November 23, 2020
Dear Governor Cuomo,
We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, write to request the issuance of an Executive Order to suspend the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT) for the specialized high schools in New York City.
The Hecht-Calandra Act requires that admissions to the specialized high schools be solely and exclusively determined by scores on the SHSAT, which is administered by the NYC Department of Education usually in late October/ early November every year. Nearly 30,000 students take the SHSAT for approximately 5,000 seats across 8 specialized high schools. The test is administered on campus at these schools. Obviously this year with the pandemic and particularly now with the increasing infection rates, in-person testing is infeasible and the DOE has not announced how it plans to administer the test.
The Mayor hinted at offering the SHSAT online at the weekly radio address last week. However, not every student has access to an adequate device or reliable internet connectivity, making the online option discriminatory. In addition to the inequitable access to the digital platform, many of our students are traumatized by the pandemic, having lost loved ones to the disease, facing a new economic reality resulting from parental job loss, or living with the anxiety of a parent who is an essential worker. These traumas disproportionately affect historically marginalized students.
Because the Mayor does not have the power to change the admissions to the specialized high schools, we call upon you to issue an Executive Order suspending the SHSAT this year and allowing the Chancellor of the NYC DOE to develop an alternative method of admissions to the specialized high schools. And given that our estimate of the costs for test administration is approximately $3 Million per year, suspending the SHSAT is also prudent in the face of the fiscal crisis. We believe this is the only equitable path forward.
Sincerely,
Organizations
Alliance for Quality Education
Class Size Matters
Coalition for Asian American Children & Families (CACF)
Community Education Council District 14
Community Education Council District 16
Community Inclusion & Development Alliance
Education Council Consortium
EduColor
El Puente
Families for Real Equity in Education (FREE)
IntegrateNYC
Masa
MORE-UFT (Movement of Rank and File Educators)
NYC Kids PAC
NYC Opt Opt
S.E.E.D.S., Inc. <www.seedswork.org>
Teens Take Charge
