The Continuing Scandal of Affirmative Action for Rich People
David Leonhardt’s excellent column on Amherst College’s successful efforts to enroll a more economically diverse student body highlights one of the great triumphs of American public relations: the ongoing ability of elite colleges to maintain a high moral standing in society while actively working to sustain the plutocracy. As Leonhardt notes, it is simply a fact that, in the aggregate, elite colleges convey an admissions advantage to the children of rich people, above and beyond considerations of academic merit, whereas they provide no such advantage to the children of poor people. Sometimes this happens through legacy preferences, sometimes by recruiting athletes in niche sports populated by the wealthy
Quick Hits (5.25.2011)
From Emmy Partin’s review of Innovation Ohio’s report “Ohio’s E-schools: Funding Failure; Coddling Contributors”: “The mistruths in the report are plenty (a few are exposed in this short takefrom the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools), but the most egregious is this: that e-schools cost Ohio more than traditional schools. IO is correct that e-schools receive an average of $6,320 per pupil in funding from the state (via deductions from their students’ home school districts). The report goes on to say that this amount is 95 percent more than traditional schools receive from the state. This may be technically true, to a degree. One-hundred percent of e-school funding flows from state coffers; but a good chunk of district funding comes from local taxpayers and doesn’t pass through the state treasurer. Does that mean that local tax dollars shouldn’t and don’t figure into the equation when policymakers, the media, and the public are assessing education spending?” (Gadfly)
LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s reaction to the opposition he’s facing from the L.A. teachers union towards his teacher evaluation proposal: “I think there is a large disconnect between what the leadership has done and what the rank and file is saying to us. They’re not only excited about the evaluation system, but they’re chomping at the bit to use it.” (Los Angeles Times)
Derek Thompson asks, “Is College (Finally) Ready For Its Innovation Revolution?”: “Colleges rarely think about efficiency, because all the signals tell them to spend more money on fewer students. Theoretically, the most efficient school would give the highest quality education to the most people for the lowest price. In reality, national rankings reward universities for rejecting the highest number of applicants, teaching the fewest number of students per class, and spending the most per capita on resources. That doesn’t mean colleges are failing. It means the system suffers from an incentive to be inefficient.” (The Atlantic)
The Chronicle of Higher Education reporting on NCAA academic penalties: “The University of Connecticut men’s basketball team is the reigning NCAA champion, but it is also one of a handful of marquee basketball and football programs to receive penalties from the association this week for poor academic performance. …The Huskies’ score of 893 out of 1,000 points on the NCAA’s annual academic-progress report, released on Tuesday, was well below the cutoff point drawing a penalty of reduced scholarships for the team. Five other basketball and football programs in major athletic conferences scored below the NCAA’s benchmark of 925 out of a possible 1,000, down from a dozen big-time teams last year.” (The Chronicle of Higher Education)