High Stakes Testing: Impact on New York Public Schools - Essay Example

In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education ruled that desegregation of schools was necessary, and, at the same time, psychiatrist Diane Ravitch issued a report that New York City had a segregated school system and that black children received an inferior education. Arthur Levitt, head of the New York City Board of Education said segregation in the city was not deliberate but was "not good education policy." Ten years after Brown, "less than two percent of black youngsters in the south attended integrated schools" (Robinson, 2004, par. 9). With the civil rights movement and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, integration took place throughout the country.

However, in New York City, according to Robinson, the present racial composition of the schools can in a way be compared to the south in the 1950s. The problem, she says, is basically with the inferior quality of so many of the schools. She goes on to say that Claude Steele, a professor at Stanford University, listed the following deterrents for inner city black and Hispanic students: The problem does not seem to be so much segregation . More likely to be counselled with lower expectations.More likely to go to schools with few or no Advanced Placement courses.

Likely to have less access to test-prep courses and related tutorials. The problem does not seem to be so much segregation in the schools as it is lack of equal education opportunities. New York's funding methods do not offer sufficient funding for the schools that black and Hispanic youngsters are attending, even though New York's highest court ruled that Albany's funding formula denied students in New York City a right to a "sound, basic education," and ordered that the situation be corrected (Robinson, 2004).

The problem, however, continues to exist and meeting the Regents testing requirements for graduation less apt to succeed.Minimum Competency Testing Minimum competency testing (MCT) defines basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic and their application. In the 1970s, schools were criticized for allowing students to graduate without these basic skills, and MCT was instituted, first in Florida, then in other states, to raise the standard. Those who failed to meet the standards were not allowed to graduate.

The goal of this testing was to insure that every graduate had at least a basic education (Beard, 1986). What was not addressed was whether this mandatory testing might lead to higher dropout rates and the need for increased use of GED testing. According to a 1999 CUNY report, in New York City schools the concern was that the "shift to outcomes-based assessment, divorced from the social aspirations and cultural needs of low-income people and immigrants, will reduce if not eliminate their opportunity to earn a college degree . . .

When New York City's economic development lags behind the country's, when