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Neighborhood-Based Admission To Selective High Schools?

A reader, E, sent a link to this article about admission to the highly selective specialized high schools in New York (Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, etc.) by John Garvey, a former dean at the City University of New York.

Garvey proposes a solution to the old problem of ?woefully small percentages of black and Hispanic students? at those highly selective schools based on the Texas 10 percent plan:

The Department of Education should adopt a proportional admissions plan for the exam schools that would offer admission to the highest-scoring students from each of the neighborhoods of the city.

Arguing that ?[j]udging students by grades or class rank would offer the fairest estimation of their potential,? he further proposes that the admissions test be scrapped. But there?s something of a disconnect here, since he also argues that there are fewer blacks and Hispanics in the selective high schools because the schools they attend are inferior: ?Clearly, segregation and the unequal educational opportunities that result continue to distort the enrollment profile of the city?s most selective high schools.?

Thus what Garvey is saying is that students who do well in poor schools but don?t do well on the entrance tests are as qualified for the selective schools as students who do well in better schools and do well on the tests. This makes no sense.

Garvey notes that a ?downside? to his neighborhood-based admission system is similar to an admitted ?downside? of the Texas 10 percent plan (guaranteeing the top 10% of the graduate of every high school admission to the University of Texas):

High-achieving black and Hispanic students who rank below the top 10 percent at majority-white schools often do not get admitted to the college of their choice.

Apparently Garvey does not regard the fact that high-achieving white and Asian students who rank below the top 10 percent of their classes also often do not get admitted to the college of their choice as a ?downside? worth noticing.

Full post as published by Discriminations on March 10, 2010 (boomark / email).