"Schools to select pupils by lottery"

Parent Cafe
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<p>“I think this mentality is one of the reasons that people around here are abandoning public schools in our area, moving to go to other schools out in the burbs (that offer more programs) or to private ones.”</p>

<p>It’s so funny that it’s the public schools here (particularly my daughter’s) that have those things. The Gates Foundation, some law firms and especially some financial firms have showered the school with money. They have a nationally-recognized jazz band, chorus, everything you could imagine, including a brand new, mahogany panelled courtroom for the students in the law program. Even been an actual civil trial held there. Many NYC public schools are not poor, and some that appear so are just mismanaged.</p>

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<p>“When the wealthy start carrying some of the social burden then they can get out of education hell.”</p>

<p>In California, the wealthiest 4% of income tax payers (coincidentally those making over $100,000) pay 52% of the total income taxes collected. This suggests that the wealthy are “carrying some of the social burden.”</p>

<p>Does anyone have corresponding numbers for other states or the entire U.S.?</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/five-three/thom.pdf[/url]”>http://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/five-three/thom.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The study does not address sales or property taxes.</p>

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<p>I think NYC does surprisingly well. Yes, the schools could be improved. There’s no doubt about it. And, yes, I’m biased because my family did well in the placement “game.” I know people whose kids didn’t. Usually, though, with a great deal of effort they find something that’s at least adequate. </p>

<p>I personally think that tracking by schools is less damaging to a kid’s ego than tracking within schools. A kid may think “Well, I’m not that smart because I didn’t do well on the sci high exam” and that, of course, is unfortunate. But I don’t see how it’s better to be in a big high school with lots of tracks and know that you didn’t make the IB track or the honors track or whatever it is called at your school. I think being reminded every day that you aren’t good enough to be in the top track is worse. And when college rolls around, at least if you are one of the best students at your regular high school, your teachers are going to know you well and check the boxes which say you took the most difficult courses available to you, etc., whereas that won’t happen if you are in a multi-tracked high school. Moreover, your guidance counselors won’t be focusing their efforts on the kids in the IB track and their college plans. </p>

<p>Actually, I think the kids at the bottom of the stack at Bronx Science or Stuy, etc. would in many cases be better off being at the top of the class at a less competitive high school.</p>

<p>In my office, we have several college kids working. They went to high school together and were in the top track at a virtually all-minority public high school. They are all going to top private colleges in NYC. I don’t think they would have done as well if they had gone to one of the sci highs. They all think of themselves as very intellilgent and are all extremely ambitious. I am sincerely impressed by what their public high school did for them. (I was typing this when zoosermom posted—sounds like her kid’s high school is one of the regular high schools that does offer good programs.)</p>

<p>And as for Vossron’s arguments, studies in NYC have shown that if the specialized high schools like Stuy, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, LaGuardai, Townsend Harris, Hunter, Staten Island Tech, closed, the City would lose a lot of taxpayers. When your only options are $25,000 a year for private high school or suburbia, folks tend to choose suburbia.</p>

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<p>Higherlead, You said, “Make it illegal for families making over $100K per year or with over $500K in assets to send their kids to private schools and divvy these kids up amongst the lowest performing schools in their metro area. Allow them to attend the nearest crappy school.”</p>

<p>I like your idea. But why stop at 100K. You should not limit your scheme since it will yield too small a group to make a real difference. Please consider lowering the bar to catch a bigger group. Presumably, anyone who makes an income is better than those without one. Hopefully you are from a family that has an income. I can’t see why you should deny yourself the opportunity to make a difference.</p>

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<p>–Actually, I think the kids at the bottom of the stack at Bronx Science or Stuy, etc. would in many cases be better off being at the top of the class at a less competitive high school.</p>

