Affirmative action on a high school level

[skreidle]

So, the current admissions procedures for my magnet high school, the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, is under attack again. The initial admissions procedure of an SAT-style entrance exam weighted with GPA culls the application pool from about 2500 annually to 800; those 800 applications are then compared--courses, extracurriculars, essay, etc.--to select the final 400 students for the freshman body. The "problem" arises when this race-blind process results in an almost entirely white and Asian student body, with low numbers of minorities represented.

The kneejerk reaction to this is modify the admissions process to artificially boost the numbers of minorities, "increasing diversity." The problem with this is, as iriantuu succinctly put it:

Iriantuu (12:21:34): There's nothing illegal or immoral about jefferson. ITS VERY CLEAR THAT GOOD SCORES GET YOU IN.
Iriantuu (12:22:50): I'd be all for dismantling jefferson if someone could demonstrate that it's part of an institutional problem.
Iriantuu (12:23:09): But as best I can tell, the terrible conditions of schools in low-income and predominantly black areas has nothing to do wtih jefferson

A fellow TJ graduate, Ryan Comes, has written a letter to the school board regarding the commission's report, raising several concerns before the board votes on the issue.

The comission's report, as well as a partial history of the issue, can be found here. (Does anyone else see anything questionable about the contradiction between "Increase Diversity; Read all applications including biographical information!" and "Don't change admissions standards and criteria"?)

Ryan's letter can be found here.

The post to tjpeople, including information on contacting Ryan and supporting his efforts, can be found here.

A survey on the issue, noticeable biased in favor of the change, with a comment box, can be found here.

My comment to the survey was as follows:
The educational problems resulting in TJ's non-diverse population lie in a faulty primary education system in the U.S., not in race-blind high school admissions. Artificially "increasing diversity" will result in a decrease in the quality of a TJ education, and an increase in students not properly equipped by their educational history to handle TJ's rigor.

More from iriantuu:

Iriantuu (12:43:35): Granted it's not fair and such, but people with low test scores are statistically less likely to do well at JEfferson.
Iriantuu (12:44:09): Personally I'd leave jefferson the same and use it's application and acceptance demographics as indicators as to how the state is doing with its schools.
Iriantuu (12:44:18): Not changing it to try and make the state look artificially better.

As an aside, I feel that No Child Left Behind is likewise off-target, though with similarly misguided good intentions, neglecting the positive outliers in favor of standardization.

Comments

[weyakin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know..I suck at standardized testing.. I got a 1090 on my SAT's, which isn't horrible, but certainly isn't fantastic either...but I graduated college with about a 3.7 gpa.. those tests don't cover all types of people from all backgrounds... but if they did have more funding, they would be able to get the supplies and training they need to teach the teachers more creative learning.. though, not all teachers will be good at it, but i've seen a lot of pretty good teachers who I'm sure would have no problem with it. The money is just the first step in a long building process. But every little bit counts.