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This yr’s eighth graders may very well be the final class that takes the Specialised Excessive Faculties Admissions Check with paper and pencil. A New York Metropolis schooling panel is slated to vote on a roughly $17 million contract later this month that might transition the check to a computer-based mannequin.
Beneath the practically six-year contract, the test-making firm Pearson would create a computerized mannequin of the Specialised Excessive College Admissions Check, generally known as the SHSAT. The examination is the only metric of admission to town’s eight specialised excessive faculties, together with Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.
Although these faculties symbolize only a fraction of town’s college students, they garner outsized consideration given their standing as among the most prestigious public excessive faculties within the nation. Final yr, roughly 26,000 eighth graders took the SHSAT, and 4,072 have been supplied a seat.
If the contract is authorized by town’s Panel for Academic Coverage, or PEP, later this month, Pearson can be tasked with creating and administering exams for 5 check cycles, starting with the autumn of 2025, based on metropolis paperwork. The contract consists of an optionally available two extra check cycles, which if enacted would deliver the whole price to greater than $23.5 million. (Pearson has developed paper variations of the examination for years.)
Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for town’s Training Division, mentioned the proposal comes amid a broader shift towards digital schooling.
“Our college students proceed to stay in a extra digital world, each out and in of the classroom,” she mentioned in a press release. “The transition to computer-based SHSAT testing is an extension of this shift. Our precedence is all the time to make sure college students have the assets and help they want, and the computer-based SHSAT will likely be no exception.”
Training Division officers famous many exams at the moment are supplied on computer systems — pointing to MAP assessments administered twice a yr for college students in grades 2-8, in addition to ongoing efforts to transition to digital SAT and Superior Placement assessments for highschool college students. The proposed contract additionally follows a statewide effort to part in computer-based testing for New York’s 3-8 studying and math exams.
If handed, the shift would enable the SHSAT to undertake a computer-adaptive mannequin, a type of computer-based testing that adapts the questions primarily based on a scholar’s responses, based on the proposal.
However some fear that the transfer to a computerized mannequin for the SHSAT may worsen inequities in an admissions course of that already produces extremely segregated outcomes. New York Metropolis’s specialised excessive faculties have lengthy confronted criticism for admitting staggeringly low numbers of Black and Latino college students.
Over the last highschool admissions cycle, gives to Black and Latino college students at specialised excessive faculties ticked up barely, with 4.5% of gives going to Black college students and seven.6% to Latino college students, based on metropolis knowledge. However these figures stay effectively under the 65% of public college college students who’re Black or Latino.
“Whereas youngsters right this moment are definitely twenty first century residents, we all know that there are main gaps in digital literacy and tech accessibility that are inclined to fall alongside socioeconomic traces,” mentioned Jessamyn Lee, a Brooklyn father or mother and member of the PEP. Some college students, for instance, would possibly solely have entry to a cellphone at house, she mentioned. “It’s a really completely different expertise than youngsters dwelling in a family the place there are computer systems in every single place.”
Some research have discovered college students normally are inclined to do worse on exams taken on a pc or pill, although consultants beforehand informed Chalkbeat that analysis isn’t definitive.
Lee additionally questioned whether or not a computer-based check may pose additional challenges to some college students with disabilities, together with these with visible impairments. Town’s specialised excessive faculties admit few college students with disabilities, with simply 2% of scholars on the faculties mandated to obtain particular schooling help, based on metropolis knowledge. Citywide, about 20% of scholars have disabilities.
Training Division officers mentioned paper exams will stay an possibility for college students with disabilities who’ve authorized testing lodging requiring them.
Issues over timeline for change to computer-based SHSAT
Edward Antoine, who runs the Brooklyn-based check prep firm Antoine Training that provides tutoring for the SHSAT, mentioned he believes college students are sometimes comfy with digital testing environments — pointing to how many excessive schoolers embraced the brand new model of the SAT, which shifted to a computer-based mannequin earlier this yr. However he puzzled how the content material of the SHSAT would possibly change to raised match a computerized mannequin, noting, for instance, that the School Board shortened studying passages when transitioning the SAT to a digital examination.
