Exam school admissions: Test or no test?

No decision yet as task force enters a packed week of meetings

Photo: Alberto G., Creative Commons license

It’s called an “exam school,” but Boston Latin School had no admissions test for more than 300 years, and it didn’t have one this year. Will there be a test next year?

The Exam School Admissions Task Force hasn’t yet decided whether to propose that all students must pass a standardized test to be eligible for an invitation to Latin School, Latin Academy, or the O’Bryant High School of Mathematics and Science. The final decision is up to the School Committee.

A two-step process

The Task Force is talking about a two-step admissions process. The first step is to determine whether a student is doing grade level work. Exam school leaders say a student who’s at grade level can do well at their schools.

The second step is to choose, from among all the students with the necessary skills, which ones to invite.

The debate over making a test mandatory has focused on the first step — showing that a student is at grade level — not the final decision about invitations.

Some Task Force members insist that all applicants must take a standardized test. Others are willing to accept a test requirement in an effort to reach consensus. They want the Task Force to be united when they present their plan to the School Committee.

But at least two Task Force members, education researcher Rosann Tung and newly minted Boston Latin Academy graduate Simon Chernow, say grades should be accepted as proof that a student has the skills to do the work. Or there could be other options, like a sophisticated “capstone” project of the kind students complete in many schools.

Tung and Chernow agree that passing a test can be one way to demonstrate academic skills, but it should not be the only way.

“Every [standardized] test has disparate impact by race and income,” said Tung.

Exceptions?

Even the most ardent test supporters say there could be exceptions, for example if a student can’t quite make the test score cut-off but has excellent grades.

A 3.0 GPA or B average has been talked about as equivalent to grade level work. Former Superintendent and Latin School Headmaster Michael Contompasis and current Latin School Head Rachel Skerritt, the two most vocal proponents of a test requirement, have talked about a 3.5 GPA as acceptable for a student who falls a little short on the test.

There has also been discussion of teacher recommendations or some sort of essay to demonstrate a student’s skills.

The debate has ranged over several Task Force meetings.

Some highlights:

Simon Chernow

Simon Chernow, Boston Latin Academy recent graduate: I am opposed to the use of tests in exam schools [admission]. I think it continues to uphold systemic racism. It’s time for this task force to make some radical change. Ibram X. Kendi [wrote], “Standardized tests have become the most effective racist weapon ever devised to objectively degrade black minds and legally exclude their bodies.”

Rachel Skerritt, Boston Latin School Head of School: The [exam] school leaders are all in favor of an assessment. I agree with Mr. Chernow that radical change is needed, [but] why we are believing that students with specific backgrounds cannot achieve at grade level on a standards-based assessment?

Rachel Skerritt

[To say] that a test on grade-level standards is always going to be an impediment — that takes a defeatist attitude around our district, that we can’t get to the preparation needed. We know there is nothing wrong with our test taker. We know the students are brilliant, and we know the test is reflective of the preparation that they’ve had.

Skerritt and other supporters of a test said BPS needs to boost education in the earlier grades to close test score gaps.

Tanisha Sullivan, President of the NAACP Boston Branch: We’re talking about structural racism, [which] has created impediments, some of them within the control of BPS, some of them completely outside of the control of BPS.

We cannot eliminate, but how do we acknowledge that these factors exist, that structural racism is a thing, and seek to mitigate it in any way possible?

Rosann Tung

Rosann Tung, education researcher and parent of a recent BPS graduate: GPA is a better predictor of future academics than test scores. Every test ever created shows group mean differences by race, socioeconomic status, and all the other marginalized groups.

Tests do not predict academic success as much as how much your parents make and what degrees they have.

Zoe Nagasawa, a senior at Boston Latin School, and several other task force members argued that GPA should not be the only way students are rated for getting into exam schools because teachers would be under tremendous pressure to give high grades. That was less of a problem this year because the grades used for admission were from before the pandemic, before anyone knew how important they would turn out to be.

Sullivan: I would like to propose, if we are going to use [a test], to think about multiple factors that could be considered alongside an assessment score, factors like an educator recommendation, essays from the students giving them an opportunity to share a little bit more about themselves. Or a video.

Pastor Samuel Acevedo, co-chair of the BPS Opportunity and Achievement Gap Task Force: This will require a deeper dive into what would be some of those subjective tools. Some of these could actually exacerbate inequities even deeper.

Tanisha Sullivan

Sullivan: Every indicator that we have discussed — assessment, grades, and other ways — can exacerbate inequities. What I am trying to address is what we’ve heard from some of the experts on this matter: How do we get closer to the student? How do we give the student more opportunities to demonstrate their brilliance and their potential, recognizing that all of these factors, in one way or another, are problematic?

Skerritt: I’m not raising my hand to present objections to subjective measures. My ask, though, is when we present to the school committee, [that we] accompany all scenarios with some of the operations involved. I think understanding the scope and personnel and other things that would be needed to execute some of these pieces would be important. We all definitely want multiple measures and the most holistic view of a student as possible. But there’s a lot involved.

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More on exam school admissions

*Crunch time for exam school admissions: Task force members seek agreement despite deep splits, June 14*

*What is “rigor”?, June 15*

*Should “exam” schools be just for the “best,” or all who can handle the work? June 16*

*Jeri Robinson: Replicate BLS to meet demand, add attractive magnet schools. No more winners and losers. June 17*

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