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The fact that fewer minorities are attending NYC's competitive high schools is not surprsing if we look at the results of the 8th grade NAEP math scores. They show that whatever NYC is doing, it is helping students at the low end more than the high end. Moreover, they show that achievement gaps for high end students are widening in NYC, not closing.

Between 2003 and 2009, NYC white 8th graders at the 90th percentile gained 7 points on the math NAEP. Their 90th percentile black 8th graders gained 5 points, and the 90th percentile hispanic 8th graders lost 2 points. In large cities as a whole, all groups of 8th graders at the 90th percentile gained about 10 points. So NYC gains for top students lagged other large cities, and their minority gains for top students lagged their counterparts in large cities by a significant margin. Whatever they are doing with hispanic students seems to be especially bad.

I suspect it is NYC's heavy emphasis on test prep, which -- though it may benefit weaker students -- probably leaves high achieving minority students unchallenged. The policy may not affect white kids as badly, as they may be more likely to attend schools under less pressure to raise scores and have the luxury of offering more enrichment.

I think Melody has hit the nail on the head. Schools under lots of pressure to raise test scores are more averse to implementing challenging curricula with the kind of rich, tough texts that students at high-performing middle schools (e.g. Hunter College Middle School, Salk, Phillippa Schuyler) encounter regularly. It's thin, tedious "short texts" and YA books ad nauseam.

Melody and Miss Eyre--I share your concern about test preparation and its possible effects, which could weigh particularly heavily on lower-income students. That, indeed, is my fear about segregation--that it could exacerbate those kinds of effects even if more students reach proficiency as currently defined.

But what would explain NYC's rise in the percentage of African American students who graduate? Is something good happening at the high school level?

I'm suspicious about most things reported out of Joel Klein's DOE, but let's assume that the graduation rate for African Americans is up. That could be consistent with the hypothesis that New York is doing good things with lower achieving students, but not, necessarily, with higher achieving ones. Face it, high school graduation is not a very high bar. But what happens among the highest performing minority students? Are their acceptance rates to competitive colleges going up or down? Are they showing up for college well-prepared? You'd need some hard data on these questions to know.

Melody--I think you're right to point to acceptance rates at selective colleges and college persistence, among other things, as indicators of how successful the graduates are--although we should be careful to take into account the impact of low income on college entrance and persistence.

But I also think a bigger issue is at play: Namely, how do we address both basic skills and higher order skills at once? There is always the danger, it seems to me, that we get used to a form of academic triage for students in greatest need--without creating long-term strategies for closing the gaps at the top. It's not an easy issue.