New Lowell admissions recommendations

Superintendent Matt Wayne is presenting recommendations to the San Francisco Board of Education at the November 14 meeting. These were developed by the High School Task Force. Superintendent Wayne proposes that all applicants to Lowell High who meet a GPA minimum (as yet unspecified) be entered into the standard high school lottery process. He cites results from Chicago Public Schools to justify replacing the current admissions process with GPA alone.

What does the Chicago report tell us?

The Superintendent’s proposal links to a summary of a 2014 report entitled Looking Forward to High School and College: Middle Grade Indicators of Readiness in Chicago Public Schools. The first thing to notice about this report is that it is not intended to be a method of identifying right-tail talent (academically high-performing students like those who Lowell is intended to serve). Indeed, here are the “Key Questions” as stated by the report’s authors:

It’s clear that the goal of this report was to find metrics that best predict which middle school students are likely to fail: either in 9th grade, or fail to graduate college-ready.

Superintendent Wayne cites this report to claim “GPA is the best predictor of high school success.” But that is not the conclusion of this report. A more accurate summary is “middle school GPA and attendance help predict who fails in high school.” In fact, one key finding of the report is:

“High school selection matters for whether students graduate and earn the credentials needed for college.”

The report elaborates:

“Students with the same eighth-grade GPAs, attendance, and test scores have much different probabilities of being on-track and earning high grades in high school, depending on which high school they attend. The high schools where students have the best pass rates and highest grades are not necessarily the schools with the highest test scores.”

Read that again, especially the last sentence. Think about how that applies to Lowell, which has the highest test scores. Changing the admissions criteria so that students no longer have to prove they’re up to par academically will mean that these students are less likely to pass or get good enough grades to attend college. This is not conjecture: there is evidence from Lowell’s lottery days confirming that a lack of admissions standards causes more students to fail.

In fact, the report recommends that middle schools find out “which high schools their students actually end up with the highest GPAs, graduation rates, and on-track rates” in order “to help guide students in their choice of high school so that they can maximize their chances of getting good grades and being ready for college.” Note that the goal is not for every middle school to send as many students as possible to the high school with the best test scores. Indeed, the report shows this to be counterproductive.

The above charts are likely the basis for Superintendent Wayne’s claim that “GPA is the best predictor of high school success.” But that’s not what they show. They show that GPA + attendance are better correlated with 9th grade grades than GPA + test scores in the low and mid range of GPA. That’s fine, but it’s not relevant for Lowell High, as Lowell serves the high end of academic performers. At the high end, where GPA and test scores are in both in the maximum range, you see that GPA + test scores predicts 9th grade performance better than GPA + attendance. In fact, in the highest GPA range, we see that GPA + test scores beats GPA + attendance consistently.

Is this proposal a good idea?

First, I’d like to give Superintendent Wayne credit where credit is due. He recognizes that it’s a waste of money and staff time to read essays, applications and recommendations. I fully support removing these since there is no evidence that they’re predictive of high performance at Lowell. That public and private school students are evaluated on different tests is also a problem that should be fixed. I agree that the band system creates confusion and should be eliminated: every student should be judged on the same criteria.

It’s a good idea to get rid of essays, applications and recommendations. It’s a good idea not to evaluate public and private students based on different tests. But overall, using GPA alone is not a good way of identifying talent. Even the report Superintendent Wayne cites as justification for this change does not show that GPA alone is the best approach.

Are there better solutions?

Yes. A better solution would be to use one test for all applicants (such as the Lowell Admissions Test currently given to private school students, or New York City’s SHSAT). Using the SHSAT alone, with zero other admissions criteria, has resulted in New York having some of the country’s best public high schools.

A glaring problem with using GPA alone is that it’s a subjective measure. There is no consistent standard from school to school of what a 4.0 means. Indeed, even within a given school there’s no consistency from teacher to teacher of what “A” work looks like. There was a recent scandal involving an SFUSD 6th grader who received As despite never attending a single day of class. This is an extreme case, but it shows that in SFUSD, getting As doesn’t necessarily imply that the student has even basic mastery over the course material. To excel at Lowell, mastery of academic material is necessary, which is why standardized testing is essential. I have said it many times, but there is absolutely no benefit in getting into Lowell only to fail. Especially if attending a different high school that’s a better academic fit would mean success.

One of the district’s goals is “increasing the percentage of high school 12th graders who are college- and career-ready.” Notably absent from the list of goals is “fiddle with the racial composition of Lowell High.” The Superintendent should follow the recommendations given in the report he cited and help middle schools identify which high schools help their students succeed at the highest rates rather than attempting once again to micromanage the racial composition of Lowell High under the banner of “equity.” It is clear from his recommendations which do not change selective admissions at far whiter and wealthier RASOTA that the goal is not racial equity, but targeting Asian excellence. He would be well served to recall that such meddling (even for the purposes of “promoting diversity”) has been deemed unconstitutional by a recent Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action.