Comments on: Stuy alum Allon urges changes to school’s admissions, grading

By: Leo Cruz

Leo Cruz — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 18:39:00 +0000

What else is new? Ever heard of ethnic cleansing? Asians replacing the Bosniaks.

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 03:44:00 +0000

Sudden leadership change? This is so poorly reported. Teitel was sick, which was widely known, and he announced his plans to retire before the cheating scandal. It’s just incredible how this story has been misreported. There appears to be an attempt to take down the school and denigrate students who worked hard to get there and continue to do what they do to learn and move on in their lives. Why?

By: Bloomberg Is Better

Bloomberg Is Better — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 22:52:00 +0000

Why should students who prepped for it for a long time not be given a huge advantage?

They literally deserve the advantage. This guy sounds like another mayor Dinkins disaster.
Change the student body, and you change what makes the school so great.

Why not start another school where you can test all your racial theories, and then see how it performs in comparison to Stuyvesant which has equal opportunity rather than equal outcome admissions?

I would bet whatever little money I have that Stuyvesant will outperform that theoretical school.

Helping disadvantaged students is a great idea, in fact, we should strive for it! But cheating students into the school is the wrong approach. Lets work from the bottom up and help those that are disadvantaged work their asses off to get in, the same as everyone else.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 18:35:00 +0000

I don’t mean to be overly cynical, but all this focus on Stuyvesant has almost certainly been prompted by the high percentage of Asian students, not the low percentage of black or Latino students. I’m sure that, if prompted, Allon would remember that 70-80% of his classmates were white when he was at Stuyvesant. It can’t be shocking to Allon and others that blacks and Latinos remain as underrepresented as they were 30-40 years ago. What’s shocking, what’s changed, is that whites have been out-scored and out-hustled.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 16:59:00 +0000

A valedictorian in one middle school is different from one from another school.

Where is he getting all that money to write new, radically different tests each year, during all these budget cuts?

Good luck grading 30,000 essays quickly and OBJECTIVELY.

By: GoldmanR

GoldmanR — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:26:00 +0000

Why does anyone take Allon serious? He has no chance of being the next mayor. Another waste of time, meaningless press.

By: Sdsf

Sdsf — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:14:00 +0000

I don’t think that a potential mayor should be focusing on Stuyvesant’s problem … Aren’t there other schools that could use his attention, schools where high school graduation rates are dramatically low ??

By: H

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 11:48:00 +0000

Doesn’t rewarding prepping reward hard work? In some cases, it could reward people based on wealth, but it’s relatively inexpensive to study for the specialized high school exams. The vast majority of students at specialized high schools would not be considered wealthy.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 04:10:00 +0000

He seems clueless as to what’s going on on the HS level.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 04:08:00 +0000

Groan. Allon will be another Mayor=FAIL if he thinks that every top student of every middle school is equally qualified to tackle the pace and rigorous curriculum at a specialized school.

He wants to mediocritize the best school in the country. He wants to knock Stuyvesant off the US News list (for what that list is worth).

Why is he focusing on these few schools? There are quite a few good high schools that don’t require tests. And the EdOpt schools already automatically accept the applicants who score the top 2% in the Math and ELA tests.

If he wants to be an effective mayor, he should stop focusing on these 8 schools and set his sights on fixing the other 400 high schools PLUS force the grade schools to teach with higher expectations and standards.

PS: there was a law passed in the 70′s that prevents the City from changing the admissions anyway, so this is all air.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 01:53:00 +0000

Allon’s proposals make me a little queasy. Stuy could be more diverse. So could all the other exam schools, or the audition schools. Or the schools like Elro, Baruch, the Millenniums, Lab, etc. that are district-restricted. Or the many high schools that have virtually no white or Asian students.

I realize this statement was issued in response to the situation at Stuy, but he needed to throw in a line about diversity being at issue at most schools, not just Stuy.

By: GUEST

GUEST — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 20:20:00 +0000

I do like the idea of changing the admissions test year to year so that extreme prepping does not give an unfair advantage.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:51:00 +0000

Exactly. He’s been teaching for 41 years. And he had heart surgery last year.

By: Jennifer F.

Jennifer F. — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:08:00 +0000

Because of DOE budget cuts, Mr. Teitel had to make many difficult decisions. This year he had to cut back courses so that sophomores can choose just one elective. In sophomore year my child was able to take English and Spanish, history, chemistry, computer science, molecular biology and symphonic band, and participate on a sports team. Far from becoming ”a place where education and knowledge have taken a backseat to testing and grades,” Stuyvesant continues to offer a fantastic education in the face of tremendous budgetary pressures.

By: guest

guest — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:02:00 +0000

1. Stuyvesant has become…….. No it’s always been.

2. Why in your story do you refer to the Principal resigning. He did not resign. He retired. You and everybody else keep writing that lie. The man has reached eligibility to retire. He chose to do so. That is not the same context as resigning. Period.