Reality Check in High Schools in NYC

Rachel Leinweber • 4 minutes ago on Schoolbook.org:

This response is to a discussion about a Stuyvesant student who presumably did some 'research' with a few kids in that school about achievement, and specifically what made a given student maintain a superior drive to succeed?.. Not clear about the details of that 'study', but this was my comment:


If anyone thinks that looking at Stuyvesant (or any of the select few high schools in NYC where only the top 5% of students get into) is an interesting way to look at 'achievement', we have allowed the entire system to go the way that Bloomberg & The Educrats want us to go. Try looking at the majority of kids in urban high schools(UNDERFUNDED, largely minority, largely poor) who actually have to FIGHT to achieve. And in those majority rise up a few fantastic learners, and THEY are the remarkable ones. And the teachers who work and help those few kids in the morass of the more than 50% of the poorly run, poorly administrated high schools in NYC ... they - those teachers who stick it out - are the other heros of that story. Stuyvesant and Harvard are bastions for the very few select, and studying how their achievement for those rarified group of students is about disingenuously 'playing' at presumed 'research'. If this is student led and directed, I hold my criticism for Schoolbook and any of the grown ups promoting the work as significant... and invite people to look at the massive bodies of research (generally ignored by the current NYC/DOE) which shows that a supportive educational and literate friendly familial system is the way for success at schools and beyond. What more do we really need to think about besides how to rescue the nearly 100,000 students in high schools this term who are NOT at Stuy or anywhere equally strong academically, financially or otherwise?