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Title: Diversity Debate Convulses Elite High School
Source:
NYT
URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/n ... 5hunter.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Published: Aug 4, 2010
Author: Sharon Otterman
Post Date: 2010-08-05 13:04:09 by Prefrontal Vortex
Keywords: None
Views: 428
Comments: 16
By SHARON OTTERMAN 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. Eliminating the test, which has remained essentially unchanged for decades, is not on the table, said John Rose, the dean for diversity at Hunter College. The test, he said, is an integral part of the success of the school, which has a stellar college admissions profile — about 25 percent of graduates are admitted to Ivy League schools — and outstanding alumni like Ms. Kagan and Ruby Dee. “Parents, faculty members and alumni feel very strongly that the test is very valuable in terms of preserving the kind of specialness and uniqueness that the school has,” Mr. Rose said. As has happened at other prestigious city high schools that use only a test for admission, the black and Hispanic population at Hunter has fallen in recent years. In 1995, the entering seventh-grade class was 12 percent black and 6 percent Hispanic, according to state data. This past year, it was 3 percent black and 1 percent Hispanic; the balance was 47 percent Asian and 41 percent white, with the other 8 percent of students identifying themselves as multiracial. The public school system as a whole is 70 percent black and Hispanic. 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.” The entire faculty gave him a standing ovation, as did about half the students. The principal, Eileen Coppola, who had quietly submitted her formal resignation in mid-June but had not yet informed the faculty, praised him, saying, “That was a very good and a very brave speech to make,” Mr. Hudson recalled. But 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. The day after the speech, Dr. Coppola, a Harvard-trained urban education expert in her first job as a principal, informed the staff at an emergency meeting on June 25 that she was stepping down, making it clear that she did not want to go. She cited a “culture of fear” from above and “untenable working conditions,” several faculty members present said. Reading from a statement, Dr. Coppola, who was the principal for two years, said Ms. Raab told her in late May that she seemed to resent the senior staff at the college. She was told to consider whether the job was a good fit. Randy Collins, director of the Hunter College Campus Schools and Dr. Coppola’s supervisor, said that the admissions issue was not behind Ms. Raab’s criticism of Dr. Coppola, and that it had more to do with her failure to communicate with and listen to senior college staff members. But Dr. Coppola told the faculty she thought Ms. Raab had been upset, in part, because she did not mute faculty voices calling for changes in admissions, as well as other aspects of the relationship with the college, including hiring procedures and budgeting. After Dr. Coppola left the room to a standing ovation, the teachers there, roughly three-quarters of the 100-member faculty, decided to use the blackboard to draft a letter to Ms. Raab, a number of teachers who were present said. They were facing the reality of a fifth person serving as principal in little over five years, including one past acting principal and one coming in; in 2005, another popular principal left under pressure. “The faculty was furious,” said Rembert Herbert, a longtime English teacher. “It is a wonderful school, and it goes on in spite of this. But Dr. Coppola was doing a great job, and there was no reason for her to leave.” The teachers agreed on three points: a vote of no confidence in Ms. Raab’s leadership, a vote of support for Dr. Coppola and a statement of intent that after the summer recess, in September, to take the matter to Matthew Goldstein, the chancellor of the City University of New York, of which Hunter College is part. Later that afternoon, a faculty committee delivered the letter to Ms. Raab and read it to her, said Carolyn Mayadas, the head of the committee, who has since retired. Mr. Kagan, a social studies teacher, declined to comment. Citing advice from her lawyer, Dr. Coppola also declined to comment. Ms. Raab would not speak directly about the reasons behind the resignation. “Although changes in leadership always bring challenges, we have a stable, accomplished team in place at Hunter College High School to ensure a smooth transition,” Ms. Raab said in a statement. Mr. Collins acknowledged that the notoriously difficult test, which has math, English and essay sections and is given in the sixth grade, “isn’t a good indicator of giftedness.” “It is a good indicator of whether you will be successful at Hunter,” he added. Efforts are under way to increase diversity, focusing on outreach. For the first time, the school this year sent mailings directly to all city fifth graders who scored in the top 10 percent on both the state English and math tests, the criteria to take the Hunter test, rather than relying on schools to pass the word. Hunter High also started a mentoring program for promising third graders. One-quarter of the city students qualifying for the test this year were black or Hispanic, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Hunter could not provide data for how many black or Hispanic children took the test in 2010. Ms. Raab was not the only one who did not applaud Mr. Hudson’s speech. 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.”