<p>Just my point. The allocation of spots at schools in NYC is often wrong because the creiteria are so uneccessarily rigid. With the specialized schools, of course, entry is by passing one test on one day. Nothing else is considered. IMHO a patently ridiculous system. No other elite public HS in the country does it that way, an certainly no top college does. So a kid gets into, say Bronx Science, finds she’s miserable there for whatever reason, and has to either scramble for another school or stay there and be miserable. ( I have actually met such kids and my gut tells me that they are not solitary exceptions.) By-the-numbers admissions always carries this risk, although politics being what they are, it will likley never change for the specialized city high schools. They would need permission from our famously dysfunctional state legislature to do that. Even at other HSchools, however, the tendency is to just look at numbers. </p>

<p>Recently NY Magazine had an interesting pieces on education. One was about the dangers of praise, which basically translated into kids who think they are smart also don’t work as hard because, well, they’re smart. They think that only the not-so-bright have to put forth a lot of effort. I think that explains why there are those middle-of-the pack, dissatisfied, unhappy underachievers at Stuyvesant, Bronx Science etc. Wouldnt it be better for all concerned if schools took the time to really see who would benefit and who wouldn’t from an enriched program. And wouldn’t it be better yet if they could make sure every school had those opportunities, and the best student body to take advantage of them?</p>

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<p>" So a kid gets into, say Bronx Science, finds she’s miserable there for whatever reason, and has to either scramble for another school or stay there and be miserable. "</p>

<p>that is the gospel truth. What I found somewhat troubling is that those “elite” schools skew so heavily in favor of math and science. The one in my borough is an engineering school that teaches only Russian. None of which leaves much choice for a student who’s interested in something else. The system really is bizarre. I found my daughter’s high school application process much, much tougher and more stressful than her sister’s college application process the next year.</p>

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<p>“And wouldn’t it be better yet if they could make sure every school had those opportunities, and the best student body to take advantage of them?”</p>

<p>You need a certain number of students to offer Latin or Japanese or multivariable calc or AP music theory or whatever and it’s just not possible to do it at each and every high school. If every school was supposed to do this, the end result would be that the schools would vary in their offerings based on the kids who live in the neighborhood. </p>

<p>And, if there is a special program within a school to which entrance is based on a “wholistic” approach, all too often that means the kids with interested parents are the ones who are “gifted.” The mouthier kids–the kid who question authority-won’t be admitted. Neither will the kids who have been disciplinary problems. In NYC, it also means all too often that the “gifted” are disproportionately white. </p>

<p>Yes, the sci highs are based on one score on one day. However, there are LOTS of special programs designed to prepare kids from weak elementary schools or from minority groups for the exam. (Lots of middle class parents also spend money on test-prep , of course.) The sci highs aren’t the only good high schools in NYC. Townsend Harris is an excellent, selective school and admission is not based on one test score, for example. </p>

<p>Best thing about the test–it doesn’t matter how poor you are, whether you speak English, whether your reacher is biased against your ethnicity or hates your parents because they made legitimate complaints, you can get in.</p>

<p>And, Hunter and Townsend Harris are not math and science centered. Neither is LaGuardia, of course. </p>

<p>Again, I’m not saying NYC is perfect–only that for a big city, it does a pretty good job. But I do agree the process is nerve wracking and that some kids get a raw deal–no doubt about that. But, by and large, admissions based on a test score is, IMO, more fair than admission based on selection by a middle school staff.</p>

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<p>jonri–You have a point that to offer high-level courses you need a critical mass of students.You can’t put those courses in a school where only two students would take them. But I submit that the run of the mill NYC HS can and should do much better in offering challenging work to their students, even letting them take stuff at local colleges if need be. Some already do that, thankfully, but not nearly enough. </p>

<p>And yes there are good HS programs outside of the specialized schools. But you say LOTS. I say a few. And I still believe that may of those are biased towards accepting white middle class kids. Recent article in NY Mag (<a href=“http://nymag.com/news/features/31272/[/url]”>http://nymag.com/news/features/31272/&lt;/a&gt;) about one such school made this plain. The most appalling part of it was that the shenanigans that went on there–keeping out minority kids, judging kids on whether their parents spoke English or might be good fund-raisers–are essentially the same as at other selective high schools. This particular school was just more blatant about what many of its peers also do–and got caught.</p>

