At breakfast this morning, I read an Epoch Times article depicting a former teacher at one of Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy Charter Schools. In the article we are treated to an account of how hard the teachers and pupils work, the Success Academy system's potential for teacher burnout (which is true of the systems of many charter management organizations), and the striking success of the Academy's pupils on New York's state tests. One is left asking oneself if all the time and effort are worth the results, and this leads inevitably to the question of what "success" means in relation to a school.
I believe that defining school success must begin with student outcomes. In the case of primary schools like the Success Academy, scores on state tests are a reasonable proxy, since they have predictive value for how well Success pupils will perform in middle school, whether in other Success schools or outside the network. In the case of an upper secondary school like One World Lyceum, a model my trustees and I are proposing to start, success will be defined as the families of the students I am teaching define it: by college admissions, in particular admissions to top colleges.
The Wall Street Journal, Worth, and other publications have produced rankings based on how successful North America's college-preparatory high schools are in gaining access for their graduates to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford, the most common answers to requests for defining "top colleges" on this continent. But One World, as the name makes apparent, is envisioned as an international school, with global outreach (and an educational programme that prepares its graduates for success anywhere in the world); so what is our answer to defining the schools we are targeting for our students?
Our school model calls for graduating classes of 180 students, which we consider to be an ideal size, neither too large nor too small. In reality, college matching decisions will be made between the colleges and our students and their families; but insofar as we play (as I am currently playing in guiding students towards colleges likeliest to help them fulfill their aspirations) a role in this match-making, it is in our lyceum's interest to establish ongoing relationships with the top 180 university colleges in the world; and I have devoted considerable effort to defining what these are, I share this information with the students I am charged with overseeing, and I am also willing to share my results privately with those who are interested.
Showing posts with label university admissions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label university admissions. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Admissions to Higher Education in the United States (and elsewhere)
The Supreme Court's recent ruling with respect to the University of Texas's affirmative action programme raises the general question of how the limited public resource of access to our most attractive university placements ought to be allocated. The plaintiff in the Texas case, as in previous cases (for example Bakke in 1978), felt wronged by her own state's preference for another candidate more to the liking of the university's race-aware admissions committee, and sued for redress of grievance. The Court has sent the Texas case back to the appeals court with instructions to investigate the possibility of using race-based (and, by logical extension, perhaps other) discriminatory preferences more narrowly, while still pursuing the goal of campus diversity.
As in the Bakke decision, the court appears to continue to fail to distinguish between public and private universities, and to be willing to grant public university admissions committees the same degree of discretion that private universities enjoy. But public universities are taxpayer-funded, and taxpayers have a reasonable expectation from legally established state institutions of equal protection under the law; while by contrast, individual applicants and their families have paid essentially nothing into establishing the private universities they may be applying to, and can expect less from them since they are owed less.
Therefore our public universities need a new system on the basis of which they might practice race-based (and income-based, culturally based, and perhaps other forms of) discrimination in favour of some of their citizens at the expense of others, in pursuit of the goal of campus diversity. In America, the proper basis for such tie-breaking discrimination is the American Baccalaureate Certificate I have been advocating. This certificate, which would establish a legal right to a free, three-year bachelor's degree at public expense, would resemble the European Baccalaureate that is itself a synthesis and compromise from the similar certificates that are commonly used for university entrance in many parts of Europe, and would be further modified in the direction of the International Baccalaureate, which has been making rapid progress in gaining its popularity throughout the United States in recent years. In fact, under the Ameribac proposal developed for One World Lyceum, the final mark would be arrived at by a formula multiplying the rough equivalent of IB points accumulated by the EB percentage achieved; then, in the case of any ties, race-based and other forms of discrimination favouring candidates with a history of overcoming unequal odds might be properly applied, as they are sometimes being improperly and unjustly applied at the present time.
As in the Bakke decision, the court appears to continue to fail to distinguish between public and private universities, and to be willing to grant public university admissions committees the same degree of discretion that private universities enjoy. But public universities are taxpayer-funded, and taxpayers have a reasonable expectation from legally established state institutions of equal protection under the law; while by contrast, individual applicants and their families have paid essentially nothing into establishing the private universities they may be applying to, and can expect less from them since they are owed less.
Therefore our public universities need a new system on the basis of which they might practice race-based (and income-based, culturally based, and perhaps other forms of) discrimination in favour of some of their citizens at the expense of others, in pursuit of the goal of campus diversity. In America, the proper basis for such tie-breaking discrimination is the American Baccalaureate Certificate I have been advocating. This certificate, which would establish a legal right to a free, three-year bachelor's degree at public expense, would resemble the European Baccalaureate that is itself a synthesis and compromise from the similar certificates that are commonly used for university entrance in many parts of Europe, and would be further modified in the direction of the International Baccalaureate, which has been making rapid progress in gaining its popularity throughout the United States in recent years. In fact, under the Ameribac proposal developed for One World Lyceum, the final mark would be arrived at by a formula multiplying the rough equivalent of IB points accumulated by the EB percentage achieved; then, in the case of any ties, race-based and other forms of discrimination favouring candidates with a history of overcoming unequal odds might be properly applied, as they are sometimes being improperly and unjustly applied at the present time.
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