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Elite Entrance Exams Schools Overrated, Study Concludes
It's not that elite schools make smart kids stupid, it's just that they don't make them much smarter.
Bad news for those who laid out thousands to get their kids into an elite preschool which would then put them on the course for getting into an elite grade school that would then land them one of the coveted seats at an elite high school (because how else would your kid get into an elite university?).
A new study shows that kids who attend the best of the best public schools in Boston and New York, where students are granted a spot based on entrance exam scores, aren’t getting all that smarter by the time they graduate.
The National Bureau of Economic Research study looked at the three oldest schools of this kind in New York — Brooklyn Technical, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant High School. What they found was that even though the overall scores were still high by any standards, compared to how well they did when they started, students make only modest gains on state and national achievement tests.
The bottom line: these kids would have been fine just about anywhere.
None of which is to say these are bad schools and that the kids don’t learn anything, obviously. But it does raise the question: do reasons for attending these schools match the goal of attending them. If it’s simply to maintain a kid’s smarts and give her an opportunity to be around smart people, well, these schools certainly offer that. If it’s for bragging rights, that’s still on the table too! But if it’s to take super smarties and make them super-duper smarties, that’s not necessarily happening.
The study found similar results in Boston’s exam schools, the Boston Latin School, the Boston Latin Academy and the John D. O’Bryant High School of Mathematics and Science.
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4 Comments
[...] at my day job, I wrote about a new study that found kids who were admitted to the top three public high schools in New York, and a handful of super elite public schools in Boston, might not be getting their [...]
Elite Schools Might Not be All That « That Will Teach You commented on Aug 03 11 at 11:12 pmbob commented on Aug 04 11 at 10:54 amStandardized test scores may not be a great or comprehensive way to measure what good schools provide. Also, the proper question is not whether they are getting smarter, but whether they are out-competing public school kids who are otherwise similar.
Ben commented on Aug 04 11 at 11:43 amI’m shocked by the attention this study is getting.
First, the NBER only looked at the effect of attending the three NYC schools (Bronx Science, Stuy, and Brooklyn Tech) on NYS Regents scores ! ! ! (The only connection to AP, SAT and PSAT scores was for the Boston schools.)
Second, the study found as well that those who attended Bronx Science (my alma mater) had a statistically-significant raise in NYS Regents scores anyway. It was only after the mixed the data with Boston and processed it that they came away with their conclusion that “test schools don’t elevate scores on standardized tests.” (Look at Tables 11 and 12 of the study if you wish.)
And if you are telling me that my Bronx Science education just narrowly improved my scores on the NYS Regents exams (which are basic competency exams) compared to other schools, I would argue that my Bronx Science education was about much more than that — how to think, how to read, how to write, and how to do basic research.
After all, I knew enough to download the NBER paper and review the methodology before typing about it, which is more than I can say for the reporters at New York Magazine, the Business Insider, Fox News NY, and Gothamist.
Not to mention that high school is about developing leadership, socialization, and introducing you to a peer group. The wealthier kids have their mostly-white and genteel peer groups at Andover, Brearley, Horace Mann, Collegiate, and the like.
I wouldn’t trade my racially-diverse, economically-diverse, overachieving, wacky Bronx Science peer group for anything.
stephen commented on Aug 16 11 at 10:32 amthis was very useful to my friend ..http://www.elevenplus.co
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