SHSAT - On June 1 2018, the Mayor and the Chancellor announced a proposal to remove the SHSAT admission policy and instead offer seats to 7% of the students at each middle school. The proposal was put to a vote in the State Assembly Education Committee on June 6th and passed. After several large protests by the Asian community, middle school parents, and alumni the Assembly Speaker decided not to put the bill to a vote in the session that ended in June.
DISCOVERY - The Mayor and Chancellor has implemented a new 20% Discovery policy. 20%, or about 1000 seats will go to test takers who are identified under a new definition of disadvantaged and who score below the lowest cutoff score of the 8 schools. Hundreds of already disadvantaged students who formerly would have scored competitively will not be offered a seat.
HONORS CLASSES - Queens State Senator Tony Avella (D) proposed a bill as an alternative to the Mayor's 7% bill. It mandates a no test required for admission Honors class for every grade in every school. This would restore the pipeline that many students used in the past to score competitively on the SHSAT, including thousands of Black and Hispanic students who attended these schools in the 1970s through 1990s.
GOVERNOR - The Governor called a meeting with leaders of the Asian Community and his top aides to hear their positions on the Mayor's proposal and the way it was rolled out. The general consensus was that the Mayor's proposal would have an adverse impact to the number of Asians that could attend these schools and that the bill was proposed with little discussion and in a purposely discreet and rushed manner.
SHSAT VALIDATION - In August 2018 the DOE released a study that was withheld for 5 years that confirmed that the SHSAT was a valid indicator of student performance in high school. Alumni and Asian advocates criticized the Mayor for withholding this valuable information and for making his bill proposal without disclosing this important information first.