<p>A generation ago, educators were in charge of kids’ school selection. It clearly didn’t work. Many kids either flunked out or left the system for the 'burbs, private, or parochial schools. Now, we basically have a business model or schools. You might as well be on Wall Street: “Can you make your numbers?” What I’m saying is that we need the pendulum to rest somewhere between those extremes. Take a look at the numbers, but take a look at the kid too. </p>

<p>I know that as big city school systems go, NYC is far from the worst. I’d hate to have to send my kid to public schools in Detroit, Chicago, D.C., or LA, for example. But just because NYC ain’t bad, doesn’t make it good. </p>

<p>And zmom, – This bias toward the sciences is bugaboo of mine too. Actually, it was the reason for my first posting on CC. Smart kids do math and science? I guess it kicks up memories of my college days when all the chemistry and biology majors whined about how long their labs took, as if reading Trollope or searching the stacks for obscure documents about the Gadsen Purchase was any less difficult or time-consuming! Ah well, science and math problems always have a right answer, an essay on Shakespeare doesn’t. I guess its a lot easier to find and nurture the kids who always know there is a right answer and how to find it.</p>

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<p>“Forcing people to go to bad schools will make those schools better? Has this ever worked anywhere? Limiting opportunities for those who care about education – what does that accomplish?”</p>

<p>Forcing upper middle-class people to go to bad schools will ensure that those schools don’t stay bad because those parents will not tolerate it. There will suddenly be a big upswing in parent involvement, bad teachers will be hounded, demands will increase for better more advance programs etc etc.</p>

<p>Will it help the kids already going to those schools? That I do’t know. That is more problematic. It is having parents with the time, energy, resources, and interest that makes the schools better. It is also what eriches their children’s lives and gives them a leg up on everbody else.</p>

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<p>“Forcing upper middle-class people to go to bad schools will ensure that those schools don’t stay bad because those parents will not tolerate it.”</p>

<p>Since this doesn’t have a chance of happening (regardless of its possible merits), it would be more productive to discuss realistic possibilities.</p>

<p>We will always have three classes of various services; those for the poor, the middle class, and the wealthy (with shades of gray in between), and everything won’t always be fair. But it is our responsibility, for the good of society (meaning us and our children) to insure that education for all meets a minimum acceptable level, and we are clearly failing that, especially for the poor. I favor a redistribution of wealth via increased taxation of the wealthy to the schools of the poor (including myself, in the upper 10%), to pay for the various improvements enumerated here. This works within the current system and so has a better chance of success than more radical proposals. I think that not spending more money on poor schools insures that they will not improve significantly.</p>

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<p>“In California, the wealthiest 4% of income tax payers (coincidentally those making over $100,000) pay 52% of the total income taxes collected. This suggests that the wealthy are carrying some of the social burden.”</p>

<p>That is not the social burden. That is the economic burden. There is many a wealthy liberal more than willing to pay high taxes and lip service to equality of opportunity as long as it is not his or her child in a cooperative learning environment teaching Paco his multiplication tables instead of taking geometry.</p>

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<p>Okay, so got back from my meeting. All about how can discipline be improved and trash picked up. Pretty basic stuff. Okay, I can go along with that.</p>

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<p>I don’t believe that. Maybe in some cases. But no guarantees. If you get a big enough group of parents that want the same things, maybe. The trash problem will be resolved at our school, for instance. That might not happen at a school where people didn’t demand it. I don’t know about the discipline issues, though. We’ll see. It’s a big problem.</p>

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<p>Higherlead, Well, I can think of some amusing consequences to your proposal of dumping those private school kids in your district. Can you imagine instead of doing the dreaded multiplication table, all the kids will go around reciting</p>

<p>inter audacis lupus errat agnos,
spargit agrestis tibi silua frondis,
gaudet inuisam pepulisse fossor
ter pede terram.</p>

