"Despite offering a dramatically expanded menu of high school choices for students in recent years, most Philadelphia School District pupils still end up in the city's large and failing neighborhood high schools, according to a new study.
Because of scant information for students and a lack of seats in magnet and citywide lottery schools, 'high school choice is an illusion' for most, Eva Gold, the lead author of the study and a senior research fellow at Research for Action, a Philadelphia nonprofit that studies public education, said yesterday.
The selection process also burdens the neighborhood high schools, it said.
Disadvantaged students unfamiliar with the system are shortchanged, the study found. Most don't know, for instance, that principals at selective schools do accept students after the application period is closed.
'There is wiggle room in the system,' Gold said. 'Those that request late admission, that push hard, that have advocates that can advocate for them to get into a sch"