Cross-posted with Calmom, whom I agree with completely.
It’s the school, its’ well deserved reputation for artistic excellence, but primarily the students who will suffer because of this.
Tell that to the 84 students who live in SF who didn’t get into the school, who had to give up arts and perhaps didn’t get a scholarship to college because they had to go to schools that didn’t teach dance and violin.
Would UNC be a stronger school if it wasn’t restricted to taking only 18% of students from OOS, if it could choose only the top scoring students, the best scientists, the best dancers? Would other students benefit from having only top students as classmates and teammates and cast members? Probably, but the legislature decided it had an obligation to the citizens first, then to OOS. The SF school board has done the same, finding the first obligation is to serve as many residents as it can (700), that that goal is more important than finding the very best dancers and singers it can.
Also, tell that to all the other students who didn’t get in because the didn’t have a rich mommy and daddy to buy them lessons and an expensive instrument. Those privileged students are already so far ahead of the game, that it is UNFAIR to give them preferential treatment for entry. The school should be about lifting up MORE people, not just helping those who were born on third base, get to home plate.
It is shameful to support their elitist policies.
All of these students are citizens of the U.S.
Even for non-citizens, they have to provide an education. Although I am not sure what the rules are for how the schools are allocated. For instance, are they allowed to enroll illegal immigrants in schools that has more Chinese, Spanish or Canadian language teachers available with the idea that they can get a better education there?
They didn’t lose their “spots” to out-of-towners. There never were any reserved spots non-SF residents – there was just a cap on the overall number of students who could come in. At any given audition, if the SF residents were better then their competition, they would get in.
It is the out-of-district kids who were accepted who always could potentially lose their spots to SF resident students, if the cap was met.
Over the years I did see some kids audition for SOTA without an understanding of the standards or audition process. For example, a kid who started taking dance lessons in 7th grade, thought it was fun, so wanted to audition – but without anything that could compare to the years of ballet training my DD had. So a lot of kids don’t get in simply because they don’t have the training, skill or aptitude needed to get past the audition. They didn’t lose their “spot” to someone outside of the district -they didn’t get a spot offered because they weren’t good enough at dancing or singing or playing an instrument to pass muster. (And I did see kids who didn’t have formal training or private lessons also get accepted, but those were kids who had a lot of natural talent - so I’m not saying that the training is necessary, just that the performing arts disciplines are not geared to beginners).
That’s not the right analogy. The question to ask would be – would UNC be as strong if it refused to take any students from OOS. No matter how accomplished the student – no spot at UNC without a local address.
That’s what the SF School Board has done: they allowed 10%, in future years, it will be -0-.
That is why they established the separate Academy of Arts school at the same campus 10 years ago.
It’s like a school program for gifted & talented. You could take the position that “all children are gifted” and opposed any sort of ability grouping of students… but I think most CC parents would favor programs that meet the needs of the GT group.
SOTA is a school for gifted/talented students in the arts. It has never required that students have any specific preparation before coming in, but the students do need to have some sort of demonstrable talent that fits the school’s curriculum.
Typical that the same demographic that opposes school choice, doesn’t want outside kids in their local schools. When it’s no longer OPM…
Of course that is true, but it is beyond that.
You can either believe that we should spend our limited resources making the best students even better.
Or you believe that we should be lifting up those students who have had less opportunity and have less capabilities.
I know there are people who believe in the first and therefore support these elitist schools.
I just think that is wrong and that we as a society can and should do a lot better.
Parents who want the latter are generally the ones who don’t have elite performing kids.
But again, the district already set up a separate, arts-oriented program for the other, non-elite students – in the SAME BUILDING as the elite program. The whole idea was to give those other students the opportunity for arts exposure as well as the access to many of the resources in the elite program.
Do you think SF should also close down Lowell, its academic magnet?
Would you support your local public high school eliminating AP courses so that the AP teachers are freed up to help kids who are struggling in the academic subjects they teach?
What about financially needy students who are also extremely talented, either academically or artistically? Should they be denied the high-quality opportunities that a public elite (audition or test-based) magnet can provide to nurture their exceptional talent? That’s what SOTA offers: an elite quality arts education in a public setting.