<p>I can definitely see the possibility of your proposal.</p>

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<p>Or, they do whatever it takes to legally get their salaries to $99,999.99 to avoid your punishment scheme.</p>

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<p>“In California, the wealthiest 4% of income tax payers (coincidentally those making over $100,000) pay 52% of the total income taxes collected. This suggests that the wealthy are carrying some of the social burden.”</p>

<p>The wealthiest 4% will carry their weight of the social burden when the percentage of income that they pay for basic necessities like housing/food/ is more aligned with what the percentage that the lower 40% pays for * their* housing costs</p>

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<p>ek4, I am stunned! You actually want the wealthy to buy BIGGER fancier more expensive houses, eat MORE caviar and filet mignon? Aren’t the wealthy spending enough on these things already?</p>

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<p>Higherlead and emeraldkity4,</p>

<p>Let’s talk microeconomics for a second, please: </p>

<p>Let’s presume that all colleges are now treated like public colleges, not private colleges and that the government sets the price and covers the cost for all students. What do you think is likely to happen? Greater equality of educational opportunity leading to improved educational levels? Poor students getting better skills and training, while the level for the top students remaining consistent?</p>

<p>Economics says the following will happen:
Those owning the private colleges will have no incentive to improve the college or the level of education the school provides, since the need to attract students in a competitive manner no longer exists. The demand for the better schools will decrease while the demand for the worse schools increases, since the demand is now set by the government. However, the way to increase profits at all the schools will be to cut costs, since the supply is also set by governmental decree. This means that demand is inelastic—similar to gasoline. </p>

<p>But availability is limited—we all know that. Today only 28% of students go on to get a 4-year degree and only 50% of students go to college. Now 100% of students will be guaranteed college, so supply will be constrained. In an effort to allocate the supply, the education provided will need to be allocated also—kind of like the way gasoline was allocated back in the 1970s—you could get gas on even numbered days if you had an even numbered license plate, and odd numbered days for an odd license plate, and the price was fixed at below-market rates to benefit the “poor”. The result: total chaos—long lines at every station, stations running out of gas before they could service everybody (since with a unrealistically low price demand exceeded supply), fights breaking out over shortages, and people illegally siphoning gas out of neighbors’ cars to be able to get to work. </p>

<p>In education, the only way to “siphon” the demand will be to temporarily limit everybody to going to school only about half the year, while siphoning the talent to provide the education on a year-round basis from other areas. The government will artificially increase the supply of education by increasing the pay to teachers at the cost of limiting the supply of people going into other areas. This will lead to a temporary shortage of talent in other areas, causing their costs to increase as they bid for the shortage of workers, and will cause some businesses to fail. The increased costs will be passed back to consumers—meaning the cost of many basics (such as food, housing, and transportation will go up considerably). This cost will lead to massive inflation, and inconvenience the elderly whose social security will now be unable to cover their daily needs. It will also drive up the cost of goods produced in the US relative to other global economies. Thus the trade balance will increase, thus lowering the balance of trade payments and increase the consumer cost of living. This, in turn, will lead to a lower standard of living in the US compared to what it was prior to this policy action.</p>

<p>And all of this was just because someone wanted to do something that appears to be helpful. The problem is that as the Economics book my son uses in his microeconomics class says: “good intentions do not guarantee desirable outcomes”.</p>

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<p>Look, just so we are clear here–I, like most people on this site, realize that the very wealthy control power by making the Ivies and other top colleges to a large degree a “closed society” that only rarely allows a few exceptional low- and middle-class students to attend. As as already been discussed, wealth does allow more opportunities–including the ability to pay for SAT training classes, greater ECs, prep school attendance with more activities, etc. However, it is because of this that people strive to work long hours and persist in their creative ways of creating products and services–all of which benefits society. So the trick is not to penalize this behavior, while at the same time we consider how to somehow allow an ability to move within social classes based upon rewarding intellect and hard work. </p>

