Brooklyn Tech would have anywhere from 30 % to 45% Black students attending the school. Tech was considered the Howard U of SHS. Since the early 2000’s there has been a steep decrease in the number of Black students attending the SHS.
Why have the numbers fallen so low? The majority of the population of the SHS has historically come from the gifted and talented (G and T), classes, programs or schools of NYC. Ask any alum from a SHS that attended in the 80’s and they will proudly tell you about their middle school and how it prepared them for the test without prepping, just based on the depth and quality of their curriculum. G and T programs are frowned upon today and most significantly, are no longer housed in most schools, as it used to be. The few G and T programs that exist do not exist in communities of color. The few historically G and T schools that did exist in Black communities, such as Philippa Schuyler Middle School, no longer functions as G and T schools. The acceleration that occurred in G and T schools allowed students to move past the limits of their grade level curriculum and interact with higher order work. If students never see the challenging questions and concepts found on the SHSAT until they sit for the exam or just take the two practice tests found in the city’s SHS brochure, how are they expected to perform well? There is absolutely nothing wrong with our Black students, we just have not, will not, for whatever reason, prepare them or give them the tools needed to navigate the complexities of this test.
What can we do, if we care to do anything? Each stakeholder in our children’s educational journey can play a role in addressing this situation. In the case of the city, a few years ago two promising state senators offered a proposal of a practice SHSAT that would be given to incoming 6th graders, similar to the way the PSAT is given to 10th and 11th grade students before they have to take the SAT. Giving all students or interested students this pre SHSAT would be multi-purposeful. It would 1) allow students to see where they fared in comparison to students across the city, 2) provide a city wide benchmark that could give parents a sense of where their child really stood in relation to this challenge and 3) create a roadmap to determine the work that would be required for success on the actual test.
For schools, creating strong co-horts of students from 6th grade through 8th grade that could be enriched and accelerated would be an investment that would bear fruit in two years leading to higher state test results and even Regents classes while still in middle school. This has been done before, but not using a concerted and coordinated approach. Imagine if each school in District 13 identified 15 students per grade for its SHSAT academic enrichment program. In two years, District 13 would have a pipeline cohort of about 100 students each year who would be ready to effectively compete for seats at a SHS as well as potentially take the Algebra and or English Regents in 8th grade. Now imagine if District 16 was doing the same thing. For parents, if your school doesn’t provide a program, working with an academic enrichment company for two years may just be the investment that leads to great outcomes for your child’s future.
When I started CAS Prep 10 years ago the number of Black students offered admission to Brooklyn Tech was slightly above 100. Despite our success in getting students through the SHSAT test prep process, the numbers of Black students offered seats has declined each year. This year’s 56 offers worry me, it represents a drop of 50 students in 10 years. If we don’t wake up and put some legitimate plans into actions, in ten years the headlines may read.” This year Brooklyn Technical High School admits 1500 students and only 7 are Black!”
Samuel Adewumi is an alumnus of Brooklyn Technical High School. He came back to his alma mater to teach math and engineering and was the head football coach for several years. He created CAS Prep to give students of color an enrichment and prep program that was 1) located in their community, 2) spoke to their needs and 3) believed in their genius and potential. He can be reached through casprep.org or casprep1@gmail.com
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6 Medical Expert Tips To Lose Weight And Improve Your Health And Fitness
The #1 source in the world for all things Harlem.
Are you striving to make improvements to your health and fitness? Do you want to shed some extra weight and feel better about yourself? You are not alone — most of us struggle with these same goals every day. With the right mindset in place, along with following a few simple tips from medical experts,…
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DWELL: 336 CONVENT AVENUE TURRET TOWNHOUSE
Harlem Bespoke: The house with the bold turret tower in the charming landmarked historic district of Hamilton Heights had an asking price set at $3.4 million back in 2019 returned with a slightly lower price at $3.35 million in 2021 and was recently pulled from the market this January. Now the distinct abode has returned with the same asking but with a different broker. As previously mentioned, this address is centrally located on the corner of 144th Street with the express trains just a block away.
We especially love the architecture here since the building is one of the most unique in the neighborhood but the lower price is probably based on the fact that 7-unit building has been chopped up to many apartments and the interior has little original details within. With that said, a neighboring home did add back more classic details with spectacular results in the past so thing could always turn around if the right developer comes along: LINK
HarlemBespoke.com 2023< * This article was originally published here
IMMIGRANT HISTORY FESTIVAL AT DYCKMAN
Harlem Bespoke: Another free event to check out in Spring at Manhattan’s oldest historic farmhouse in the heights. Definitely worth the experience especially if you have not visited the historic address yet.
