University of Texas ..
Are the Top 7% from low income schools as able as the 7% from high income schools?
(Cross Post from The-Ave.US) This is a phenomenal article on an effort at the University of Texas to assist students from economic, as opposes to racial, minorities.
Much angst has been expended on the continued fall in US education, with a t least some folks wondering if the problem is not a result of admitting too many folks based on affirmative action rather than ability.
Now Texas may have the answer. After Texas outlawed affirmative action based in race, at the University of Texas, as a way of avoiding race, all kids in the top 7% of their high school class are eligible to attend the UT Austin.
This has, by itself been a failure. The failure rate of kids from secondary schools with low income student bodies is horrible.
Faculty at UT have developed some simple (and perhaps obvious) ways of testing a simple hypothesis:
kids from the low income schools have the
same innate ability as kids form the upper income schools
The data as summarized in this piece supports the hypothesis that the 7% from the low income schools can compete if they are helped with confidence building, networking, and ability to interact with faculty …. skills that I, for exam0le, would guess are better taught at Mercer Island High than Rainer Beach!
Readmore:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/
—
Stephen M. Schwartz
Pathology