Poster Comment: Negro has a point. They were facing the reality of a fifth person serving as principal in little over five years, Sounds like a shitty little school to me.
Diversity Debate Convulses Elite High School
Published: August 4, 2010
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#1. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#0)
Translation: We want to dumb down the admissions standards to achieve some chimerical goal of egalitarian intellectual parity. The next step is then to dumb down the curriculum to prevent the "disadvantaged" from flunking out. The real way to do that is actually much more difficult - improve the level of schooling in the underepresented areas. However, that makes too much sense for a deliberately dumbed down America.
"One of the least understood strategies of the world revolution now moving rapidly toward its goal is the use of mind control as a major means of obtaining the consent of the people who will be subjects of the New World Order." K.M. Heaton, The National Educator
This is New York City where whites are a minority, correct?
Somewhere, Jimmy Carter is laughing and saying, "Finally! I won't be the worst President ever!"
I don't know anything about jew York, but if that statement's got somebody's panties in a twist, it must be the truth. Figures. Nothing trumps reality like politically correct bullshit.
that's tagline material ;)
If this school has been noted for years and years for its focused selectivity re: recruiting intellectually gifted students who must do well on a board exam - (i.e. perhaps an IQ test? perish the words!)...then isn't it rather insulting to minorities if the school does away with the qualifying IQ test specifically to enable itself to add more minority candidates into the student body? What's wrong with this picture?
Keep up the white guilt, sister, and you'll have a raging case of stomach cancer by the time you hit 65.
__________________________________________________________ Next comes a football team and athletes allowed to skate on tests as long as they're stars on the field. Then coaches will be buying them cars and giving them spending money as they're primed for college football where academic achievement is also "optional". Eventually they wind up as former star athletes with degrees who aren't hired because they misspell their own names on job apps, but that doesn't stop them from claiming to be victims of 'scriminayshun. A friend of mine was a teacher who dealt with the parents of blacks he flunked, and the parents' only response was "The other teachers don't insist that my boy complete the work or bring a pencil to class!" Then the parents would physically threaten the teacher and appeal to the principal for "relief". The principal wanted my friend to pass blacks no matter what and the two went to binding arbitration over the issue and my friend won! But the principal still stubbornly refused to abide by the agreement. The principal saw no reason to try and set impossible standards for blacks who would not learn, and he saw no reason to pick fights with violent ghetto blacks by flunking their stupid children.
Well California doesn't want to be accused of preferential treatment to any group so for many years now we've had a No Fail policy in our schools - whites, blacks, Hispanics, dogs cats whatever - everybody is automatically promoted to the next grade - no worries, man! - so in California we currently have an entire public school student population of dumb bunnies, who cannot read write or add. It's very fair to all racial groups not to demand 'nuthin' from any of them.
I was a time clock tech in Los Angeles back in the 80's, and I went into a school to service the master clock in the office. The master clock runs all of the secondary clocks in classrooms and hallways, and it also rings the bells for class and lunch breaks. While in a classroom checking the reset of a wall clock I listened to a bilingual lesson, and it took forever to cover the simplest material, first in English and then Spanish. Those kids were lucky to get half the education of kids educated in one language. It was unbelievably cumbersome, time consuming and boring. I knew then why they never show what I saw in news clips. It would have driven a stake through the heart of bilingual ed once Anglos saw how their kids were being cheated.
