The Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) may have its faults, but it is by far the most efficient option.
Many people have proposed other methods to replace the SHSAT, including the use of GPA rating, teacher recommendations, grades, essays, and interviews. Unfortunately, these options would prove to be far too difficult to manage. When it comes to the eight specialized high schools that use the SHSAT, these alternatives could never work. If applicants were to each hand in a teacher recommendation, an essay, and also be interviewed, the process would take far longer to administer. According to statistics from www.naacpldf.org, around 25,000 students took the SHSAT exam in 2012, meaning that around 25,000 students would have to supply a teacher recommendation, an essay, and also be interviewed. Some may say that if non-specialized schools can do it, why not specialized schools? Specialized schools are, for the most part, much larger than non-specialized schools, meaning that more people apply. For example, the Brooklyn Technical High School is one of the largest High Schools in the country, according to highschoolguide.org and the Huffington Post. With over 25,000 applying, it
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would take much longer to go through each essay and recommendation than it would to just test all applicants at once. Not only is the SHSAT productive, but it is also, clearly, very effective. According to infographics from insideschool.org, Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech all have very high citywide averages and very high student proficiency averages. All three schools have around a 4.0 student proficiency average, 4 being above grade level. Because of the difficult studying and learning methods for the SHSAT, students become accustomed to the vigorous teaching methods at these schools, helping the school maintain this high proficiency. The specialized schools are for the ones who are willing to work hard and work a lot. The SHSAT simply prepares students for the strenuous learning at these schools. Some claim that the SHSAT discriminates against certain students.
The main reason people think that is because many of these students do not have access to the best resources. Many minority students do not live in neighborhoods with the best schools and cannot afford expensive tutoring sessions for the test. Since that has been an issue, there are government funded SHSAT prep courses to help students. In order to be certain that there is no more discrimination, the specialized schools just have to ensure that there are enough resources for all who need them. The SHSAT is the only way to objectively test students. Alternative methods-- including interviews, portfolios, GPAs, and teacher recommendations-- are subjective criteria since the administrators get to know each
student. There are faults to the Specialized High School Admissions Test, just as there are faults to every other form of admission. Despite these faults, the SHSAT provides a logical and organized way to test students, unlike many other suggested options. The SHSAT has to make improvements, but that does not mean it is not the best option.
Many students who are enrolled in FFA are already heading in the right direction to a bright future. FFA has many career benefits within the program. Any of the career development events (CDE’s) have something that will tie to a career in agriculture or to a career of other sorts. According to the National FFA Organization, “FFA members embrace concepts taught in agricultural science classrooms nationwide, build valuable skills through hands-on experiential learning and each year demonstrate their proficiency in competitions based on real-world agricultural skills”(“Statistics”). There are so many careers that tie into FFA, and many of them have to do with agriculture. Not every career that has to do with agriculture is about farming. There are so many different aspects of the agriculture industry that many people never think twice about. Most people are not interested in agriculture because they think it is just about farming or
Have you ever felt stuck? Wherever you are, it’s the absolute last place you want to be. In the book Into the Wild, Chris McCandless feels stuck just like the average everyday person may feel. Chris finds his escape plan to the situation and feels he will free himself by going off to the wild. I agree with the author that Chris McCandless wasn’t a crazy person, a sociopath, or an outcast because he got along with many people very well, but he did seem somewhat incompetent, even though he survived for quite some time.
The definition of grit is simple; it means being passionate about long term goals, and showing stamina to pursue them, but should students in public schools have a class dedicated to a grit-focused curriculum? This has become a major topic of discussion among teachers and mentors. Angela Duckworth, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, claims grit is not a fixed quality but one that can be developed. Many disagree with her statement. Grit is something everyone all have within themselves, but some just do not utilize this characteristic as often or as well as others. Grit is a puzzling concept. Duckworth has had an obsession with grit for over a decade. Her obsession started when she visited West Point,
In America, knives, forks, and spoons are necessary tools people have in order to function properly everyday. Without cutlery, people would continue to eat with their dirty, bacteria covered hands, slurping and licking their way through their meals. People would drink bowls of hot soup, maul steak like a feral dog stealing his first bone in weeks, and scoop large chunks of ice cream with frostbitten fingers. Like most individuals in the world, I never put too much thought into how important a spoon was until I needed it. I especially did not care where my family’s flatware came from or how they were created, as long as it was in the cabinet when I wanted to grab a quick bite to eat. Unfortunately, no one cares about a spoon, a fork, or
The SAT's have sometimes been the deciding factor when determining a student's admission to a certain college, but recently colleges have stopped regarding SAT scores as the most important factor, and in some cases, colleges are now not even requiring applicants to submit their scores. This change in significance of the SAT's is due to recent controversy over the fairness of the test. According to Fair Test (2001) three hundred and eighty-eight schools do not require applicants to submit their SAT scores, and hundreds more do not place much emphasis on the scores. Because of the recent controversy and the number of schools not looking at or de-emphasizing the SAT's, the College Board, (the company in charge of designing, administering, and grading the test), has decided to make several changes to the format of the SAT's (which was just revised in 1994). These changes will take effect in the year 2005.
