Stacking the Deck?

Stacking the Deck?:

Stacking the Deck?

“Moreover, ‘lower achieving students’ is not a protected class.”

-Brian Bauer, GHCHS

This week, Granada Hills Charter High School (GHCHS) will attempt to win its sixth national Academic Decathlon championship in seven years. If this were a high school sports team instead of an academic one, the improbability of this accomplishment would probably be more of a focus but instead, it is blindly celebrated. No one seems to ask how it possible for a school that is supposed to draw from surrounding neighborhoods to consistently dominate a competition in a way that can only be compared to the winning streaks of the Harlem Globetrotters or the USA’s Olympic basketball Dream Teams. There is no doubt that members of Granada’s team work hard to achieve their success, but does the demographic makeup of this school give their team an unfair advantage?

The population that GHCHS’ Academic Decathlon draws from has a higher percentage of students classified as “Gifted and Talented” than Stacking the Deck?: