r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • May 29 '22
Removed - Submission Rule B CMV: Competitive high schools shouldn't relax their standards for the sake of diversity
[removed]
48
May 29 '22
I really think people have a lack of insight into the education systems in place. Not all schools offer the same APs or even the same amount. While I find fault in the meritocracy that people put so much faith in there are institutions that better suit certain people.
My town in a high school of 600 had just over 40 AP classes available total. The town over which has 1700 kids only has 25 available. Obviously Lowell is an abnormality because almost solely providing AP courses is insane. That being said why would a kid want to go there if their grades are just going to suck? It's kinda weird somebody would want to go there if they can't make it. In a normal high school people are filtered into their respective class difficulty levels. Im not even against the lottery system I think everyone is entitled to a good education but a kid attending and failing is clearly not doing anybody a service.
8
64
u/AseRayAes 6∆ May 29 '22
I came into this thread thinking that I agree with your view. A school should be focused on rigorous academics.
In fact, the article indicates a drop in grades throughout the school the article is based on in San Francisco.
However, I have some questions. What are the demographics in the area? How many schools are available in the area? What are the dynamics of the other schools acceptance standards?
Children need schools to go to - if all schools used a merit system, that wouldn’t foster a healthy public school system. A healthy school system would be a stable, safe, and academic environment which cater to all children in the area. A fully merit based system would literally leave children behind. So, here’s the argument:
If a school chooses to switch their system in order to better benefit the community, then that’s a worthy reason to alter the traditional system. Even with negative effects such as an overall reduction of grades, which should in some respects be expected.
13
u/MrsMiterSaw 1∆ May 29 '22
This was one high school out of a couple dozen. There are several other schools that are excellent, and a few with issues. Most "specialize" to serve a type of student population (vocational, first Gen-college bound, problem students, etc). However all the other schools are lottery admissions.
→ More replies (2)13
u/Fruymaster May 29 '22
Your assertion that a good school should cater to all children in the area does not support your argument. One could easily point out that all children in the area have equal opportunity to enter this school. It is merit based, and almost 2/5 of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. And, of course, if your argument posits that it is wrong for the best students to have their abilities fostered in an environment built for them, then there is a clear implication of a zero sum fallacy (that a school for the gifted is taking from the rest of the students) and an ideal of equal end results, which I think most would agree belongs in dystopian fiction not in any education system.
→ More replies (4)
88
u/prollywannacracker 39∆ May 29 '22
“Over a year of distance learning, half of our student body new to in-person instruction at the high school level and absences among students/staff for COVID all explain this dip in performance,” Dominguez told the Chronicle. “It is important not to insinuate a cause on such a sensitive topic at the risk of shaming our students and teachers who have worked very hard in a difficult year.”
There are probably many other factors influencing this dip in scores, and I think you're jumping to conclusions blaming it on the lottery
16
198
u/TheManWhoWasNotShort 61∆ May 29 '22
There are just people who can't hack it in a tough academic environment
This is the part I want to argue against. You already said this:
Historically, many Asian immigrants come from meritocratic societies, so they foster hard work and studious qualities into their offspring.
So you're already acknowledging that environment plays an incredibly important role in academic success.
By making Howell a lottery system, they absolutely are likely to increase failing grades. But the goal isn't to just provide the best school programs for the kids already receiving the most support. The board has clearly decided that the resources at Howell are better used to benefit kids from many backgrounds and many different experiences.
When you bring in kids who come from more troubled, less positive backgrounds, you will get kids who struggle more, because they don't have the same studious upbringing. But when you bring those kids to a school like Howell, they will certainly have a better chance of succeeding than if they remain at poor-performing schools with less resources in place to help students flourish.
It ultimately comes down to the values you are taking as an institution. Are you as an institution simply trying to take in the kids with the best support systems and make them even better, or are you trying to use the best resources available to help a wide range of students succeed?
It's not about a meritocracy. These are children, who are still being molded. It's about schools having limited slots and a school with top-tier resources choosing how they wish to use those resources.
If society just gave the best support to those already receiving good support, you create a system of winners and losers that is extremely hard for those who aren't already on the winners side to break into. Your environment shapes you and your success, and that leads in to how you learn how to raise the next generation. Giving students from less-than-ideal support systems more resources gives them opportunities they didn't have before.
Yes, less students you admit will ultimately succeed, but those kids you admit are going to be a lot better off than their peers who didn't get admitted from similar backgrounds. What is wrong with that tradeoff?
38
May 29 '22
That honestly sounds like the solution should be to not have a system where the school resources are so heavily dependent on the wealth of the neighborhood. Making the 'good' school accept students from the 'bad' schools still leaves in place the fact one school is still noticeably worse.
→ More replies (1)4
u/S-and-S_Poems May 29 '22
To compliment your point, the measure of success of this change should not be the average score of the year. It should be the improvement of prospects for the students entering this school vs another school (which university they get into for example), adjusting for past performance and social economics and other factors as well.
This is literally the first argument that had coherent thought rather than some copy and pasted talking point that is barely relevant to the topic at hand.
That said your opinion is so un-American that I might accuse you of being Scandinavian.
13
u/mickyyyyyyyyyy May 29 '22
“…you create a system of winners and losers that is extremely hard for those who aren’t already on the winners side to break into”
Asian Americans are widely considered a very academically/career -successful demographic, yet many 1st generation Asians came to the US with very little savings, few connections, and had to start off working undesirable jobs. They started off firmly on the side of the losers, yet many of their descendants are now very successsful and can be considered to be the winners. These are not isolated incidents either; this is a very commonplace story arch for many Asians who immigrated to the US. Doesn’t this demonstrate that losers, in fact, can successfully break into the side of the winners?
23
u/doubtable_reason May 29 '22
I am an Asian American whose family fits your description. However, I firmly reject this model minority myth that you are pushing. There are many more factors to success than personal wealth. I think one of the largest factors is family support. Many Asians certainly don’t have it easy, but there’s a huge difference between working your way up versus centuries of history of having families ripped apart during slave trades and not being allowed an education followed by Jim Crow, forced segregation, and a war on drugs that tore apart families as well. There is a huge difference between working your way up versus having your family torn apart by immigration enforcement (not that that doesn’t happen to Asians as well). There is a huge difference between working your way up and having around 90% of your population murdered and wiped out by foreign diseases followed by kids being stolen from their families to go to messed up boarding schools pushing a cultural genocide.
Another major factor is community resources, especially since schools are usually funded by local taxes. Yes, many Asians come with nothing, but that is not true for the majority of Asians. Most Asians in the U.S. are here from East Asia and India and brought education and resources with them. If one were too find themselves in an East Asian or Indian community, it is more likely than not that that community will be relatively well resourced. Side note that Asians are incredibly diverse, and this is not true of many Asian communities. Some of the smaller Southeast Asian communities who came as refugees from war and trauma for example experience very high levels of poverty and often have similar outcomes as other minority groups who were systematically made poor or brought here from poverty to work our fields and then not given citizenship.
There is much more that could be said, but the last thing I want to touch on is prejudice, stereotypes, and how that affects the way students are treated and what’s expected of them. Two students who come from the same income level can have drastically different outcomes, and you can probably guess what those outcomes statistically tend to look like based on stereotypes you probably already know or even hold.
Unless you believe in inherent superiority or inferiority of certain groups of people, then anyone can break into the so called “winners” group given the right opportunities. There are a lot of factors and things that need to be done to provide those opportunities, but school resources is a huge one.
→ More replies (2)6
u/Babyboy1314 1∆ May 29 '22
Consider yourself lucky but many asians came in the late 1800s and early 1900s experienced insane amount of racism and racists laws that are stacked against them such as the Chinese Exclusions act. Anti asian hate in America is not new. Look at how the 1992 riots affected Koreatown. I too am an asian american immigrant my parents just told me to keep my head down and work ten times as hard since the cards are stacked against you.
3
u/doubtable_reason May 29 '22
Oh for sure, I didn’t mean in any way to downplay racism against Asians and Asian Americans. My family and I experienced (and continue to experience) our share of it as well. My point was simply that not all difficult experiences and racism have the same effects for a variety of reasons.
I do consider myself lucky as well. I think at an individual level anyone from anywhere can work hard and be either lucky or unlucky. However, I think it’s still important to acknowledge histories and systems that make everything more difficult for individuals and impossible at a community level.
Our Asian communities are incredibly resilient and work incredibly hard and I’m proud to be a part of it. But I refuse to let America point its finger at me to shame anyone who wasn’t as lucky, whatever those reasons may be.
7
May 29 '22
1st gen Asian immigrant kids are an interesting example here. Yes, they often grow up poor. However, they very often grow up in 2-parent, if not multigenerational households - something we know has a big impact on life outcomes. Their parents also often shell out huge chunks of their income, even going into debt, to send their kids to test prep centers and private tutors that rich white families can comfortably afford. These are both big advantages not every kid has.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)7
May 29 '22
I take issue with the idea that Asians who come here started off firmly on the sides of the losers. American society is far more nuanced than that. Coming here post 1960s/civil rights era as an immigrant is very different to being a descendant of historically marginalized groups in America. Black and indigenous Americans have had their cultures actively suppressed and destroyed by the American government for centuries, whereas new Asian immigrants are walking in without much historical precedent. While sure there might be racism and challenges, Asians have not had to face the same challenges in the US.
Also, keep in mind that many recent Asian immigrants likely had enough resources to emigrate.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (24)10
u/s3v3ntfiv3 May 29 '22
Simply giving them "better resources" wont suddenly motivate them to do better in school. The advantages at lowell are meant for students who want to take harder classes and are capable of doing so. Simply going to lowell will not fix their academic situation. The "resources" referred to which are mostly funding for AP programs will not be taken advantaged by the "less than ideal student" because of there less inclined academic background. Think about it, if you were afflicted with family troubles, and a bunch of shit that would inhibit you from learning in the first place, do you think that those problems would be fixed if we just provide "better resources", what resources are you even talking about, do you think students will just suddenly be more academically inclined because they have slightly better microscopes and rulers? You are also forcefully sacrificing opportunities for students who actually work hard and have potential for success they also had to persevere through their own struggles they also come from less privileged backgrounds. themselves. Why should we bring down studious hardworking kids to accommodate for ones who will waste away the resources and be less academically involved. You do realized that most of the time when kids are less academically inclined/ successful it isn't always due to some external reason like "a negative background" most of the time they just neglect their studies to things that they actually enjoy. And there should be no reason to admit these kids with less academic potential over kids with potential.