You are suggesting that only the rich should have that opportunity.
Other high schools have arts classes, and theater programs, and school orchestras. That’s not what makes SOTA special – what makes it special is the higher quality of its programs.
Of course, the exact same case could be made to open Lowell to out of district students (for the academically gifted). I have no doubt that there are plenty of very strong students elsewhere, including next door Daly City; yet, the SFUSD restricts Lowell to local residents/voters only.
I meant the serving the citizens of North Carolina, not that the OOS students (or even the instate ones) are not US citizens. North Carolina legislature set the priorities, and it felt the best way to serve its citizens was to heavily restrict OOS students. Other states make other choices for various reasons.
Look, the SF school district ‘owns’ the school and can make any restrictions it wants to on who it lets in from the outside. Don’t like that board and its choices, don’t vote for them. Of course, if you don’t live in the city, you don’t get to vote for school board members. The SOTA had one policy for letting in out of district students and now that is changing. It is no different than if a school district had a Montessori school or a Waldorf school and decided that wasn’t in the interest of the school district. Some students and families would lose an option they really liked, but for the good of the district (not the school, but the district), the board wants to make a change. I think the board understands that they may be losing some talented out of boundary students and replacing them will less talented in district students, and the board is willing to make that trade.
If the middle-class, out-of-district parents feel so strongly about sending their kids to this SF school, then they should just move.
Don’t give me the crap about job location & housing costs. All families have to balance priorities. These families just need to decide what their priorities are.
Absolutely. I have compassion for the struggling students.
Why is everyone pandering to the top students instead of taking care of the students in real need of help?
Truly talented students should and do self-study for AP tests all the time. There is no need to move even more money away from the needy.
Given how poorly CA is rated in the quality of schools and how much money they spend, the money should be re-distributed to fix the core issues in the school WAY before it is spent on AP classes and premium, exclusive programs like Lowell and SOTA.
Why the heck are people spending money to create further distance between the haves and the have nots?
This line of thinking is really astonishing for me. We are creating the class warfare and the 1% attitude at the high school level…oh but, wait, we need to train those people before then, so lets further stratify middle school, elementary school, etc.
That is not at all what I am suggesting and I resent that you would say that. I am suggesting that we stop spending money to create a further divide between the haves and the have nots. Throwing the occasional bone to a needy person is not equality. It is just acting out of guilt.
Sounds to me like a plan to limit the opportunities for middle and low income students. No frills for the poor.
I don’t consider that enlightened. I see that as a way of increasing class disparity-- the well-to-do can send their kids to private schools – and they certainly will if the local public schools aren’t offering AP classes or other courses geared to high ability students. No elite colleges in the future for those whose parents weren’t financially well off to fund the sort of education that the elite colleges now require.
And of course all of the well-off parents who are keeping their kids in public schools because of magnet offerings will shift their kids - and their donated dollars and volunteer time - to the private schools that can challenge and stimulate their kids.
The other districts have public high schools with strong academics and AP programs, and schools with gifted programs. Most don’t have publicly funded pre-professional high school arts programs. You can’t just set something like that up by opening a new school – it takes many years to build up the programs & staff.
Per capita spending by public school district:
https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/05/district-update.png
NYC spends more than 20k per student-- that include struggling schools & magnet schools. DC spends over 17k per student. So why aren’t the struggling schools doing better if so much money is being spent?
This is a false choice. As policy, you have to strive to do both, provide resources for gifted students, while balancing the need to support those that are less capable. Build and staff a school like SOTA, but realize that it’s funding will be limited, based on other demands, such as ESL or special needs programs. Balance the need for AP/gifted classes with the need for after school programs. A “one size fits all” program will fail more students than it help.
Where I live, there were people using friends’ addresses or renting and then leaving empty an apartment in a desired school district. If the district is for the local residents, then so be it. Cheating to get in is distasteful. In this case, if schools are overenrolled and getting in is already a lottery, adding to the difficulty by including out of district kids seems seems to add unnecessary challenge. But then again SF has lots of unique rules: restrictions on what McDonalds can put in happy meals, no plastic shopping bags, etc, so what’s one more?