Saturday, June 17th, 10:00AM-4:00PM, Immigrant History Festival at Dyckman Farmhouse, 204th Street and Broadway. The Dyckman Farmhouse Museum will have free admission all day with tours, music, arts & crafts and more! Details can be found on the official Dyckman Farmhouse site: LINK
Apple unveils a $3,500 headset as it wades into the world of virtual reality
CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) — Apple on Monday unveiled a long-rumored headset that will place its users between the virtual and real world, while also testing the technology trendsetter’s ability to popularize new-fangled devices after others failed to capture the public’s imagination.
After years of speculation, Apple CEO Tim Cook hailed the arrival of the sleek goggles — dubbed “Vision Pro” — at the the company’s annual developers conference held on a park-like campus in Cupertino, California, that Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs helped design. The device will be capable to toggling between virtual reality, or VR, and augmented reality, or AR, which projects digital imagery while users still see can see objects in the real world.
“This marks the beginning of a journey that will bring a new dimension to powerful personal technology,” Cook told the crowd.
Although Apple executives provided an extensive preview of the headset’s capabilities during the final half hour of Monday’s event, consumers will have to wait before they can get their hands on the device and prepare to pay a hefty price to boot. Vision Pro will sell for $3,500 once it’s released in stores early next year.
“It’s an impressive piece of technology, but it was almost like a tease,” said Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen. “It looked like the beginning of a very long journey.”
Instead of merely positioning the goggles as another vehicle for exploring virtual worlds or watching more immersive entertainment, Apple framed the Vision Pro as the equivalent of owning a ultrahigh-definition TV, surround-sound system, high-end camera, and state-of-the art camera bundled into a single piece of hardware.
“We believe it is a stretch, even for Apple, to assume consumers would pay a similar amount for an AR/VR headset as they would for a combination of those products,” D.A. Davison Tom Forte wrote in a Monday research note.
Despite such skepticism, the headset could become another milestone in Apple’s lore of releasing game-changing technology, even though the company hasn’t always been the first to try its hand at making a particular device.
Apple’s lineage of breakthroughs date back to a bow-tied Jobs peddling the first Mac in 1984 —a tradition that continued with the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010, the Apple Watch in 2014 and its AirPods in 2016.
The company emphasized that it drew upon its past decades of product design during the years it spent working on the Vision Pro, which Apple said involved more than 5,000 different patents.
The headset will be equipped with 12 cameras, six microphones and variety of sensors that will allow users to control it and various apps with just their eyes and hand gestures. Apple said the experience won’t cause the recurring nausea and headaches that similar devices have in the past. The company also developed a technology to create three-dimensional digital version of each user to display during video conferencing.
Although Vision Pro won’t require physical controllers that can be clunky to use, the goggles will have to either be plugged into a power outlet or a portable battery tethered to the headset — a factor that could make it less attractive for some users.
“They’ve worked hard to make this headset as integrated into the real world as current technology allows, but it’s still a headset,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Yory Wurmser, who nevertheless described the unveiling as a “fairly mind-blowing presentation.”
Even so, analysts are not expecting the Vision Pro to be a big hit right away. That’s largely because of the hefty price, but also because most people still can’t see a compelling reason to wear something wrapped around their face for an extended period of time.
If the Vision Pro turns out to be a niche product, it would leave Apple in the same bind as other major tech companies and startups that have tried selling headsets or glasses equipped with technology that either thrusts people into artificial worlds or projects digital images onto scenery and things that are actually in front of them — a format known as “augmented reality.”
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been describing these alternate three-dimensional realities as the “metaverse.” It’s a geeky concept that he tried to push into the mainstream by changing the name of his social networking company to Meta Platforms in 2021 and then pouring billions of dollars into improving the virtual technology.
But the metaverse largely remains a digital ghost town, although Meta’s virtual reality headset, the Quest, remains the top-selling device in a category that so far has mostly appealed to video game players looking for even more immersive experiences. Cook and other Apple executives avoided referring to the metaverse in their presentations, describing the Vision Pro as the company’s first leap into “spatial computing” instead.
The response to virtual, augmented and mixed reality has been decidedly ho-hum so far. Some of the gadgets deploying the technology have even been derisively mocked, with the most notable example being Google’s internet-connected glasses released more than a decade ago.
Microsoft also has had limited success with HoloLens, a mixed-reality headset released in 2016, although the software maker earlier this year insisted it remains committed to the technology.
Magic Leap, a startup that stirred excitement with previews of a mixed-reality technology that could conjure the spectacle of a whale breaching through a gymnasium floor, had so much trouble marketing its first headset to consumers in 2018 that it has since shifted its focus to industrial, health care and emergency uses.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives estimated Apple will sell just 150,000 of the headsets during its first year on the market before escalating to 1 million headsets sold during the second year — a volume that would make the goggles a mere speck in the company’s portfolio.
By comparison, Apple sells more than 200 million of its marquee iPhones a year. But the iPhone wasn’t an immediate sensation, with sales of fewer than 12 million units in its first full year on the market.
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