<p>However, we have to look at the solutions in a realistic light as well. We can’t just jump off a cliff because we think we might learn to fly on the way down. Sometimes the proposals, like the one you are advocating here, has already been tried in other places, and failed totally (one can point to the soviet union central planning structure as an example). However, that is not to say that some social policies similar to this can’t work (medical care in Cuba is a good example of a successful centralized policy–although it is heavily subsidized).</p>

<p>I’d just like to say that we need to consider the “fallacy of compositon” in our proposals. That is, it is erroneous to believe that what is true for the individual (or the part) will always hold true for the group (or the whole). And personally, I’d rather see a less “revolutionary” proposal, and a more “evolutionary” one that still maintains our capitalist system.</p>

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<p>Huh. So, my children are at a charter school that selects by lottery – because they get so many applications, and are not allowed by state law to “cherry pick” students. They just sent 100 percent of the graduating class to college this year, and I think all but a handful of those were to 4 year colleges. The school includes students at the upper end academically, like my son, as well as learning disabled students, English-language learners, and everything in between. And yet, their school succeeds. All the students take the exact same curriculum, and the school has a “no child left behind” policy that makes the success of each student the responsibility of <em>every</em> teacher and <em>every</em> student. </p>

<p>As far as “smart” students having to help other students along, some commenters have suggested it’s good, and some seem to hate the idea. My son actually won an award for exemplifying the school value of Compassion in large part because of his work in helping other students succeed. When classmates were having AP study sessions, he attended them not so much for himself, but to assist other students. </p>

<p>So I guess what I’m saying is that this idea – that when schools have a mix of students, working together in the same class, everyone benefits – is real, true, and happens. In the case of my children’s school, it has performed consistently at the highest levels on state testing, and is one of the highest ranked schools in our county.</p>

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<p>“I like the way the Japanese do it. Kids go to the local school. Every kid takes the same national exams.”</p>

<p>The trouble with emulating Japan (highly successful though it is) is that they have two things we don’t have, and won’t get without massive cultural change:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Everybody from the CEO of Sony to unemployed janitors respects the hell out of teachers. Middle school teachers are addressed with the same respectful title that is also used for neurosurgeons and Harvard professors.</p></li>
<li><p>The parents in the “undesirable” school district are invested in their kids’ educations and devoted to making their kids study to degree that isn’t all that different from the parents in the coveted school districts.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>“Let’s presume that all colleges are now treated like public colleges, not private colleges and that the government sets the price and covers the cost for all students…The demand for the better schools will decrease while the demand for the worse schools increases, since the demand is now set by the government.”</p>

<p>Says who? Are you even serious?</p>

<p>Your model completely ignores the non-monetary utility that players in the economy seek.</p>

<p>Human beings like to rank things in hierarchies, and they get enormous utility out of the prestige they assign to the high rankings. Even if all the colleges were public and cost the same price, people would still form very strong ideas about which ones are the best, and the best students would continue to gravitate toward one vs. another. The rule in Texas guaranteeing a wide swath of students admission to the public university of their choice has not dampened the overwhelming consensus that UT-Austin is terrific and UT El Paso sucks in comparison. We have yet to observe 70’s style chaos there.</p>

<p>The glaring problem with the gas analogy is that gasoline is fungible – it’s effectively identical regardless of where you get it – and schools aren’t. The government could rename all the public schools Texas 1 through Texas 12, and people would still firmly believe that 3 is best and 9 is a joke. The prestige effect was robust as ever in Communist China, where the government really did rename the schools and control who could go where. So your scenario is implausible, unless you’re suggesting nationwide random assignment of students to schools, which no one I’m aware of has proposed.</p>

<p>You also suppose that people in charge of running colleges are solely motivated by profit. They want to keep their schools in business, it’s true, but if they really cared about increasing profits, they’d be working in the private sector. Virtually everyone in academia is taking a big salary hit to work in that field because they care about education. They also care about attracting the students who are fun and rewarding to teach, even if all students pay the same tuition. That utility matters.</p>