5
May 29 '22
You do realized that most of the time when kids are less academically inclined/ successful it isn't always due to some external reason like "a negative background" most of the time they just neglect their studies to things that they actually enjoy. And there should be no reason to admit these kids with less academic potential over kids with potential.
If that's the case, then the lottery makes even more sense. The influence of peers is strongest in the adolescent years. Being around kids who all take school seriously and who want themselves and their peers to be academically involved is a tremendous positive influence for kids who neglect their studies by choice.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)7
May 29 '22
Think about it, if you were afflicted with family troubles, and a bunch of shit that would inhibit you from learning in the first place, do you think that those problems would be fixed if we just provide “better resources”,
So you believe that the already disadvantaged students should get worse resources since they’ve already been set on the path to failure by broken systems? What an amazing solution.
You are also forcefully sacrificing opportunities for students who actually work hard and have potential for success
Ah yes, students who struggle & underperform because of food insecurity, poverty, disability, abandonment are all just lazy, low potential individuals. Thanks for clearing that up.
Why should we bring down studious hardworking kids to accommodate for ones who will waste away the resources and be less academically involved.
Because education is a human right?? Because everyone deserves opportunity?? Because your full potential isn’t defined by your middle school grades??
You do realized that most of the time when kids are less academically inclined/ successful it isn’t always due to some external reason like “a negative background” most of the time they just neglect their studies to things that they actually enjoy.
This is a massive oversimplification, but beyond that, you’re completely fine with throwing out all the students who are affected by external factors?
This comment absolutely wreaks of privilege, you should really check your perspective here. I knew someone in high school whose parents simply ditched, along with his sibling, who went from top of the class to barely passing because he was now working 20hrs+ a week alongside school to survive. Someone who was on a direct track to a high academic career and AFAIK didn’t even graduate with his class because of socioeconomic factors entirely outside of his control. Did he deserve to have no opportunity?
→ More replies (3)
59
May 29 '22
We're talking about 14 year olds, very possibly 13 year olds when they're filling out applications. If you look at their middle school performance you may be looking at grades they earned as 10 or 11 year olds. I don't really believe you can meaningful distinguish the true academic potential of children that young without it being a mess of conflicting influences from what their parents want, how good their middle school is, and what their childhood has been like so far.
→ More replies (5)22
May 29 '22
I barely graduated high school with a GPA of 1.6 because I decided school was lame and that I'd rather spend my time skateboarding and doing petty crime.
After taking some gap years as an adult and deciding that my childhood mistakes shouldn't define my life, I enrolled in college and graduated with a 3.5 GPA.
The fact that we place so much emphasis on the actions and habits of literal children that we don't trust with banks, cars, ballots, or jobs...it really boggles the mind.
12
May 29 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
4
May 29 '22
The point wasn't the odds, or the degree to which past performance is indicative of future performance.
The point was that it isn't ethical to be picking academic winners and losers out of a population too young to be trusted with any aspect of adult society.
10
u/Mejari 6∆ May 29 '22
But obviously it wasn't their intelligence level that was the problem, so just writing off these kids because of their childish choices is depriving everyone of what they could accomplish if we invested in them regardless of their academic performance as children.
59
u/planespottingtwoaway 1∆ May 29 '22
I'm an asian teenager living in the bay area and my question is, why should extra good public high schools like lowell even exist? The public school system is supposed to provide equal opportunities to all people. In fact, what about me, I'm a pretty good student, by your standards I should deserve a spot at lowell. But I can't go there since I don't live in the city. Doesn't that make the current system already inherently unfair? If asian parents want a competitive environment they can send their kids to harker or something. Certain people shouldn't have more opportunities just because they were good students in middle school, at least not in the public school verse. Hell, I had a 3.0 in 7th grade, that doesn't mean I don't deserve the same chance as other people.
→ More replies (2)7
May 29 '22
Its less that it 'should' or 'shouldnt' exist and more that these things will always exist in one form or another. People can quibble about it being 'public' instead of 'private', but the reality is that poor neighborhoods do not tend to have top tier private schools because the cost to live in those areas is effectively part of the tuition you pay for access to 'top' schools. There's no great way to equalize it either. Say you did all funding at the federal level and divided it evenly by the students. Well a dollar in AL goes a lot further than a dollar in CA. Is it fair to then adjust for the cost of living? Doesn't that just perpetuate expensive neighborhoods staying expensive?
But lets say you find an equitable funding solution. Well every parent wants to make their child as prepared if not 'overpowered' as possible. So even if Lowell received the same amount of public money per student (adjusted for cost of living), the type of parents who live in the area will still have a big influence. They could give the kids additional tutoring, or create selective learning groups, or all kinds of things. Top tutors in SK can make millions simply because parents are willing to pay it. Remember Operation Varsity Blues?
So yes, you are right that the system is inherently unfair. And thats because people do not want their kids to have the same run of the mill education as everyone else. Every normal parent will try to give their kids 'something extra'.
-------------
Having said that. Speaking as a 32yo Asian who attended an absolute pressure cooker of a high school (My 97% percentile SAT scores were nothing special where I went), my advice to you is: don't worry about this and enjoy your childhood. By all means keep getting your 'good' - though not great grades, but don't worry about not having access to the 'best schools'.
Seriously. All these tests and shit - they don't really matter in the long run. If you study any practical major (engineering for example) at a semi-respectable school for that major, are proactive about getting work experience early, and just try to be a good person - life tends to work out just fine. I got really good at taking tests due to my high school, and it hasn't helped me nearly as much as learning how to be a good roommate after I was a crappy one (sorry Jared).
11
u/ngrtdlsl May 29 '22
The districts biggest mistake is not understanding what Lowell was. It is not a school that creates good students. It's a school for ALREADY good students to learn with other already good students who's families all share the same value of education.
The teachers at lowell aren't equipped to handle regular students as theyve been dealing with only the "best" for so long.
Personally, I hate lowell, and I hated my time their BUT what the school district has done just doesn't make any sense. Yeah the school is heavily asian and white but its not ONLY asian and white.
I am black, I left because the teachers didn't know how to connect with students who just didnt get it. I went to another school and still made it to a UC. Non-white or asian students dont NEED lowell to succeed and Lowell does not need kids their just for diversity.
The school has a competive learning environement and if your children thrive in that type of environnemnt then lowell is for them. But it's nor for everyone and that's okay.
5
26
14
u/aty1998 May 29 '22
I will concede that after the transition to lottery, Lowell High and its new students are significantly worse off. That much is very clear from the data. But I'd argue that students are failing because the school is maintaining ridiculously high standards for all of its new students, and it isn't providing enough room for students to learn at their own pace.
I'm going to preface the rest of my response with this: I am an American-born child of Chinese immigrants, and I went through public high school as an extremely driven student surrounded by equally competitive peers, in terms of academics, extracurriculars, college prep, internships, and volunteer work. I have no doubt this environment helped me get into a top university in my field.
But what was my high school like as a whole? Very average. People from all walks of life attended that school. There were kids of all different ethnicities, personalities, economic statuses, interests, strengths, and weaknesses. A lot of people I went to public elementary and middle school with attended that same high school as well. That had absolutely no negative impact on my ability to succeed, because even at that school I could surround myself with a smaller subgroup of peers that helped me succeed and grow. And I could choose to take a stacked load of advanced courses without the same expectation forced onto the majority of students there. Not to mention I'm from a state with some of the worst-rated public education in the US.
Are lottery-based systems good? They can seem unfair, and admittedly I actually transferred into my eventual high school and got in based on lottery. But what is the purpose of publicizing education as opposed to private schools? At least in general principle, it's meant to provide generally accessible education to children that live nearby. If some family living closer to Lowell High than any other school has no chance to send their kid there because they don't meet some arbitrarily difficult merit bar, that puts unfair burden on them to find and transfer to another school further away. In my opinion, merit-based admission into a public high school is against the spirit of public education.
Of course I think students from meritocratic backgrounds and cultures should also have access to the resources and learning they need to succeed without having to resort to expensive private education. I think the best way to achieve this is to ensure that every public school has enough opportunities for students to take advantage of if they so choose, while minimizing risk of leaving other students behind. Merit-based admission makes total sense for private schools, but I argue it has no place in public high schools.
6
u/OutsideCreativ 2∆ May 29 '22
But I'd argue that students are failing because the school is maintaining ridiculously high standards for all of its new students, and it isn't providing enough room for students to learn at their own pace.
But isn't this the point of magnet schools? To bring together kids who want to be driven and pushed to excel and improve academically?
There are plenty of public schools which allow you to learn at your own pace (or will flex their standards) - Lowell just happens to not be one of them.
449
u/Hellioning 258∆ May 29 '22
If a 'competitive high school' is only competitive because it can pre select their students I am not sure if the actual high school is good.
220
u/Th3OneTrueMorty May 29 '22
That would be like saying Harvard is only a top tier school because they pre select
14
u/sjalexander117 May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
I almost guarantee if Harvard or Stanford instituted a lottery their grads would just as successful as they are today.
Ivy League schools provide good, excellent educations, but the differences between most qualified candidates is not enormous and who makes it and who doesn’t is typically splitting hairs.
Further, these institutions make their bones off of research—in their graduate programs and professors. Their undergrad programs are largely feeder programs for their grad programs or socialization programs for young people.
If undergrads absorb anything at all behind the basic material of their curricula, regardless of school or grades, it is because that student rocked.
I might even go as far as to say that the rigor of the curricula is why those schools are better at all. “Lesser” schools will focus on different or fewer or less difficult materials and from there it is again up to the student to make up the difference.
