QUESTION
How are Officials Reacting to the SUNY 4-Year Program Admission for Top 10% Students, and How Will They Identify These Students?
1:41:09
·
5 min
Officials express enthusiasm about Governor Hochul's plan for the top 10% of New York City public high school students' admission to the State University of New York (SUNY) four-year programs and address the challenges in identifying these students.
- Governor Hochul's outline of the admission initiative is welcomed by NYC Public Schools and CUNY representatives.
- Concerns are raised about the lack of a universal ranking system in NYC public high schools, complicating identification of the top 10%.
- The need for fair and equitable criteria for identifying these students is emphasized.
- Preliminary planning with SUNY and CUNY is underway, focusing on fair implementation and comparison with other states' practices.
- Officials await more guidance from the state while reviewing initial data and planning access and success initiatives collaboratively with CUNY.
Eric Dinowitz
1:41:09
And any any any reaction to sooney, the top 10% of the schools, top 10% of students being admitted to the CUNY 4 years.
1:41:24
What do I say?
1:41:25
SUNY, 4 years.
1:41:27
My apologies.
1:41:28
Just one letter different.
1:41:29
It's very confusing.
1:41:30
SUNY, so reaction.
1:41:33
To the top 10% of students being admitted to the SUNY 4 years.
Melanie Mac
1:41:38
Thank you, chair.
1:41:39
We're excited that Governor Hochul was was sharing sharing the initial outline of what this could look like across CUNY and SUNY, and we'll past the CUNY colleagues in a moment.
1:41:52
I think that what we're doing with the welcome letter initiative as well as our feature ID NYC and our other comprehensive of programs is looking at systemically, we're working on disrupting some very significant numbers.
1:42:05
Of students well above and beyond our top 10% of students.
1:42:10
And so we're incredibly excited to talk more about what that could look like and receive more guidance and we've preemptively started to have discussions with CUNY and SUNY and also look at the data regarding our top 10% of students and we need to know and understand about their post secondary trajectories.
1:42:26
There's a lot of opportunity that we're excited about with this program, and we're also going to, in parallel, continue the the work that we presented today in terms of more and more inclusive messaging postsecondary opportunity for students who have historically been underserved.
Reine Sarmiento
1:42:49
On the suit, on the CUNY side.
1:42:51
See, I'm doing it now.
Eric Dinowitz
1:42:53
I'm sorry.
1:42:53
I I ruined it for everyone.
Rita Joseph
1:42:55
Well, I was gonna ask on the CUNY side.
1:42:57
No worries.
1:42:57
Well, CUNY guy.
Reine Sarmiento
1:42:58
Oh, I'm so on the CUNY side, I just want to be able to say that that in canvassing arts, colleges, all of them are very enthusiastic stick about this initiative of the top 10%.
1:43:10
In addition, we have been in contact with SUNY regarding the logistics of this because there are in the way that other states have done this, the systems have been set up to clearly identify that top 10% So we're working with our SUNY partners in in identifying how to be able to do this across those big five areas.
1:43:36
And working together to ensure that we get to them and that they have the the letter and that they're qualified for it.
1:43:44
It's just they're the other states have a system where they could clearly identify them, and we wanna be able to make sure that we're sending it to the right students.
Eric Dinowitz
1:43:58
Sorry.
1:43:58
Let me I don't know how to ask this.
1:44:00
How do you not know who the top 10% in each school is?
Melanie Mac
1:44:07
I think that what what we're referencing is that we don't offer we don't have universal ranking across across New York City Public High Schools, and and John can can add and correct me if if I miss speak.
1:44:22
And so there would be just a a a set of work to do to ensure that the criteria was was fair and clear for all of our school leaders and that we were thinking about the the equitable implementation of the plan.
1:44:40
I would say though, there we we are looking forward to getting more guidance from the state, and and being able to work with what we're hearing from Governor Hockel's team to to move forward with a a strong plan.
Eric Dinowitz
1:44:53
I'd be very surprised to hear that the DOE would not be able to get the top 10% of any piece of information given that when we were teachers in public schools, we got data like that all the time within our schools.
1:45:09
So I'd be very surprised to hear that that that there were challenges associated with getting that data.
1:45:16
But maybe am missing something.
Melanie Mac
1:45:18
I wouldn't describe it as a challenge.
1:45:19
I think that we're sharing in in the weeds response that as this moves forward in implementation, we'd wanna make sure that we have a very clear and fair interpretation of the top 10% given the way grading policies and and rank looks different in different high schools.
1:45:37
But in terms of the data challenge, I think, is not the challenge, but fair and equitable implementation is what we're in debt.
Eric Dinowitz
1:45:46
And so at this point, you're just waiting for more guidance from the governor's office.
Melanie Mac
1:45:52
We're doing initial we're doing initial data review.
1:45:56
We are looking at exemplars from other states that have done this work.
1:46:01
As vice chancellor Sermiento referenced.
1:46:04
We're doing some of the the the preliminary planning with SUNY and CUNY, and we're excited because we're not starting from scratch.
1:46:12
This these are this is this is a plan that can fit within a pretty robust infrastructure of CUNY NYCPS partnership and and not something that we're we're starting from scratch in terms of the ways in which we've collaboratively planned.
1:46:26
Access and success initiatives.