Lowell returns to merit admissions!
Congrats everyone, we did it!
I wrote a speech for the pro-merit rally before the board meeting, but our rally was disrupted by some anti-merit agitators who couldn’t attract more than a handful of supporters for their own rally. Instead, they interrupted our speakers to try to speak at our rally, then accused us of disrespect for not accepting that. Never mind, I can share my comments here with you instead, dear reader. It was probably too long for a one hour rally with many other speakers anyway. Here’s what I wanted to say:
The lottery is racist. Ok, pedants will say that the lottery is race-neutral, so it can’t be racist. But then, wasn’t the merit system similarly race-neutral? The racism is evident in the reasoning behind the switch to lottery: that Lowell lacks “diversity” — a term school board members used to say “the school doesn’t have the same demographic makeup as SFUSD” when what they really meant is “too many Asians.” Lowell has faced decades of attacks on its merit-based system in the name of “diversity” but there’s another SFUSD high school with merit-based admissions that has never endured the same attacks: Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. RASOTA also lacks “diversity” as defined by the school board, since its student body is only 17% Asian while SFUSD is nearly twice that (33%). Attacking a school for “too many Asians” but not similarly agitating for demographic changes at the #2 ranked high school in SFUSD which has too few Asians? That’s anti-Asian racism. No one says “RASOTA lacks diversity” or “RASOTA is a segregated school.” In fact, one of the leading proponents of the “merit is racist” camp, a recalled school board member, sends her two children there! If merit is so racist, why send your own kids to a school with merit-based admissions?
And look at proficiency rates by race. SFUSD has the largest academic achievement gap of any public school district in California. It’s racist to force equal admissions rates when the academic performance between groups is so vastly unequal.
The lottery is also illegal. The motivation behind the lottery was clearly to change the racial makeup of Lowell High. This is not a secret: it was clearly articulated in every board meeting by those who supported the lottery. Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that the Fairfax County school board illegally changed the admissions process at Thomas Jefferson High School because they were openly motivated by changing the racial makeup of TJ. If the school board wants to stay on the right side of the law, it can’t engage in racial balancing. That means “diversity” cannot be a motivating factor in changing the admissions policy of Lowell High.
We want real solutions, not racial division. Speak to average black parents, not spokespeople for the SFNAACP and other black organizations. What do black parents care about? They are concerned that their children can’t read or do math at grade level. They’re concerned their kids are struggling in school and not getting the help they need. They don’t care if 15 more black students get into Lowell by lottery than by merit. All communities of San Francisco stand together in support of the goal of better educational outcomes for all students and closing the academic achievement gap. Only 34% of black SFUSD students read at grade level, and just 18% can do math at grade level. Compare with Asian students: 75% can read at grade level, and 69% can do math at grade level.
That’s the root problem. Lowell admissions is not the problem. Does shooting the fire alarm put out the fire? Changing Lowell admissions doesn’t address the root cause: black students are failing throughout SFUSD and continue to fail at Lowell, with 42.9% of them earning D/F grades. Is Lowell so tough that every group performs that poorly? Not quite: white Lowell students have a D/F rate of 4.8%. So black students at Lowell receive failing grades at nearly 10x the rate that white students do. In what dystopia is the correct move here to relax standards to enroll more students from underperforming groups? Gaining admission to Lowell doesn’t magically make students proficient, it makes it harder for them to catch up and less likely for them to graduate!
Lowell is excellent for one reason: students must prove that they are proficient and performing at the highest academic levels to be admitted. That’s it. With the lottery, Lowell teachers have reported students who read at a 3rd grade level, students who are provided with various resources and don’t bother with any of them, students who lack grit and motivation, students who hold up the class asking basic vocabulary questions, and students who simply don’t do the work. Is that what we want? Let’s admit failure and go back to what works. Merit is only racist if you think some races can’t compete, no matter how hard they try.