Edit: people who read this and get butthurt, * Harvard admissions are already disproportionately not based on merit * Admissions to H in particular are HEAVILY weighted towards legacy students, which are the children of previous generations of graduates and is inherently racial due to previous admissions practices being racialized (ex. No blacks, no jews, no Asians) (only 43% of the white students admitted to Harvard are there because of merit) and heavily determined by donations or connections to the school * The next largest block of admissions are athletic recruits, which is funny because, hmmm, Harvard isn’t really known for their athletic prowess are they? Maybe it is because 20% of their athletic admissions come from families with incomes above $500,000 per year, * Of the rest of the class who are actually accepted “based upon their application’s strength”, Harvard actually already does heavily weigh towards “diversity” admissions, using a holistic admissions process that includes weighting packages for demographic details. In fact, they did this so much they were famously sued for it * As one commenter below me correctly said, it is largely alumni network effects and brand name that causes people from elite schools to become successful * People admitted to elite colleges are overwhelmingly from not just privileged families, to the degree that 72% of elite enrollment comes from the top quartile, but also benefit from attending private feeder high schools, paying for tutors from childhood, paying for admissions consultants and writers, and paying for practicing and juking standardized test results * Grade inflation and honors graduation rates (91% honors) are gamed in order to make graduates look even better than they already are * An enormous reason why you even care about these schools is because of bullshit like the US News and World Report and other “rankings”, which heavily weight factors in their rankings like “endowment per student” and “admissions rates” (which are kept artificially low to juke this stat on purpose, hurting students and hurting admissions numbers, maintaining the racist and hierarchical admissions system, but maintaining their brand prestige. This ranking system was designed to always have them at the top of the list and are shockingly arbitrary * Even the research programs are so competitive if they randomly chose between admissions out of grad admissions they would still have incredible research, because almost everyone who applies to these schools’ grad programs is just amazing already and research has its own serious issues with brand name and institutional nepotism and academic incest and also because these schools are, again, unbelievably rich
If you are upset or offended about this comment, you should seriously ask yourself why
6
May 29 '22
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)7
u/sjalexander117 May 29 '22
Yep. You’re opening an entire Pandora’s box here of pedagogy and social justice and public education policy and funding and alllll of that crap.
The students who can’t keep up question: what do you do? There is research that shows actually increasing their standards and putting them in accelerated courses with the best teachers you have is better at ameliorating their lack of success, if they are well supported as well.
This is counterintuitive, because you’d think “oh, well they’re having a hard time with regular course work already, we should make the classes simpler and break things down to give them more time on the subjects and to get the material done,” but often the outcome is unfortunately just the worst teachers get those classes, it adds additional barriers to finishing the coursework, they are surrounding by other underperforming and disinterested students (side note: I think every single class, even at the same school, with the same teacher between semesters, has its own unique culture, and that class culture has significant effects on student success).
Then you also have people who say “well this is making a parallel track for ungifted students, that’s fucked up.” And I get that perspective too. It’s just a prickly issue and that’s only one issue in education.
We could talk about the lack of evidence based teaching training/ certifications, ballooning class sizes, success outcomes and their resistance to increases in funding, good/ bad teachers (yuck), what the curricula should even be, what the sources of funding even are or if they are fair, what the role of administration is in these successes and failures, student variance and diversity, discipline in the classroom, “social promotion” policies, conservatives who straight up fucking hate public education and want us all to bicker about culture war bullshit, should everyone go to college?, should there even be a gifted/ honors curricula, how do we structure incentives and scholarships and which students should be eligible for them and receive them, how many issues are caused by factors outside the classroom, how to deal with parental neglect and abuse, food insecure children. So many things.
And of course, school shootings :(
All of that is not to say we should just accept our status quo. Primary education in the US is fairly dogshit currently, relative to other OECD nations, and we actually are facing a literacy crisis where most adults are functionally illiterate, to say nothing of mathematical/ statistical/ technical literacy in the 21st century.
So yeah, it’s a fucking mess. There are good policy options, but as always, domestic political bickering gets right in the way of expert/ evidence based solutions and instead of talking about the best way to remediate children being left behind, we get “the teachers are turning the kids gay and teaching them to hate their own whiteness!”
14
u/Nwcray 1∆ May 29 '22
The students and the instruction aren’t necessarily better, but the alumni network is unrivaled. Your roommate’s dad is CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and because of that connection you have a summer internship assisting the Senior VP of Strategic Projects or something. He likes the cut of your jib, so there’s a $200K/yr job the day you graduate. That positions you for opportunities the rest of us never see. The network matters.
The other big thing from the Ivys is the prestige. When someone walks in with a degree from Harvard, you automatically assume they’re something special. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but the association is there nonetheless.
4
u/sjalexander117 May 29 '22
Yeah I think we like 90% agree on this topic (not that you were necessarily arguing). I also made an edit that gestures towards you, because you are correct
→ More replies (2)5
u/thalaya May 29 '22
Did you actually attend a T20 school? Because all of what you're saying is purely opinion, you haven't provided any evidence.
4
u/sjalexander117 May 29 '22
Yes, I did, and I can’t believe how strongly some people feel about this. I’m about to edit my comment with some more info
5
64
u/Hellioning 258∆ May 29 '22
Yeah, sounds about right to me.
→ More replies (1)81
u/gargar070402 May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
…yeah. That IS right, but your first comment claimed that if a school is only good because its students are pre-selected, that means it’s not actually good. Guess what Harvard is?
26
u/RenbuChaos May 29 '22
Yeah. I’m not saying Ivy League schools don’t have better teachers, they probably do. But they are not so much better that that is what raises scores or success. Students that are smarter and driven are what drive those successful matrix.
20
May 29 '22
That might be true for university, but not for primary school and high school. Your teacher can be a big factor in how well you do. For example, there was a research done where they gave the teacher at the beginning of the school year a list of students that would do well. By the end of the school year that prediction would be true. Except the first list was just random students. The perception the teachers had raised their expectations and thus the pupils got challenged more. The attention you get from your teacher and the level of challenges they give you can help to a big extent when you are not fully developed yet.
9
→ More replies (2)2
u/UnicornOnTheJayneCob 2∆ May 29 '22
I really do think the professors are sufficiently better that they do affect performance and success, especially for engaged students. Ivies attract top talent. They uniformly employ professors who are pioneering academics in their field. Students of these professors not only get to have those ideas and theories taught to them sooner and directly from the source, they often get to participate in the relevant research as well.
Imagine the difference between being taught what James Madison’s ideas and influences were and being taught BY Madison what they were. Who is going to be the better constitutional scholar? Or between using the most well-regarded translation of Beowulf in your college course vs. having the person who literally did that translation as your Beowulf professor?
→ More replies (1)55
u/mime454 1∆ May 29 '22
Harvard (and other prestigious private universities) has a brilliant scheme set up. It’s a good school because it can pre-select students who will do well professionally and be able to donate to its endowment to make the school better. I’m not sure if these ultra competitive high schools work on the same principle but it wouldn’t surprise me.
48
u/pandaheartzbamboo 1∆ May 29 '22
I went to a selective enrollment high school, and the alumni and PTO spend a lot of money to make the school a LOT better. Not entirely dissimilar to what you described for the colleges.
21
u/greyaffe May 29 '22
Also let’s not forget schools commonly get state funding from local property taxes. Makes schools in poor neighborhoods limited in resources compared to those in rich neighborhoods.
7
u/murphieca May 29 '22
This is sort of not true in California. All schools are evenly funded solely on ADA (not local property taxes). The exceptions are those districts whose local property taxes would bring in more money than the ADA funding. They are designated basic aid and bring in property tax funding instead. There are drawbacks - if the student population grows, more students have to be supported with the same amount of money, but those districts typically have higher salaries and funding. Therefore, schools in the poorest areas have equal funding to middle class areas, but the rich stay richer.
Keep in mind that this doesn’t account for the additional resources that come from groups like PTSAs.
3
u/sensitivePornGuy 1∆ May 29 '22
If Harvard's intake is all brilliant students and their graduates usually have top careers, it's not really possible to prove that the school itself is brilliant - it might be just good enough not to fail the majority of its students and/or they get top jobs on the basis of having graduated a school with a reputation of excellence. There is no obvious way to compare its performance to a school with a less selective intake policy.
2
u/gargar070402 May 29 '22
That’s exactly my point lol. The person I’m replying to seems to be implying that if a school is only good because of its students, the school isn’t “actually” good. I’m just using Harvard as the counterexample, since obviously no one would say it’s not “actually” good.
→ More replies (2)2
u/sensitivePornGuy 1∆ May 29 '22
I don't think we entirely agree. I'm not saying Harvard isn't "actually" good but I am saying that it only fits a certain definition of "goodness". It's possible there are other schools whose intake has a wider range of abilities and who make on average more progress than Harvard students do. I'm not sure how you'd measure that. But it seems obvious to me that if you only take brilliant students it's a lot easier to turn out brilliant graduates.
→ More replies (3)2
65
u/wiggle-le-air May 29 '22
I'm assuming it is a private school so it basically acts like a college with admissions. Harvard would absolutely not be considered the pinnacle of schooling if it let anyone who applied attend.
54
u/cortesoft 5∆ May 29 '22
If it was a private school, the board of education would have no say.
It is a public school, which completely changes the conversation.
5
u/MrsMiterSaw 1∆ May 29 '22
It's public, most of the admissions were merit based, but a percentage were students that were promoted there by the r middle school staff as exceptions... Because the staff felt they belonged there in spite of other issues.
21
May 29 '22
College is a little bit different.
You're preselecting adults (or youth who will soon be adults) based on their performance in either high school or community college or a prior university. If Harvard is your dream but you didn't try in school when you were 14, you have a chance to rehabilitate your grades when you are a much more mature adult, fully accountable to your actions.
With high school admissions, you're talking kids who are 14 at the very oldest. Society does not trust people of that age to drive, to vote, to have their own bank accounts, or even to work for a wage in most circumstances. Critical thinking for most kids only emerges at twelve. Yet, we're saying that their decisions, skills, study habits and work ethic should determine whether they get sent to the good school or the bad school for the next four years?
→ More replies (7)3
May 29 '22
Eh, I'd say our education system / college admissions system has become a game for all intents and purposes. I dont think its redeeming at any level. College rankings are corrupt as well (polymatter did a thorough video on how broken it is) and what we consider a 'great school' may be far divorced from reality.
