Exam Schools on the Block?

For John, BLUF:  This is about San Francisco's Lowell Exam High School, named after Lowell, MA, or so I have read.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Academic high school is too elite (and Asian) for SF

From Linking and Thinking on Education, by Blogger Joanne Jacobs, 4 February 2021.

Here is the lede plus one and a third:

After denaming 44 schools — including Abraham Lincoln High — for historical imperfections, San Francisco school board is fast-tracking a plan to end merit-based admissions for Lowell High School, one of the top high schools in California, reports David Li for NBC News.

The board is on track to approve a resolution to admit students to Lowell (which will be renamed) by lottery, rather than grades and test scores.  Selectivity “perpetuates the culture of white supremacy and racial abuse towards Black and Latinx students,” states the resolution.

The real issue is Chinese supremacy.  Of Lowell’s 2,871 students, 50.6 percent are Asian, mostly Chinese, in a district that’s 33.4 percent Asian, reports Li.

And there is equity for you.  Exam schools allow the smart kids, and also students that come from households that stress academic achievement, to benefit in terms of high school opportunities.  The question is, is it a good thing or a bad thing?  Do those those who go to a former exam school do better?  Or is it that those who might have benefitted from a high performing high school now do not achieve their full potential?

The more subtle question is, does eliminating Exam Schools create equity by denegrating hard work and achievement?  The supplemental question is, does this result in all being worse off, because those entering the economy have failed to achieve their full potential?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff