http://news.yahoo.com/naacp-file-complaint-over-entry-test-elite-york-030246630.html .. NEW YORK (Reuters) - The largest U.S. civil rights group plans to file a complaint on Thursday over the admissions test at New York City's specialized high schools, among the nation's most elite public schools, citing effective discrimination against black and Latino students, the group said. The complaint with the U.S. Department of Education focuses on eight schools in the city, particularly on Stuyvesant High and Bronx Science, which boast stellar alumni including several Nobel laureates, famed actors and musicians, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. While more than half the population of New York City is black or Latino, black students made up only 1.2 percent of the Stuyvesant student body last year, while Latino students represented 2.4 percent, city data showed. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which is filing the complaint, said the highly competitive, 2-1/2-hour, multiple-choice Specialized High School Admissions Test was at fault for the disparity. "Year after year, thousands of academically talented African-American and Latino students who take the test are denied admission to the Specialized High Schools at rates far higher than those for other racial groups," the NAACP said in a draft of its complaint shared with media outlets on Wednesday before the Thursday filing. If the department investigates and finds New York is in breach of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it can sanction the city by withholding federal funding until the breach is resolved, the NAACP said. The city's Department of Education said in a statement on Wednesday it was bound by state law to admit students based "solely on an exam." "We want all of our students to have opportunities to prepare for the test no matter their zip code," it said, adding more black and Hispanic students were offered specialized high school seats last year than in the previous two years. ACADEMIC POTENTIAL The NAACP said in its complaint that the test had never been shown to predict reliably a student's academic potential, and breached the Civil Rights Act by having an "unjustified, racially disparate impact." It said that other elite, academically successful schools in New York City that use broader criteria such as a student's grade-point average, attendance, teacher recommendations, interviews and writing samples had far higher enrollments of black and Latino students. "To use a standard test that has no demonstrative relationship to past academic achievements or future academic potential seems wrong," Damon Hewitt, the education director at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in an interview. "Quite literally, a kid could have straights âA's from kindergarten to Grade 8, could have won a national spelling bee." he added, "But none of that matters - all that matters is the test." Rapper Himanshu Suri, who was vice president of the Stuyvesant student union from 2001 to 2002, said knowledge of and preparation for the test varied widely across neighborhoods, and that the school, where Asians make up more than two-thirds of the student body, suffered for its lack of diversity. "In the Asian community in Queens, from a very young age, you know about Stuyvesant, you know about that test," he said in an interview, adding the city should do more to reach students who may not have parents like his, who started talking about the test with him while he was still a pre-teen. "These are schools for the brightest students in New York City," he added. "We're saying something wrong if we're saying New York City's brightest students are almost all Chinese or Korean." (Editing By Cynthia Johnston and Peter Cooney) ..
They can't pass the same test as everyone else has to take. So they want some "affirmative action" applied simply because of their skin color. Nothing new here.
It's not the test that is discriminatory. It's the blacks and latinos who are discriminating AGAINST the test by failing to prepare their students for it. This is the same old nonsense that has been going on in NYC for decades. The Upper East Side of Manhattan tried to get the city to establish a neighborhood public high school. (It has fine elementary public schools) The city council - composed overwhelmingly of blacks and latinos from brooklyn, bronx, and queens - refused. Why should the rich whiteys get a high school for themselves? The NYC schools until Bloomberg were controlled locally by schoolboards. Overwhelmingly black and latino. And guess what. Corruption was endemic. Contracts for sale, kickbacks, outright theft. Bloomberg was able to end that and centralize power. If the blacks and latinos want to be accepted as equals they should expect to play on a level field and drop the "Whitey keeping us down" nonsense. Fuck em anyway. A talented young black or latino can get a full ride at any number of private schools in the city. Stuyvesant High, Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Tech have average SAT scores well over 700. They have been a magnet for brilliant students of immigrants for the last 80-100 years. An expression of the best type of meritocracy the US has to offer. The Asian dominance now is a reflection of the wave of Asian immigration of the last 30 years. The Hindu's will be next, and after that whatever upward striving immigrant group that places a premium on academic learning. Bronx High School of Science has probably produced more Nobel Prize winners than not just any school in the world, but the next top 3 combined. If the NAACP wins in its efforts to to change the selection criteria for the City's competitive entrance schools, it will be an end of a great era and the diminution of a few of the greatest public schools ever in our nation's history. The NAACP should focus their efforts in building their constituents minds, not tearing down our institutions. If one culture and ethnic group after another, from the Jews to the East Asians to the West Asians, can send their kids to Stuyvesant then black and latino communities should start to look inward and figure out why their kids are not reaching a similar level of success. Ironically, if their lawsuit ever reaches the Supreme court, Clarence Thomas ain't going to vote in their favor.
That's right, dumb down the tests to let dumber students in so they will then have to lower the challenge in the class room so the dumber students can keep up. No wonder American students can't compete in the world.