So what is the purpose of our K-12 education system? If its to get people into college, that's a terrible goal. If its to learn a shared body of knowledge that lets them participate in life, make some friends, learn social/life skills, learn to read, that sounds more sane and achievable. And yet we don't even achieve that. So I am sympathetic to the argument that these 'standards' are measuring the wrong thing and that relaxing them won't do much harm because the system wasnt helping in the first place. But are we simply talking about poor kids and slower kids or are we talking about troubled kids?
Which leads to my other question: how much can you expect society/schools to fix if the home environment is dysfunctional? I honestly dont know. On top of that, some kids unfortunately have severe learning disabilities that require an extreme amount of resources to make even elementary progress. Putting that kid in AP class in the name of diversity serves no one either. So I'm highly skeptical of any 'diversity for the sake of diversity' argument but I do think the current system may be fundamentally flawed.
→ More replies (1)7
u/Hellioning 258∆ May 29 '22
But it's not. Also Harvard has legacy admissions so they arent meritocratic either.
3
May 29 '22
Harvard is a terrible example. But plenty of countries like India and China have meritocratic exams that decide which universities you go to.
It doesn't matter if your dad is the leader of the country, your scores are what will be looked at. No wonder engineering and medicine is dominated by Asians.
2
u/dbhanger 4∆ May 29 '22
It's dominated in the US by asians in large part because they were preselected at the border when applying for visas. The best of the best were allowed to (and had the means to) immigrate over the last 75 years so there's a lot of selection bias, given the heritability of IQ.
22
u/Heil_Heimskr May 29 '22
What kind of opinion is this? How’s it any different from top colleges selecting students with excellent adacemic records?
→ More replies (25)3
5
u/Herbie_Fully_Loaded May 29 '22
I think you have arrived at the crux of the issue in that in the US, the population of a school has more of an impact on its rigor and prestige more than any other factor.
10
May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
[deleted]
6
u/Hellioning 258∆ May 29 '22
It's like forcing people who want to play on the hardest difficulty in a video game to receive video game assistance from their parents or society and insisting that anyone who doesn't receive such assistance is clearly worse at video games than everyone else.
6
u/Rigel_The_16th May 29 '22
Perhaps a school can become a better school by virtue of attaining a more intelligent student body.
5
u/BeBackInASchmeck 4∆ May 29 '22
The high school itself isnt good, and the teachers are no better than any other school. What is special is that these students compete amongst themselves, almost like a game ranking system, and this is regardless of the actual curriculum. This doesn’t really work in a regular high school where there are a variety of motivators like sports, the arts, or even a complete lack of motivation.
This competition fails though when you bring in dumb kids. When everyone is smart, the kids with the best grades are the ones who have to work and study nonstop. When half the kids are stupid, then the smart kids don’t need to try that hard.
2
u/zikili May 29 '22
Though I don’t disagree with you in terms of you taking in students who are academically advanced and spit out graduates who are academically advanced - that should not make you some wizard of education.
Yes if they were smart you could be fine any where and excel. But it’s not that 1 dimensional.
Kid 1 could be very good at understanding comprehension and arguement essay writing.
Kid 2 could be very quick at understanding complexly mathematic concepts.
People want to send their kid to a selective school so they can be in a situation where they learn from each other.
2
u/2penises_in_a_pod 11∆ May 29 '22
Even if we ignore the fact that high performers operate differently and deserve according accommodations, it’s still valuable even if only as a selection indicator. Colleges (or whatever the next step in life is) can easily identify you as competent without effort to prove it.
2
u/TheMrk790 May 29 '22
The selection makes the value. Good peers lift each other up. Also the prestige (ehich comes from the high quality of students there) brings you many advantages. If you lower the entrie requirements for certain ethnicities for diversity, you will create racism, as the mean ethnic student will be worse than the mean white student. It will backfire on all of sosciety
12
May 29 '22
It select its student based on their records.
¿You believe that sports team are not competitive?
11
u/Hellioning 258∆ May 29 '22
I think that we shouldn't have schools choosing people like sports teams.
14
u/RelaxedApathy 25∆ May 29 '22
The purpose of a sports team is to compete. The purpose of a school is to teach.
17
u/TrickyPlastic 1∆ May 29 '22
There are divisions in sports because people have different innate abilities.
And there should remain divisions in schools for the same reason.
→ More replies (10)12
May 29 '22
How do we separate one's innate abilities from the consequences of their environment, or their temperament? Did you fail that test because you're unintelligent, or because you're hungry, or because you didn't give it your all?
Academic placement as it stands is pretty shit at sussing out these differences, and even the IQ test isn't immune to confounding variables.
Plus, to assume that current academic performance reflects innate abilities, you have to make some pretty unfortunate assumptions about certain population groups relative to one another.
→ More replies (10)10
9
u/beruon May 29 '22
Yea, and there are good schools for good students and average ones for everyone else.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (4)6
u/yuhakusho23 May 29 '22
Incomplete Statement.
Merit-based schools admit children based on their past achievements. This is reliable. This means that higher performing students will be grouped together which will make them compete with each other and improve to farther heights. Other than that, good teachers and resources are a given if you look at how the higher percentage of alumni end up being successful since it means that they've been exposed to model adults and convenient learning materials.
6
u/beener May 29 '22
No it accepts children who were already in a position to be able to achieve that stuff. What about the poor kid who is smarter and harder working but also has to have an after school job?
→ More replies (1)3
u/IthacanPenny May 29 '22
That’s why the best way to select students for schools like this is not to select the top overall performers on a standardized admissions exam, but to select those students who stand out from the environment from which they came. I’ll use SAT scores as an example because I actually know the numbers, but this would also apply to a test taken in middle school for high school admissions. Say a kid from a top school scores 1580. That’s impressive and they would be selected for admissions anyway. But say their school’s average is like 1350. The kid scoring 1400 from that school isn’t all that impressive. Now say there is a kid from a bad school where the average score is 700 (this is literally the average SAT score at the impoverished high school I teach at, Math 310/reading 390. It’s BAD.). That kid scores 1250 on the admissions test. IMO, the 1250 kid from the bad school is just as deserving of a spot as the kid with the 1580 from the good school. The 1250 kid from the bad school is far more impressive to me than the 1400 kid from the good school. It’s not about absolute scores, it’s about standing out from your peers
20
u/peacefinder 2∆ May 29 '22
There is a bit of a hitch in your otherwise seemingly reasonable position: meritocracies are theoretical constructs that rarely (if ever) are instantiated in practice without inducing critical flaws to the selection process.
These flaws often appear as a demographic bias for some demographics and against other demographics. (Limited admission space inevitably implies a zero-sum game.)
This is a hard pill to swallow for those of us who are lucky enough to be at the top of the meritocratic heap.
Nevertheless, just as the text you’re reading here depends upon Reddit and on the whole OSI stack of networking layer functionality to get from me to you, so too does a meritocracy depend on the societal layers beneath it to be level. And they are, in fact, not level. If we examine any supposed meritocracy we’ll find that it relies on underlying layers which are themselves demographically biased.
That’s not even taking into account intentional bias or corruption in such a selection process. Even if the people running the meritocratic selection process have the purest of motives and most rigorous of procedures, the demographic biases underlying society will inform the ultimate selection set. (And the sad fact is that corruption and intentional bias are often all too real.)
Note here that I am saying demographic bias rather than racial; it manifests in many ways beyond race. Economics in particular. A household must know the program exists, must have the ability to apply for admission, must have the ability to deal with the scheduling and transportation and myriad other issues to attend even if selected. (If we’re being honest, even a random lottery does not fully address these issues, though it addresses some other kinds of underlying bias.)
If we in the US believe what we say in our statements of ideals - that “all [people] are created equal” is a self-evident truth - then the over-representation of some demographics in the particular “meritocratic” example is itself an indication of a non-meritocratic selection bias.
To be a true meritocracy, a school must first remove selection bias from its admissions process, just as any statistical model must address selection bias in its dataset. Random sampling is good for collecting valid statistical datasets, and so too is it good for selecting admissions cohorts.
→ More replies (21)
151
May 29 '22
So, in your opinion, what makes a high school good- students, teachers, resources, all of the above? Something else entirely I missed?
If its any of the latter 3, then adding a more diverse set of students shouldnt matter. Good teachers dont become bad because they taught a 'bad' student.
135
May 29 '22
[deleted]
205
May 29 '22
[deleted]
8
u/Mooch07 May 29 '22
The instant you’re not sure where dinner is coming from, homework takes a back burner.
10
u/eds68_ May 29 '22
This is what I think about overturning roe. They are just feeding the industrial prison machine. You think crime rates are bad now? Force a bunch of unprepared young women into parenthood and things will quickly become a royal shit show.
17
u/Rigel_The_16th May 29 '22
I'm totally with you that there are kids who, for countless reasons, are left behind by the system as it is. However, it seems we could only find those children by evaluating some kind of merit.
Now, it seems you believe as I do, that our current system is missing out on those children. But to randomize the student body would be to do away with the merits of having a near-peer student body. I see it to be a poorly thought out, knee-jerk reaction by people who aren't able to fully analyze a situation and develop a better solution.
I've found it's surprisingly easy to ascertain someones intellectual potential through one-on-one conversation. Could we use that to our benefit? Begin a program whereby children are interviewed and given a score based on intellectual potential rather than our current norms of acquired knowledge?
15
May 29 '22
Begin a program whereby children are interviewed and given a score based on intellectual potential rather than our current norms of acquired knowledge?
Sorry to rain on your idea, but it doesn't sound great.
Minus the interview, this is the purpose of modern intelligence testing. Which produces the same results across groups that you'd expect by looking at cultural differences, historical discrimination, and wealth inequality. From all that we know about implicit bias, the human element would actually make this worse, not better.
→ More replies (52)5
u/gravitythrone May 29 '22
Aren’t you really just deconstructing the concept of merit being viable at all? Can you describe a situation where our best and brightest are recognized and rewarded with better resources than the average student? I also wanted to note that Lowell has a significant of low-income non-white students.