“I’m very curious to see if there’s precise modifications within the content material of what’s being examined, and what the format goes to appear to be, and the way the interface goes to work,” he mentioned. “However I don’t anticipate it’ll be troublesome for teenagers to get acclimated.”
Nonetheless, Antoine mentioned it’s important that town gives college students entry to follow exams that mimic the digital interface of the check effectively prematurely of the brand new examination rolling out. College students ought to have the ability to begin working towards a yr prematurely, he mentioned.
“I don’t know after they’re planning on making it accessible, however it’s already late,” Antoine mentioned.
Lee additionally raised considerations over town awarding one other contract to Pearson, because the nationwide test-making firm has confronted controversy over high-profile missteps in New York and different states. In 2015, the state’s Training Division moved away from utilizing Pearson for its standardized exams.
Pearson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Although town’s Training Division started searching for distributors final fall for the shift to a computerized SHSAT, it obtained proposals from solely two evaluation firms — Pearson, and Academic Testing Providers. An analysis and advisory committee made up of Training Division officers decided Pearson supplied “the bottom value whereas proposing superior companies,” based on metropolis paperwork.
Training Division officers mentioned the panel of reviewers evaluating the proposals held experience in evaluation, enrollment, operations, know-how, and educational content material.
Pearson contract anticipated to move as debate over SHSAT continues
Although Lee opposes the contract, she anticipated it to be authorized by PEP members on the Oct. 30 assembly. Beneath town’s mayoral management system, Mayor Eric Adams appoints a majority of members to the panel.
Gregory Faulkner, a former Adams appointee to the panel who was tapped to function its unbiased chair earlier this yr, mentioned he’s leaning towards supporting the proposed contract — although he mentioned he’s holding off on forming a agency opinion till after he’s briefed by the Training Division subsequent week. He added that if a vote occurred right this moment, he suspected a majority of the panel would approve it.
“That is going to place a highlight on the difficulty of testing,” he mentioned. “I don’t suppose that is solely going to be about us computerizing and updating. That is going to shortly transfer into the thought of testing and variety in these faculties — and I believe that’s a great dialog to have, as a result of clearly, these faculties should not numerous.”
For years, integration advocates have clashed with supporters of the SHSAT over whether or not town’s specialised excessive faculties ought to proceed to confess college students primarily based solely on a standardized examination. The difficulty falls exterior the purview of metropolis officers, with the SHSAT mandated beneath state regulation.
Former Mayor Invoice de Blasio steadily sought to overturn that regulation, however didn’t garner help in Albany. Adams and former faculties Chancellor David Banks, who retired on Wednesday, haven’t made integration in selective faculties a spotlight of their schooling agenda.
“Some panel members will really feel pissed off, however they’ll really feel we’ve acquired to go together with state regulation,” Faulkner mentioned of the upcoming contract vote. “My feeling is, okay if we’ve got to do this, let’s get the DOE to decide to performing some issues that make this tablet a bit bit simpler for us.”
He hopes to see town’s Training Division decide to extra aggressive, free check preparation for college students who can’t afford to rent exterior SHSAT tutoring. He additionally questioned whether or not the date may very well be moved to permit faculties extra time to supply check preparation within the fall.
“I do know of faculties that do check prep for his or her college students without spending a dime, however they start it in September,” he mentioned. “Whereas youngsters who’ve cash start their check prep in March.”
This yr’s SHSAT will likely be supplied in school on Oct. 30 for college students attending town’s center and Okay-8 faculties.
Eighth grade college students who attend constitution or personal faculties, who’re home-schooled, or who attend a metropolis college with grades 6-12, can take the examination on Nov. 16 or Nov. 17, whereas all ninth grade college students can take the check on Dec. 6 or Dec. 7. For each units of scholars, the exams will likely be supplied at a central location listed on their check ticket, based on the Training Division’s web site.
College students who want to take this yr’s examination should register by Oct. 18.
Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed.
Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter overlaying New York Metropolis. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.