And a great way of creating a nation of semi-literate peons to fetch water, hew wood, and empty trash bins. If they get too many you just make controlled bioweapons releases to "thin the herd".
"One of the least understood strategies of the world revolution now moving rapidly toward its goal is the use of mind control as a major means of obtaining the consent of the people who will be subjects of the New World Order." K.M. Heaton, The National Educator
And in the end the kids lose. Those who would like to learn also learn that they can skate by. After all they got's that weh-fair check waitin' whens they gits oe'd 'nuf. Iss nots likes they gots ta' wurk or sumthin'. Besides, the drug cartels need illiterate kids wanting to make a lot of money, in a short life, humpin' drugs.
"One of the least understood strategies of the world revolution now moving rapidly toward its goal is the use of mind control as a major means of obtaining the consent of the people who will be subjects of the New World Order." K.M. Heaton, The National Educator
I suspect the admissions test is a good way to keep the goyim out. Toss them if they don't know key quotes from the Talmud.
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ... We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." Edward Bernays, Father of Public Relations
Obviously the school is doing something wrong.
"Every Person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. I believe that many black parents don't want kids that "act white" or worse, act like Urkel the nerd. The parents can't stress the importance of education and achievement if they are programmed to believe that failure is inevitable because of racism, which was their excuse for failing to learn as kids and to make their marks as adults.
Obviously the school is doing something wrong. LOL!
"Every Person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.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.
#2. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#0)
increase minority enrollment
#3. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#0)
"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.”
Mike Flaherty: Yeah, it's been there a long time. I wish I knew which corner.
My Man Godfrey (1936)
#4. To: Esso (#3)
Nothing trumps reality like politically correct bullshit.
#5. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#0)
#6. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#0)
Jennifer J. Raab, Hunter College’s president ...added, “it really made us think about who we are and where we came from.”
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?"
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#7. To: Original_Intent, Prefrontal Vortex (#1)
(Edited)
Translation: We want to dumb down the admissions standards to achieve some chimerical goal of egalitarian intellectual parity. The next step is then to dumb down the curriculum to prevent the "disadvantaged" from flunking out. The real way to do that is actually much more difficult - improve the level of schooling in the underepresented areas. However, that makes too much sense for a deliberately dumbed down America.
#8. To: HOUNDDAWG (#7)
#9. To: scrapper2 (#8)
Well California doesn't want to be accused of preferential treatment to any group so for many years now we've had a No Fail policy in our schools - whites, blacks, Hispanics, dogs cats whatever - everybody is automatically promoted to the next grade - no worries, man! - so in California we currently have an entire public school student population of dumb bunnies, who cannot read write or add. It's very fair to all racial groups not to demand 'nuthin' from any of them.
#10. To: scrapper2, HOUNDDAWG, ALL (#8)
It's very fair to all racial groups not to demand 'nuthin' from any of them.
#11. To: HOUNDDAWG (#7)
The principal saw no reason to try and set impossible standards for blacks who would not learn, and he saw no reason to pick fights with violent ghetto blacks by flunking their stupid children.
#12. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#0)
Sounds like a shitty little school to me.
#13. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#0)
As has happened at other prestigious city high schools that use only a test for admission, the black and Hispanic population at Hunter has fallen in recent years.
Senator Jacob Howard, Co-author of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, 1866.
#14. To: Original_Intent (#11)
And in the end the kids lose. Those who would like to learn also learn that they can skate by. After all they got's that weh-fair check waitin' whens they gits oe'd 'nuf. Iss nots likes they gots ta' wurk or sumthin'. Besides, the drug cartels need illiterate kids wanting to make a lot of money, in a short life, humpin' drugs.
#15. To: farmfriend (#13)
As has happened at other prestigious city high schools that use only a test for admission, the black and Hispanic population at Hunter has fallen in recent years.
#16. To: scrapper2 (#15)
LOL!
Senator Jacob Howard, Co-author of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, 1866.
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