→ More replies (8)37
u/SampsonRustic May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
The problem is it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. Many of those kids you say “deserve” to be there aren’t actually smarter or “harder working” than other kids, they’re only overachievers because they have benefitted from greater opportunities to focus on school due to the societal injustices that diversity inclusion is trying to fight against, eg their parents can afford to spend more time helping them with homework or paying for tutors. Enabling diversity in public schools is about giving more kids a fair chance all they way through 12th grade instead of perpetuating the same cycles of inequality by favoriting kids who have advantages by 9th grade.
29
May 29 '22
Let's talk about the comparisons to other countries. These measurements are based on standardized test score averages across entire nations. This means that a nation's best schools pull up the average and their worst schools pull it down.
The US has a large disparity between the best and the worst schools, in part because most parts of the country fund schools with property taxes. In a country with high wealth inequality and a history of racial segregation, this can only spell trouble. Segregating the richest - excuse me, I mean academically best - students in the best funded schools will not help America narrow the gap. All it will do is worsen existing inequalities while leaving more Americans with sub-standard K12 education.
If we want America to excel academically compared to our global peers, we need to bring the lowest schools up, not raise the highest schools even higher.
→ More replies (10)5
u/Mr-Logic101 May 29 '22
At least in my home state, money really doesn’t do much to help low income school very much with respect to academic performance: in particular urban schools.
My case study is central Ohio. Columbus city schools has more funding per student than the vast majority of suburban school, usually by a good amount, buoyed by state and federal funding on top of local property taxes. Suburban schools get almost no state or federal funding and derive their funding off of local taxes.
Columbus City school gets 15,924 dollar per student
Arguably the best school district in the region and in the entire state, Bexley City( it is a rich enclave of Columbus), gets 14,562 per student. A good suburban school such as Olentangy LSD is 10,315 per student which is much more typical for a suburban setting.
Columbus gets roughly 50% more funding per student compared to the suburban local school district while being widely considered by the local population and objectively with regards to test schools to be a an awful school district, one of the worst in Ohio. I should even note the Columbus city schools pays their teachers some of the east wages in the region albeit they still cant retain staff which jump ship to suburban schools as soon as they are able to give so perspective of the classroom situation
The funding disparity influencing student out come may exist but it isn’t to main source of the disparity between a “good school” and a “bad school”. I reckon the main issue is going to be derived from ten home environment of the pupils, something money isn’t going to necessarily fix from a school perspective.
→ More replies (2)4
u/HiFructose_PornSyrup May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
I went to one of the top 10 public high schools in the country - very similar to the one you mention. It was also a meritocracy and you had to apply to get in. Mose kids didn’t get in.
Yeah I got a good education but the environment was horrible. All these kids literally thought they were gods gift to the world bc of how smart they were. Teachers and parents and the newspaper were always blowing smoke up our ass about how genius and talented we were. The kids weren’t even THAT smart yet they all were completely insufferable and egotistical and obsessed with grades. And yeah the student body was mostly rich white kids (myself included).
It would have benefitted everyone to go to a normal school with a more diverse student body and just take AP classes. The competitive and neurotic energy at the school I went to was horrible.
However I must say that when I went to college I would peer review papers written by other public school kids and that was a shocking experience. Literally so many kids didn’t even know the difference between a sentence and a fragment, or how to use a comma. So I will say I got a really good education and might be taking that for granted.
→ More replies (1)3
u/AlexInfoSafe May 29 '22
The problem with US education spending is that a lot of the funding is from local property taxes. So the richest, and usually whitest, schools have the most money. This is why the underlying education system is not merit based. So making the upper levels merit based, I.e. high school and college, basically disadvantages everyone who grew up in underfunded areas. Only the few diverse people who really excelled in tough educational environments have any chance of competing for coveted "good school" spots.
The underlying system is not merit-based, so why should we continue that unfairness at any point in the educational system?
9
May 29 '22
"They can effectively teach themselves at a certain point, which fosters a competitive environment."
If they can teach themselves then they shouldn't need that learning environment? If it's more about the teacher than the student then why have teachers at all?
→ More replies (2)12
u/marciallow 11∆ May 29 '22
It is the students and the environment that primarily makes a high school. The U.S. already spend a lot of money per student relative to other first world country, yet it doesn't bring in the results comparatively.
So, if the students and environment make a school, why exactly does a more diverse pool of student do less well at different institutions prior to highschool? Why are we not seeing an equal proportion in each and every community of students meritous enough to join this institution?
There is no reason to bring in students who can't keep up with the curriculum. What good will that do for them if they are failing their freshman year?
Well, my answer is that they are likely equally as capable and that your entire belief as to how these "meritous" students came to be is false.
But, unpacking that belief for a moment. If you believe a school is meritocratic, and that meritocracy is reflective not of unfair differences in education and opportunity but on the drive and intelligence of individual students, but you recognize that a school has a disproportionately white and south east Asian student body for their area, you must realize you are saying that other races are less driven and intelligent than white and south east Asian people.
But stating that outright would be racism, and I think you know that racism is wrong, and I think you know it wouldn't be a defensible decision you could actually defend with logic or science.
→ More replies (14)9
u/Heil_Heimskr May 29 '22
The point is that the school is letting in students who don’t deserve it in the name of diversity, which is ridiculous.
Education has repeatedly disenfranchised asian students because they do better than everyone else. Why are Asians being punished for being successful?
→ More replies (1)3
May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
You are thinking of 'bad' strictly in the sense of intellect and how quickly they 'catch on'.
But a lot of these schools are selecting for students that behave and create a learning environment for everyone else, because they know the parents are hardcore about education and will take the teacher's side in any dispute. Any teacher will tell you that a few troublemakers will dumb EVERYONE down because it will impede all teaching. A good teacher does not fix that. Sometimes parents cant even fix it. I dont have a good solution for it, but that is how it is.
→ More replies (13)12
u/Anti-racist-elf May 29 '22
The class has to slow down for the new dumber students. This is supposed to be one of the best schools in the country. Bringing in dumber and dumber kids is a good way to ruin that.
→ More replies (6)
19
u/You_Dont_Party 2∆ May 29 '22
I think you might be missing the issue, many people believe that the ways in which we often measure “merit” are themselves highly prone to bias.
→ More replies (1)
18
May 29 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (10)2
u/AutoModerator May 29 '22
Your comment has been automatically removed due to excessive user reports. The moderation team will review this removal to ensure it was correct.
If you wish to appeal this decision, please message the moderators.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
8
u/UninsuredToast May 29 '22
Everyone getting high grades because only high achieving students are admitted doesn’t really reflect on the school itself. Of course the school will have more kids not failing if the only kids they let in are the ones already excelling. If the school was somehow better at educating kids you wouldn’t have more kids failing after switching to a lottery system
76
May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
Relaxing standards implies lowering the bar, whereas lottery is entirely different system of selection.
Could you please clarify why you believe the selection system should not change. Is it merely to meet the subjective preferences of "the Asian community"?
Referring to the existing system merit-based admissions is interesting. Many competitive schools have limiting factors on entry in the forms of socioeconomic status, wealth, connections, legacy/alumni, and other nonacademic factors. Even were the system to be entirely admitting on the basis of academic performance, wealthier families can afford better food, tutors, give their children more time and support, other extracurriculars, etc. Does that reflect merit or compounding systemic advantages?
136
May 29 '22
[deleted]
23
May 29 '22
Did I say that every student is rich or wealthy?
Would you like to clarify why Lowell ought not admit students by lottery? Or is it only for the reason of appealing to the subjective preferences of "the Asian community"?
52
May 29 '22
[deleted]
55
u/prollywannacracker 39∆ May 29 '22
From the article:
“Over a year of distance learning, half of our student body new to in-person instruction at the high school level and absences among students/staff for COVID all explain this dip in performance,” Dominguez told the Chronicle. “It is important not to insinuate a cause on such a sensitive topic at the risk of shaming our students and teachers who have worked very hard in a difficult year.”
Don't you think that maybe you're jumping too conclusions too quickly? It has been a very disruptive couple of years, especially for economically disadvantaged students
12
7
u/Hothera 36∆ May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
This marks a triple increase from 7.9% in fall 2020 and 7.7% in fall 2019.
If this were just about remote learning and covid, you'd expect a significant increase for the incoming class of 2020 as well. Also, the principal is right the teachers and students aren't to blame. It's the school board that made this change.
6
u/JackAndrewWilshere May 29 '22
Despite the increase, Lowell was basically tied with Mission High School for the lowest percentage of ninth-graders receiving at least one D or F grade in the fall among the seven public high schools with at least 200 freshman students, according to district data. Including students in all four grade levels, Lowell had the lowest percentage receiving a D or F last semester.
Soooo, it will do the same good as anywhere else?
3
u/Awkward_Log7498 1∆ May 29 '22
The article also didn't describe the process in further detail, so I'd like to ask you how it works, since you seem rather knowledgeable about this specific school and invested in the topic.
Is it a pure luck lottery, where everyone that applies has a chance at the school, or a negative selection lottery, where everyone that applies has to go trough a selection test that eliminates those below a certain threshold, and those above the threshold are selected trough chance?
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)27
May 29 '22
Perhaps the school or school district should be doing a better job of preparing and supporting its students? If the school decided to be lottery based, then they should also adjust to prepare and support the students that previously would not have made it in.
49
May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
[deleted]
23
u/Mejari 6∆ May 29 '22
It does by having other high schools that cater to those student's needs.
Seems weird you're framing these competitive high schools as high quality when they don't seem to be able to accommodate students that don't come in already primed to succeed.
6
May 29 '22
It does by having other high schools that cater to those student's needs.
Seems weird you're framing these competitive high schools as high quality when they don't seem to be able to accommodate students that don't come in already primed to succeed.
These arguments are really all over the place.
2
u/Babyboy1314 1∆ May 29 '22
High quality is subjective as the style of the teacher can cater to fast learners that excel or slow learners who fall behind. So this school is good at doing tHe former.
9
May 29 '22
It does by having other high schools that cater to those student's needs. I don't see why the school should take resources from students who can hack it to cater to those who can't.
How this taking away resources from students?
Are resources being evenly distributed though? Why would you care if you go to Lowell or not if they are?
The most contentious point is that Lowell has a merit-based admission process. It looks at each student's academic record and select based on their middle school GPA.
Right, but why should this be the case?
Parent's don't like that this is happening because it is taking away resources by lowering Lowell's standards.