According to Robert Jackson in . “Retooling education: Testing and the Liberal Arts” Colleges who changed their admission by making the SAT optional have directed their aims into a more high school grade based admission. This solution is the only true measurement we have at the moment and it is a better measurement than the SAT states Robert Jackson. The writer also goes on to say scholastic aptitude should be abolished, as it has no true value or indicator of student’s ability. A more precise measurement based on four years of schoolwork is a pretty good indicator of student’s ability. It gives equal playing field for all students from their freshmen year in high school until their senior year in high school. Students have equal opportunities to perform giving them four years to accomplish good grades for college admissions. this method gives unprivileged students the opportunity to go to college who previously could not attend college because of SAT Prep cost. Also this method benefits college admissions by providing an indicator on how students will perform in college classes making it easy to admit or deny
"Former Bates College Dean of Admissions, William Hiss, said that intelligence is so complex, varied, and multifaceted that “no standardized testing system can be expected to capture it”(Westlund). Throughout the years standardized testing has changed its purpose and not for the better. In the late 1930s, the goal of taking standardized test was to award scholarships to "diamond in the rough" students (Westlund). Currently, the whole idea of taking the SAT or ACT is getting admitted into a college. Standardized test should not be a deciding factor of being admitted into a college.
Many students feel stressed out when having to take standardized testing. According to Kaplan, colleges are relying too much on the SAT and ACT. They are using a long test that becomes equally weighted to years of school. That seems to be a little lopsided. A student can do well through out all high school and then score badly on the SAT or ACT and ruin all of the hard work that the student put forward in order to acquire good grades. That can alter the students lives by making them have to...
These standardized tests are used by schools because they find that it is an easy way to test a student’s ability. However, the issue in doing this is for example, the ACT is all multiple choice. Exams such as these do not give the option to include worded feedback to show that you at least know something about the subject. Multiple choice exams have this problem, they can’t test the information that a person fully knows, it only tests whether they chose the right answer or possibly just guessed it. With only a slew of multiple choice questions it can be easy to get a “good” score or a “bad” score. That’s why these tests are flawed, the results they show don’t prove anything or really show anything for that matter.
The reasons why we have standardized testing today is because of many reasons. The States use it to compare abilities and skills of a student. We also give standardized testing...
Standardized tests have been around for many years. During the 1920’s the SAT was known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (Syverson 56). According to Steven Syverson, in 1993 the test was renamed as Scholastic Assessment Tests in an effort to reflect the changing nature of the test (56). Jonathan Epstein notes that by 1994, the acronym was removed completely, keeping only the initials SAT (9). The United States Department of Education reports that the Scholastic Assessment Test [known as SAT] measures your ability rather than knowledge and is composed of three sections: writing, critical reading, and math (3). “The American College Testing Program [known as ACT] measures how you think and what you’ve learned in school, it consist of four multiple-choice
“Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast over nature”. From the beginning of time man and nature has been in conflict with one another because, as a whole, there is no cooperating. Each one tirelessly wants its way. The Man is fighting for dominance and nature w never yielding its authority. In American Literature, many authors illustrate this theme in their writing. Specifically the writers Jack London in The Law Of Life, Stephen Crane The Open Boat and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Fin. Each explores the relationship between humans and nature but with slightly different methods. Mark Twain uses nature in a realistic way, Jack London in a naturalistic way and Stephen Crane constitutes a combination of both.
Designed to measure the math, reading and writing skills necessary to predict college success, The SAT Reasoning Test is the most popular and widely accepted exam used for college entrance available today. A team of U.S. colleges developed its earliest form, known as the College Entrance Exam, in 1901. This essay-only test was designed for students applying to colleges to take one entrance exam instead of separate exams for each university. In 1926, the College Entrance Exam became the SAT (Student Aptitude Test). The test was formatted to multiple-choice in order to objectively assess a student’s college readiness while giving all students an equal opportunity for success. Since then, the title of the test was changed again to no longer stand for Student Aptitude Test due to the multifaceted purpose of the test. Published by the Educational Testing Service, the current title of the test, “SAT”, is just an acronym that no longer stands for anything. Still, the SAT has been constantly developing to best assess student scholarly performance (“History of the Tests”, 2014).
Standardized testing shows that it takes more than just giving students test to see who has the higher grade. Students must be allowed to grow and take an interest in education by guiding them and not forcing them to have higher test grades. Taking standardized testing is like how Stephanie Schneider puts it, its “like checking if a plant was growing by ripping it out and checking” (Schneider, and Christison 30-32). The United States used to be a country of originality, but now they have swapped it out to have a competition on who can have a higher score.
The SAT is just one of the many standardized tests. About 30 stats use the SAT, but does it accurately test what you know? Tests have value but standardized test don't do anything to prove that you know what you know.