We’re No. 1! Aren’t we?
Stuyvesant HS, the city’s most sought-after high school, is suffering a minor identity crisis.
While The Post’s high-school analysis crowned Stuyvesant No. 1 in New York City, US News & World Report ranked it No. 8 statewide, behind seven other NYC schools. Stuyvesant’s national ranking on the well-known list has nosedived to 49th from 15th in 2008, though it rose from 58th last year.
The rankings have stung Stuyvesant’s pride, still smarting since last year’s cheating scandal that tarnished its reputation as the city’s “crown jewel” and spurred its 15-year principal, Stanley Teitel, to retire amid a Department of Education probe that found he mishandled the affair.
Tipped off that a student was texting questions on Regents exams to dozens of classmates, Teitel set up a sting to catch him in the act. But the DOE faulted Teitel for letting the cheating occur instead of stopping it beforehand and failing to tell state and city officials about it. The ringleader was expelled and 66 other students suspended.
The Stuyvesant Spectator student newspaper has graded Teitel’s replacement, Jie Zhang, an overall B, with a lackluster B-minus in leadership. Students staged a protest to demand the return of respected Assistant Principal Randi Damesek, whom the DOE locked out when school started this month.
“The DOE allowed Damesek to run Regents exams, APs, SATs and PSATs all of last year. Then, after a DOE report on the cheating scandal was released to media attention, she was suddenly fired.
It’s clear she’s a scapegoat,” Spectator editor-in-chief David Cahn told The Post.
Airing gripes, the Spectator also printed a 16-item “wish list” that ran from more Advanced Placement seats and tutoring to more toilet paper and paper towels in the restrooms — which kids say often runs out.
Staffers fear the new regime. “The teachers feel uneasy, almost to the point of paranoia,” one told The Post.
Zhang did not return phone and e-mail messages.
Most Stuy students pooh-pooh US News, insisting it won’t dent the elite school’s stature. But some admit annoyance.
“It bothers me. I always assumed that Stuyvesant was the best. I still feel Stuyvesant is the best,” said Daniel, a junior.
“To get a 97 in our school is probably a lot harder than to get a 97 in Brooklyn Latin,” he said, referring to the small school that topped US News’ New York list.
The other schools that placed above Stuyvesant: Bronx Science, the HS for Dual Language and Asian Studies, the Baccalaureate School for Global Education, Staten Island Technical HS, The HS of American Studies at Lehman College, and Townsend Harris HS.
What explains Stuy’s lag? U.S. News uses a rigid formula that takes the number of 12th graders who passed at least one AP or International Baccalaureate course before or during their senior year, then divides it by the number of 12th graders.
So, if some seniors did not take an AP or IB course, it lowers the school’s score or “college readiness” index.
Math teacher Gary Rubinstein called the methodology misleading, saying Stuy offers myriad unusual — and highly demanding — classes.
“We have electives like existentialism, molecular genetics, and Great Books, which are not AP but college-level courses. We have so many options that could lower our AP participation.”
But students said it’s sometimes hard to land an AP class — Stuyvesant offers 28 AP subjects — because of high demand or scheduling. Some colleges give credits to students who pass an AP exam.
Unlike The Post, US News does not count SAT participation or scores. Stuy’s average SAT score is 2096 out of a maximum 2400 — the highest in NYC public schools, topped only by a few nationwide. Brooklyn Latin’s average SAT is 1740, Bronx Science’s, the second highest, is 1969.
“You have to care to get these scores. I don’t think it’s just about being smart. It’s about working on it,” said sophomore Kayla Sinoimeri.
Still the most-coveted NYC high school, 22,675 students applied for 814 freshman seats t his year.
That means eighth-graders have to score the highest on the ultra-competitive specialized high school exam to get in.
Founded in 1904 as a boys’ school on East 23rd Street, the state Legislature named it one of the first four specialized schools — today there are nine. Bronx Science (which counts eight Nobel Prize winners among its grads, compared to Stuy’s four), became the most popular, but it’s neighborhood “got kind of scary,” said Clara Hemphill, a public-school watchdog at the New School. Stuy overtook its rival about 20 years ago, after it moved into its gleaming new high-rise on Chambers Street, more centrally located, she said.
Greatness shines in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search, which named 11 Stuy semifinalists, more than any other school in the nation. (Bronx Science had six.)
Jamie Solimano, 17, was a finalist for her project: Super-Resolution STED Microscopy Provides Insight into the Dynamics of Intraflagellar Transport and Reveals Novel Distribution of Adenylate Cyclase III in Primary Cilia.
Eight Stuy students won national gold or silver medals for essays and poetry in the prestigious Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.
Despite the brilliance, fallout from last year’s Regents cheating ring — in which Nayeem Ahsan used his iPhone to text answers to a widening circle of classmates — has eroded trust.
Teachers still can’t demand that students turn in their smart phones before a test, even though it’s against city rules to bring phones to school. But proctors pass out envelopes for kids to put their cellphones in — and then under their desks.
“Are kids still cheating now? I’m sure there are, like at every school,” a staffer said. “But we do want to get past this and keep our status. We’re doing our best, and our kids, for the most part, are fantastic.”