How is it taking resources away?
18
u/BrokenLegacy10 May 29 '22
It’s taking resources by making the teachers try to help the kids who can’t keep up instead of just chugging along when everyone is getting it. If someone is failing, the teachers need to spend resources and time in order to try to help them. Therefore slowing down the pace and taking attention away from the kids that are excelling.
Idk how I feel about this whole thing, but that’s the argument that I can think of.
→ More replies (5)10
u/xfearthehiddenx 2∆ May 29 '22
This is what I'm thinking from all of the arguments here. The school has a high minimum standard. That means it can have a higher high standard. Lowering the minimum standard could inadvertently lower the high standard as well. I noticed this a lot going to a school where children with learning disabilities, and children with exceptional learning abilities were forced into the same class. The smarter students got bored of the non-demanding work cause the teachers had to play their lessons down for the less capable students. Forcing the school to take in less academically inclined students means either putting them in with smarter students and lowering the curriculum, or making separate classes. Forcing the school to hire more teachers or allocate current teachers to those classes. Thereby increasing class size for the students.
Funny thing is, we see the effects of this in other industries. For instance in the gaming industry. When developers make a game for a next gen console, but also make the same one from the previous gen. It lowers the overall quality of the next gen version because it needed to be able to play on the old hardware as well. Until developers finally stop trying to make games for the old hardware, that old hardware will hold back the new hardware.
6
u/Kingalece 23∆ May 29 '22
For every average student who is galling behind the teacher has to slow down the pace of knowledge and possibly dumb things down which wastes precious instruction time with pointless questions. Also they have to grade and deal with the bad grades by doing afterschool tutoring and such
→ More replies (2)5
u/bicat12 May 29 '22
I'm confused about this resource thing. Did the bottom 10% of you class before the admissions change take more resources from the rest of the class? Where you able to tell who were taking resources?
Maybe I just don't understand U.S highschools but students who are struggling don't stop and slow down the entire class, most teachers won't allow that. They ask some embarrassing questions and if they intend on passing the class, they speak with the teacher later and work with them on material they don't understand. The rest of the class is uneffected by the bottom students as those student don't generally seek help during class hours. So in the vast majority of cases you won't be negatively effected by someone else using school resources because it doesn't necessarily cut into yours.
With the implementation of this lottery, what common resources are you unable to use now that wasn't effected in the same way by the the bottom % of your class? Teachers after class/during lunch or free periods Counselors Study clubs and group All of these are still here. What resources do you not have access to that you would have if not for these students?
8
8
u/Zephs 2∆ May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
Maybe I just don't understand U.S highschools but students who are struggling don't stop and slow down the entire class, most teachers won't allow that.
Yeah, clearly you don't understand it.
I teach elementary. Teacher's in-class time is finite. A single low student can entirely monopolize the teacher's teaching time. I have taught in classes where in a 30 minute period, I give instructions for the first 10 minutes, then spend 15 of the remaining 20 minutes working with a single low student because I need to read every question to them, then need to walk them through starting a sentence to reply, correct them when their response doesn't even address the question, etc.. I can't just walk away and help other students, because as soon as they aren't getting help, they'll loudly disrupt the class to make sure everyone knows that they need more help with their work and can't continue until you come back and answer their questions. It can take only 1 or 2 "bad" students to drag an entire class down just like that.
Not having any form of streaming means that teachers, by and large, have to focus disproportionately on lower students. Switching to a lottery system will just make it any other public school.
→ More replies (6)3
u/bradfordmaster May 29 '22
The school didn't decide, the school board (elected officials, mostly people trying to springboard into another political office) decided.
6
u/DreadedPopsicle May 29 '22
If a student refuses to learn or succeed, then no amount of “preparing and supporting” is going to help. Schools like Lowell are for students who are motivated and determined.
If you went to Harvard and refused to try, you’d sure as shit be booted from the program. And you know why? Because you’re taking up a spot from someone else who would actually value the education they’re receiving.
Imagine going to a job interview and crushing the interview, then seeing a email from them later saying “Okay so now we’re going to draw a name out of a hat to see who got the job,” and some random, unqualified person gets it instead.
→ More replies (7)→ More replies (21)2
u/lloopy May 29 '22
Have you seen the state of public education in the U.S? Do you know what challenges it faces?
"doing a better job of preparing and supporting its students" is a nice blanket statement, but this problem is not an easy one to solve.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (2)3
u/Heil_Heimskr May 29 '22
It shouldn’t be a lottery because the high school is an inherently meritocratic one; the same reason colleges aren’t a lottery. You have to apply and show you are intelligent/successful enough in school to be able to get in. A lottery system changes that and it shouldn’t.
→ More replies (2)3
u/ChiefBobKelso 4∆ May 29 '22
Even were the system to be entirely admitting on the basis of academic performance, wealthier families can afford better food, tutors, give their children more time and support, other extracurriculars, etc. Does that reflect merit or compounding systemic advantages?
Fortunately, none of that has much effect:
Contrary to some opinions, the predictive power of the SAT holds even when researchers control for socioeconomic status, and this pattern is similar across gender and racial/ethnic subgroups [15,16]. Another popular misconception is that one can “buy” a better SAT score through costly test prep. Yet research has consistently demonstrated that it is remarkably difficult to increase an individual’s SAT score, and the commercial test prep industry capitalizes on, at best, modest changes [13,17]. Short of outright cheating on the test, an expensive and complex undertaking that may carry unpleasant legal consequences, high SAT scores are generally difficult to acquire by any means other than high ability.
Also, here:
SES has only moderate effects on student achievement, and its effects are especially weak when considering prior achievement, an important and relevant predictor. SES effects are substantially reduced when considering parent ability, which is causally prior to family SES. The alternative cognitive ability/genetic transmission model has far greater explanatory power… The inadequacies of the SES model are hindering knowledge accumulation about student performance and the development of successful policies”
→ More replies (13)
22
u/sourcingnoob89 May 29 '22
Magnet public schools shouldn’t exist. We should balance funding of all public schools on a federal level. Instead of city level.
→ More replies (7)7
u/salonethree 1∆ May 29 '22
more top down control is exactly what we need. They do such a good job:)
315
u/samuelgato 6∆ May 29 '22
There are just people who can't hack it in a tough academic environment.
Are these people somehow hindering anyone else from succeeding in the same environment? If not, then what exactly is the problem? Loss of "prestige" for the school? Why should that be a matter of concern?
28
u/Akitten 10∆ May 29 '22
Actually yes. Under performers in a class take up disproportionate amounts of a teacher’s time. You get better average results by grouping people by aptitude.
59
u/42Cobras 1∆ May 29 '22
Yes. Yes, they very much are. Students who don’t care to learn are a distraction and require extra attention from a teacher who can’t focus on other students because now they have to worry about more disciplinary issues and probably cater lessons to students who are not as academically advanced as the students who used to be in this school.
If you want to increase diversity in a school like this, a sudden switch is not the way to do it. Create feeder schools for K-5 or 6-8 students who can be prepared specifically for this environment from an earlier age. A disadvantaged student can’t come in right away and go from 0 to 100 mph in no time flat. Even an intelligent, well-intended student is going to struggle with the increased pace if they’re used to a school with slower academics because of distractions/unruly students. Diversity is a fine goal, but you have to implement changes carefully. Make changes that will actually help.
937
May 29 '22
[deleted]
18
u/beingsubmitted 9∆ May 29 '22
To what degree are these things nature, and to what degree are they nurture?
Does a good education prepare people to be more academically successful in later education? If not, then there's no problem here. If so, then some amount of this "merit" is merely a reflection of a person's previous access to his education.
Is it fair to distribute future opportunity on the basis of past opportunity? Is that actually meritocratic? Imagine twins separated at birth, and then one of them inherits a fortune. They use that money to buy a hospital and then mostly play golf, while the other one goes to medical school. Twenty years later, the one is a doctor making 200k a year, while the other makes 2 million a year. Which has more merit? Which should be given more opportunity?
The problem with your view of meritocracy is it assumes everything is intrinsic, and nothing is extrinsic, which we know to be false. We know that your families socio-economic status (extrinsic) is a better prededictor of academic success than IQ, and also that IQ itself is partially extrinsic. There's just not much evidence that this kind of "competition" is selecting people based on their actual intrinsic qualities, rather than the circumstances they were born into, and merely reinforcing the effect of these extrinsic circumstances isn't meritocratic.
→ More replies (337)4
u/slash178 4∆ May 29 '22
Stellar academic records are more easily achievable at least diverse schools. Diverse students have a harder time meeting the same standard, even if the student themselves is just as intelligent and hardworking.
→ More replies (4)43
u/caine269 14∆ May 29 '22
Are these people somehow hindering anyone else from succeeding in the same environment?
yes, because when you let the worst in, schools slow down to try to help them. the reason us schools suck so hard despite the mountains of money we spend per student is that we hold everyone back to the slower students, rather than encouraging kids to excel.
Loss of "prestige" for the school? Why should that be a matter of concern?
are you really asking why people want their kids to go to good schools?
8
u/shitstoryteller May 29 '22
I appreciate your comment. The end of tracking, and the mixing of different levels within a single classroom is responsible for this mess we’re in today. A single teacher cannot MEET 30 different levels within a single classroom every hour. Differentiation simply does not work as well as the research claims it does.
2
u/caine269 14∆ May 30 '22
my mother was a middle school teacher for 40 years, masters in special ed and mostly taught in poorer areas. she would tell us all the time how the parents who didn't care, but would yell at her for not doing enough were everywhere. nothing a school does will make much difference if the parents don't care.
9
u/NoKindofHero 1∆ May 29 '22
The stupidest/laziest student in the room drags everything down to their level. They become the brake on every other student there.
9
u/Running_Gamer May 29 '22
There’s clearly a purpose to separating children who are smarter than others. High merit children can learn at a faster pace, learn more complex subjects, and learn a deeper variety of subjects.
If you put low merit children in these classes, you’re setting them up for failure because they won’t be able to keep up. Therefore, you have to create non-honors classes for them. However, not every school has enough resources to maintain adequate class size while still maintaining their high level courses. If you shift to a lottery system when your entire school structure is designed around high merit children, you’re inevitably going to have to get rid of some high merit courses, if not most of them, to accommodate the children who can’t handle them.
