Opinions
The Second Civil Rights Movement
“11 million immigrants work hard and demand reform.” This was the sign I carried during an April 10th rally in Washington D.C. It was one in a series urging the government to support a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Millions of people from a number of backgrounds—Asians, whites, Hispanics, [...]
Advancing the Underserved Underclassmen
Walk the halls of Stuyvesant at this time of the year and you’ll always see the same scene: students carrying highlighters in one hand and review books in another. Walk long enough and you’re guaranteed to see almost every brand of review book, from Kaplan to Gruber’s. It’s that time of the year again. The [...]
Point-Counter Point: Eurozone Austerity Crisis
Point: Keynesian Armageddon Right now, you owe $187,993 to U.S. government bond holders, your family owes $746,397, and every year that amount increases by $9,511 per person. Over time, citizens have severed their connections to the money spent by the governments that represent them. They find it easier to simply ignore reality rather than confront [...]
Though Not in a Green Envelope
While taking the New York City Department of Education’s school student survey earlier this April, The Spectator’s editorial board could not help but note the survey’s ineffectiveness at assessing and pinpointing Stuyvesant’s weaknesses and strengths. The generic questions and five-choice responses cannot serve as accurate indicators of Stuyvesant’s true environment. Consequently, we’ve come up with [...]
Why Senioritis Must be Treated
“I really do not want to do work, but my parents force me, as I am the oldest child, and have to be a role model for my siblings.” So begins one of the responses on the anonymous survey my second-term seniors have filled out recently about what it means to be a second-term senior. [...]
From the Parent’s PerSPECtive: A Report Card for Stuy
Outside of Stuyvesant, people harbor all sorts of illusions about the school. The misconceptions we hear on a regular basis (and maybe some are just sour grapes) are disconcerting. Many think it’s a refuge for nerds who have no other interests beyond math and science. People ask us about the school’s supposed cutthroat environment. And, [...]
Students Do the Grading
There’s nothing more frustrating than not having the power to change something you know is wrong. How about sitting in a classroom, bored, frustrated, feeling like you’re wasting your time, but still not being able to tell the teacher that what he or she is doing just isn’t working? Teacher evaluations are currently in the [...]
The Novartis Case: When Copycats Rightly Win
Nobody likes copycats. Not me, not you, and certainly not pharmaceutical companies like Novartis—especially considering how such companies stand much to lose financially from the actions of generic drug makers, or the pharmaceutical copycats. Unfortunately for Novartis, though, the Indian Supreme Court has refused to provide the company with immunity from its Indian copycats. This [...]
May I Have Some Soap?
Desks are covered with distracting obscenities, vulgarity, and graffiti. Computer science labs have malfunctioning computers that lie in disrepair. Classrooms don’t even have enough desks, and if they do, many are broken, lacking wheels. Escalators are broken for days at a time. Most disturbingly, disgustingly, and sickeningly of all, half the bathrooms in the school [...]
Confessions of a 90.1
With absolute apathy on his face, my math teacher looks around the classroom and mutters, “I graded your tests.” And the crowd goes wild. Tests matter far too much in this school. They decide what’s on your transcript, your transcript decides which college you get into, and that college decides how your life will unfold. [...]
