Go Stuy.
In order to understand the bit about
“When specialized education first came into New York City, Stuyvesant was first,” said Stanley Teitel, the principal, “and it has really led the nation in what this can do for children.” you need to understand something about the NYC public school system, especially as it pertains to the high schools.
There are upwards of 150 public high schools in the city. I'm not sure if that number includes charter schools. At the beginning of the 8th grade, you get this hugeass book telling you all about picking your high school. You can, of course, go to a neighborhood school, and some people do, but that's the silly option.
High schools are very specialized. You have technical/vocational high schools like Mckee, you have schools which focus on dance, or writing, or "leadership", whatever that means. Even within the less obvious schools you have things like at Curtis, where there was a nursing program, a pre-law program (divided into law enforcement and lawyering), and the JROTC. Or some schools separate themselves by how they teach, not what. For example, there's a new school opening up in lower Manhattan that doesn't have classrooms, but "informal study areas". No desks and chairs, it's like sitting in a living room. And there's a few schools which let you take college classes (NOT AP classes, actual classes at college) and then enter college early, either after sophomore or junior year, forgoing your high school diploma. Some of them are for very good students, there's one which concentrates on students who don't do so well. There's even the famous Harvey Milk school, primarily for gay kids (though the only criteria for attendance is prolonged harassment at your other school, you don't actually have to be gay).
Some of these schools and programs are VERY competitive, you have to have extremely good grades to get in, or pass a test. The specialized high schools (Stuy, Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science) have one test everyone takes... well, now they're telling me there's 7 of those, I'm not sure what's up with that (edit, well, know I know, this includes three schools that opened 2002, High School of American Studies at Lehman College, Queens High School for the Sciences at York College, and High School for Math, Engineering and Science at City College, godawful long names), and to get into LaGuardia you have to audition/submit a portfolio.
You can imagine that the procedure for getting into the school you (or your parents) want is
very complicated. And that's all because every last school in the city is overspecialized. People put less effort into getting into COLLEGE. Believe it or not, that link is the new, SIMPLER format. Or it's supposed to be simpler.
And, remember folks. This is just the public school system. The parochial system is nearly as bad, people cram for those tests like nobody's business, and I don't even *know* about the private system.
Hm.... I had no idea I'd rant about the high schools in the city. Oh, and lest we forget: it's not counted as a specialized high school, but Hunter College High School *is*, it just takes a different test because you enter in the 7th grade.
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