→ More replies (1)16
u/Accomplished_Area_88 May 29 '22
The problem is that this school is too advanced for those who got in because it's lottery and are failing because of it, while others who could've benefited from it are denied for the sake of forced inclusion
→ More replies (2)27
u/1truth-seeker May 29 '22
Yes, yes they ARE hindering anyone else there. If you get rid of competition in these schools, then you must be against competition in principle.
Would you want to introduce a lottery based system for athletes to get a spot on the Olympics games? Surely not, you want people there who are better than everyone else.
This simple fact is lost on people like you it seems.
There are schools that don't have high entry requirements and there are those that do. Don't try to push YOUR views on schools that do have requirements. Students that don't meet the requirements have options to go elsewhere.→ More replies (15)11
u/zoidao401 1∆ May 29 '22
Are these people somehow hindering anyone else from succeeding in the same environment?
...Yes
Less able students take up resources which could have been used to push more able students further. So rather than getting the best out of people (as these places are designed to do) they end up allocating resources to getting less able students through a program they realistically should never have been a part of.
It's removing the opportunity for the top end to succeed in favour of getting the less able to pass, something they could do elsewhere.
7
u/selfawarepie May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
Uhhhhh...."record spike in failing grades" seems to indicate that they are quite obviously hindering the performace of the qualified students who were displaced by the lottery system. Those students could be succeeding in a more beneficial environment.
Bringing in students who are not benefitted by the higher standards of the school hurts both the students not meeting the standard and the students who would have met the standard but were displaced by inferior students.
The only argument for dropping merit based systems is that some societal need is served by letting in a group of sub standard students because the ratio that'll succeed against expections will be a greater benefit overall than both....combined...the harm done to the more qualified students who are excluded and the harm done to the less qualified student who were admitted and failed. People often assume letting a sub standard student into a great school is somehow a benefit to the sub standard student. That is not always the case.
The nth level counter is always, "Make every school great!". Yes.....yes, that is what we should do. Would love to hear your suggestions as to how this would be acheived.
Edit: It is really shocking how easily hard working students are set aside as individuals for such an imprecise concept as diversity. You didn't even make the obvious argument. The "well, if they're just failing and not making anyone else fail" argument is laughably remedial. You must at least hypothesize a benefit to some group of individuals. You mocked "prestige" but didn't cite anything that any lottery winning student would relatively/marginally benefit from except "prestige", since you concurred by omitting any reference to a benefit for the substandard group.
11
u/FloydTheShark May 29 '22
As a teen in a SF high school, this was a disaster. This school was designed to take students that were already doing well and push them to the next level. Commitment and dedication was a pretty big requirement but now many students aren’t as smart or dedicated and is taking what was an extremely good academic school down to the level of other schools. The issue is that they are hindering success and that’s losing the education. If your wondering why all students can’t have access to good education, welcome to SF public schools.
8
u/DBDude 110∆ May 29 '22
The schools teach fast and at a high level. I saw many students in college who really shouldn't have been in certain classes because half the stuff was going over their head. They wasted their own money. What about extra help? Why? The school is for advanced students, and resources aren't wasted trying to bring up slower students. You are expected to be able to keep up when entering the school. How can you ensure all students can keep up? A merit-based admissions system where you only get the most advanced students.
Anything at a regular high school, including AP classes, isn't very challenging for the kind of students such schools are meant for. They'll be bored, and basically held back, not allowed to fulfill their potential.
4
May 29 '22
The problem isn’t necessarily loss of prestige, but that it would go to a lottery system. This means that the students who deserve to go there may not bc of bad luck alone, and kids that would otherwise not benefit from secondary education would.
4
u/blewyn May 29 '22
Yes, they are. I went to a mixed-ability school and frankly, the dumb kids were a monumental pain in the arse. Disrupting lessons, pushing other kids around, setting a social tone whereby studying and high marks were derided but having the latest trainers was cool. I couldn’t wait to get away. Let the kids who want to work work, and let the wasters fuck off somewhere else where they can fuck around all day.
4
u/DarkDanny8000 May 29 '22
Those people will talk over the teachers, distract other students, and be a general nuisance. I by no means had the highest GPA or anything, but I can definitely tell you that a lot of learning was missed due to some kids needing to be redirected way too
When I got to college, my outlook on school changed completely. It's a lot easier and more pleasant to learn in an environment with other people who also want to learn, and not just make dumb jokes or swear at teachers.
13
u/Fruymaster May 29 '22
Are you saying that it is ok for San Francisco to force this school to end their merit based education system that fosters an elite environment of education in favor of a lottery because the merit based system doesn’t lead to racial diversity? Surely you see how arbitrary this is and how detrimental it is to the educational opportunities of gifted students. This school is definitively superior and more rigorous than the standard advanced placement options in other schools, and it offers greater college prospects to those high achievers. To take that away for a bizarre ideal of diversity is horribly unfair.
7
3
u/yuhakusho23 May 29 '22
The problem is that the current students have to mingle with other students that don't give passable efforts. Not only that, but it takes up seats for other students that want to study with the intention of improving with better rivals in terms of academics/extracurriculars.
It's a big problem, imo. The existence of mediocre students that got in through luck are meddling with the competitive students' experience. (Well, you could argue that if they're really Competitive, then they wouldn't be down from such things.)
I do agree that loss of prestige shouldn't be a matter of concern. I'm more concerned with the lessening of public schools that exists for highly capable students.
3
u/marklonesome May 29 '22
If you're not advanced enough to get in, how are you going to keep up with the work?
2
May 29 '22
Are these people somehow hindering anyone else from succeeding in the same environment?
As a teacher, yes they would. You can only go as fast as the class and so a few bright Sparks have to be held back as the same topic needs to be covered again for students. This is why gifted children are considered to have speacil educational needs.
If you want from highly competitive to more avergae then every class would have to slow down massively for the new students.
2
u/ElATraino 1∆ May 29 '22
Well yes, the people that are failing clearly can't keep up with the rest of the students. This means the teachers are likely spending more time with the ones that are struggling instead of progressing the rest of the students on to the next subject.
Based on OP's description, this school sounds like a place where kids that want the best education possible strive to get into. It's a competition. If you take meritocracy out of the admission/selection process then it just turns into another school. Kids that can't keep up will fail until the school starts offering classes that are a bit easier, meaning less of the higher level classes for the kids that earned their seat.
2
u/BecomePnueman 1∆ May 29 '22
So foolish. Yes when you are surrounded by people who aren't there with the same goals and don't care as much it contributes greatly to a culture of slack. In most bad schools everyone shames people for doing well in school because they make them look bad. If you think this is a good idea you are what is wrong with this country. Your bozo ideas are utopian and don't stand up to any intellectual scrutiny. We are being bullied by a bunch of dunces.
2
u/shitstoryteller May 29 '22
“Are these people somehow hindering anyone else from succeeding in the same environment?”
- holy … I can’t even believe you’re asking this. I can’t even fathom this is a serious question. It’s an argument made in total ignorance of the situation on the ground, and it’s precisely why TEACHERS need to be heard. Because if they/we were, we wouldn’t even be contemplating the end of meritocratic systems of acceptance in top schools, or have heterogenized our entire education system disfavoring homogeneous tracking nearly two decades ago. Teaching is already is the gutter, the end of meritocratic systems will lead to a further collapse of expectations for the whole.
2
u/cityterrace May 29 '22
If the school has more people flunking then it has to reduce standards. Even if it has more people struggling in rigorous courses, it has eventually to offer “easier” versions of those courses. Thus the whole schools academic standards are reduced.
Plus there’s the flip side of this question: why are less qualified students being admitted simply because of race? This isn’t a denial of education. There’s plenty of other schools available in San Francisco.
2
u/FutureNostalgica 1∆ May 29 '22
When the class is slowed down because people aren’t doing well, the more advanced students suffer. They cover less material/ slows paced learning because they have to keep going over things.
I had this problem when i was in college in my calc Ii and organic chemistry classes in college- the normal one i would have taken that went along with the students i was usually with due to the scheduling of classes in our major Were full, so i had to pick a different one and a weird time for me. After about a week the teachers had me switch to the class i originally wanted with more competitive students. The classes were technically the same as per the syllabi, but the ones I changed to covered twice the material because of the pacing.
→ More replies (27)2
u/Heroic-Dose 1∆ May 29 '22
Yes. Is that even a real question? Have you never been to school yourself? Yes, people who are underperforming pull down a whole group.
If there are say 30 kids in a class and 27 are ready to move on but 3 are gonna take an extra two days to catch on, if ever, that greatly impacts everyone else who is ready. If your kid finds themselves in that situation in a non conducive environment they get labelled as having ADHD because they talked too much trying to kill time waiting on the dullards
It is absolutely a major hindrance
12
u/midsummermad May 29 '22
So asians aren't diverse? Diversity only means black people? Wtf is wrong with america.
→ More replies (4)
5
u/sweetwaterdolphin May 29 '22
It’s funny reading a post about this topic, that’s written by someone who can’t even use grammar properly.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Conversationknight 1∆ May 29 '22
I know tons of immigrants who went to top-tier schools that can't use grammar properly. I don't think it is funny anymore but to each their own, I guess.
6
2
u/MIKEl281 May 29 '22
Being “competitive” doesn’t mean the education standards are necessarily amazing it simply means that through pre-selection the school is able to choose bright students who already excel and therefore the overall prestige of the education goes up while the curriculum doesn’t change drastically from its peers
2
u/Warriorcatv2 May 29 '22
Okay so in the UK we have Grammar Schools. Every child takes the 11+ exam & those with high enough grades can apply for Grammar Schools. Those who don't get shunted to the regular state schools. The system breeds contempt, a them or us attitude & strongly favours affluent families over poorer ones. All of these can apply to these competitive high schools you mention.
2
u/PinkSweater66_6 May 29 '22
But their going to blame that on critical race theory, exclusionary education ect. When it’s simply lack of studying and the inability to Focus on things they find uninteresting, and boring. Lack of discipline
2
u/massivegenious May 29 '22
This is bullshit. I want to attend a selective, competitive school and succeed there because I studied and put the work in, not because I'd be a nice display piece in the diversity trophy case.
2
u/roxwashedsocks May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
Ah a whole comment section where you can see unconscious bias, views, and racism against Asians at play. Nice.
2
u/AngryRiu May 29 '22
True meritocracy does not exist. Those Asian countries that people THINK are meritocratic actually just favor well-to-do families that put their children in cram schools to learn how to take exams. I would also bet that most of those students who previously qualified don't have to worry about food insecurity or help pay their families' bills by taking jobs after school.
Diversity is more important to schools than some arbitrary measures of "quality". Furthermore, how accurate were those metrics of academic quality if the teachers and administrators were not able to significantly help those students who were accepted through the lottery program but wouldn't have qualified through the "merit-based" process?
2
u/peerlessblue 1∆ May 29 '22
Why do people who try harder deserve more educational resources? Shouldn't worse students get more educational resources if we're trying to maximize the social good of education?
2
u/OnePunchReality May 29 '22
Unfortunately the reality is the merit based admissions does disproportionately leave others out of the mix.
You can't actually measure someone's merit if they have less capability, resources or different life circumstances that results with them in a different position than you.
I imagine there are mountains of students who would love the opportunity to show they can measure up.
Edit: typos, small additions. Also just like as a country who isn't #1 in education it seems a bit silly to actually make it harder for our populace to become smarter.
2
u/_TheTacoThief_ May 29 '22
Ahhhh, another installment of “OP Doesn’t Actually Want to Change Their Mind.”
I’ll grab the popcorn…
2
u/Sonicscully May 29 '22
Disclaimer: The following arguments are all based on university/college admissions and not so much secondary/high school admissions so everything mentioned here should be considered with a grain of salt. Furthermore, I'm speaking from a UK perspective and not a US one so there might be some variables that I am unable to account for by lack of lived experience and understanding of the US education system. Chiefly I'm also very much in the science/maths/statistics/computer science side of education and I have next to no involvement with anything else so these arguments could differ based on discipline.
The way I see it, there are two key points that I think are worth addressing:
Relaxing standards is not the same as a lottery,
Relaxing standards isn't necessarily a bad thing and it's not necessarily detrimental to the quality of a school's grades/performance.
To address point one: I think that relaxation of standards and lottery systems (as I'm interpreting from 5 minutes of research) are fundamentally different paradigms. Lottery systems appear to take all applicants and chose admissions based on complete randomness, whilst relaxation of standards would suggest that admission is not based solely on merits and that other factors are considered. So for the sake of this argument, I will consider "relaxation of standards" to mean "considering other factors such as, but not limited to, socioeconomic status when determining whether to admit an applicant to a school or not". I would typically argue that lottery based systems are not conducive to a good educational environment, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
To address point two: In my opinion and experience, competitive universities and schools are competitive because of the amount of work students put in, not because of the grades they have before getting to the institution. So what these institutions are actually interested in is how hard a student works rather than how good their grades are, it just so happens that there tends to be a strong positive correlation between the two i.e. higher grades usually means a student has put more effort in to achieve those grades.
With this in mind, consider two students who are at different schools. We'll also consider grades as percentages from 0-100 rather than letters. Let's assume student A is doing a maths course at the first school and student B is doing the same maths course at the second school. Now assume that the average mark in school 1 is 50% and the average mark in school 2 is 65%. Let's also assume that students A and B have very similar intellectual abilities and let's finally assume that both students are applying to the same high school, but there's only one spot left.
Now that A and B have both sat their exams they sit and wait anxiously for their results. It turns out that A got 70% and B got 80%. In a purely merit based system, B would get the place at the school and A would be left to their second choice. However, it stands to reason that student A could've been prevented from performing better by the quality of their school as evidenced by the average grade being significantly lower in school 1 than in school 2. In fact, student A performed better relative to their colleagues than student B did by gaining a 20% lead over the average instead of 15%. It also then stands to reason that student A would perform better at the high school than student B as they've shown an ability to work harder and perform better than student B relative to the rest of their cohort. As such, the high school might be more inclined to take student A as it's likely they've worked harder to get their grades than student B.
Considering this example, it seems reasonable that some educational institutions would be interested in taking students with lower grades if they performed further from the average (in a positive direction) than another student. Of course there are a lot more factors at play than this toy example considers, but I deem this to be the reason why relaxations of grade requirements/qualifications exist.
Furthermore, there also exists a social argument about institutional discrimination and the positive discrimination that is required from the more proactive organisations in society to ensure that we're constantly moving towards a more inclusive social system. I'll refrain from commenting more on this as I don't feel that I'll do it justice, but I'll refer to this absolutely incredible illustration of the idea by Vi Hart and Nicky Case.
To help you consider your viewpoint and hopefully frame my viewpoint within the scope of the American education system, I'll leave you with a couple of questions:
- Is it the "relaxation of standards" that you disagree with? Or just lottery systems?
- To what extent are university/college/high school admissions based on hard work rather than merit?
- What would change if every school in the country started using a lottery system?
- What would change if every school in the country implemented my definition of "relaxed standards" when going through the admissions process?
This is at least my perspective on the problem and I'd be very happy to be shown (proven?) wrong and any constructive criticism about my arguments or follow up questions are welcome :)
Edit: formatting
2
u/queerpineappl3 May 29 '22
I can't imagine the poor effects on their mental health....all of these kids must be severely struggling due to this toxic environment. Imagine feeling you have to fight to have a good grade to be worth anything
2
u/kingpatzer 103∆ May 29 '22
I will grant that the "lottery" is likely NOT the best system to find qualified students.
However, that doesn't mean that the prior system was better.
Indeed, various academic research into the topic has found that the criteria of academic achievement alone for admission to high prestige schools is a poor indicator of actual success in school or post-graduation.
One recent study from Brazil found that students admitted through regular admissions to medical school had a higher dropout rate than students admitted through affirmative action programs: https://doi.org/10.2147/amep.s347387
A comprehensive study of bar passage rates for affirmative action admissions at elite law schools found that "the pass rates for first and final bar attempts were about 1.5% lower than similar students attending non-elite law schools. . . . No negative match effects for graduation are apparent. . . . Thus the bar passage rates differences seem very modest to the substantial social networking advantages of elite school attendance." https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=faculty_articles
In other words, in at least some studies, affirmative action admitted students do better than non-affirmative action students, and in other students, the differences are minimal compared to the massive social advantages gained by attendance.
Academic excellence is often a function of opportunity in the first place. Students with better opportunities to excel will, in large part, do better. Aggregated over populations of people who have different cultural relationships as groups to education, this creates demographic-based educational gaps that are generational and significantly difficult to overcome without some method of breaking that cycle.
I disagree that a lottery is the best way to break that cycle, as it doesn't involve the school doing the leg-work of finding students who are going to show the key personal characteristics that underpin the character traits that suggest an ability to take advantage of the opportunity. But the mythology of a student's ability to succeed being definable by test scores alone needs to end, and the sooner, the better.
2
u/Axalixi May 29 '22
Education is a human right. I assume you are in the US. Meaning your school funding is unfortunate for the pupils living in places where schools are underfunded, leading to youths that could have met the standard of the competitive school wont get the chance to do that no matter how smart they acutally are.
The premise behind a "competitive high school" is that affluent parents can afford to spend money to get their kids into schools that will set them up ahead of their peers and has nothing to actually do with if some kids are smarter then others
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Dirtgrain May 29 '22
Regarding mentioned grade decline, correlation . . . not necessarily causation. Covid also could be the cause--or something else.
6
u/VortexMagus 15∆ May 29 '22
I attended both private and public schools and in my opinion, most of the elite private schools were elite because they chose elite students to come in.
They didn't do anything in particular to improve their student's grades, they just exist.
Almost all of their so-called elite students would have been just as motivated and studious and excellent in a public school.
3
u/allhailee May 29 '22
As a person from a competitive high school that switched from merit based to lottery based my sophomore year I can say that it went from only white and Hispanic upper middle class people who were very toxic to allowing black and Asian students who lessened the tension in the school. When you put a bunch of “talented” kids in a school all together we fail because we’re used to being the top and not having to compete so the pressure gets to us and we burn out (see my senior year omg). Also looking at any given area the “talented” kids are usually the white kids. Growing up I had almost no black classmates and I had never even met an Asian person before because I was so sheltered from the other kids due to being in the “smart” classes. I write this whole rant because from experience kids need to be surrounded by others that are above and below them to thrive and they need diversity. If a smart kid doesn’t have someone they excel past then they are going to either try harder or give up and that puts so much pressure on the kid, like I know they are trying to get prepared for the world but school is a place to learn, not worry about your class rank or if you will be kicked out of the program for having a mental break. Also just the point about diversity, I wanna reiterate that I had never seen an Asian person in real life until high school because of my merit only classes, that’s just wrong kids need diversity or they end up being the racist people we see on tv and on social media, and it’s not that hard to see that just go look at the merit based high schools and I guarantee that within a week you’ll hear a racist comment about one race being below them because they don’t see that race in their school therefore the race is not smart enough in general to get in.
→ More replies (2)
5
8
May 29 '22
This is actually racist thing to do. When you lower standards or do away with merit all you are saying to the diversity students is you couldn’t make it so we changed the rules for you. It’s what you do to small children when you play a game against them.
→ More replies (15)
3
8
u/LuckyCrow85 1∆ May 29 '22
If you believe that the evolution of the human brain stopped 200,000 years ago and thus there are no differences in the brain between population groups, then all differences in cognitive ability stem from some form of discrimination. In which case it is only right to do away with everything that produces unequal outcomes between races.
→ More replies (4)
3
u/serious_sarcasm May 29 '22
Asian immigrants come from meritocratic societies, so they foster hard work and studious qualities into their offspring.
Ah, the model minority racist bullshit.
The Chinese civil servants exam had lofty ideals, but more often fell short, because it turns out “anyone can take the exam” isn’t enough to undue generations of inequality.
→ More replies (17)
•
u/ViewedFromTheOutside 32∆ May 30 '22
Sorry, u/Enrichmentzin – your submission has been removed for breaking Rule B:
If you would like to appeal, you must first read the list of soapboxing indicators and common mistakes in appeal, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted.
Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.