Top SF high school sees record spike in failing grades after dropping merit-based admission system

[Anonymous]

We need year long schooling. The middle class fill in those time gaps with extra tutoring, pushing those kids ahead of those of equal ability but less access. That can manifest as a poor kid starting a class “ raw” when the one on the next desk had seen the material before in a summer class or private tutoring.

Study time is a major if not the greatest achievement factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Merit-based high school admission is so gross.

you sound like a teenager.

Why is it "gross"? Why shouldn't very highly able students attend a merit based program?

Did you know that in some public HS, a student cannot opt to take AP classes, that they have to take AP placement exams to take the class? Is that "gross", too?

That is definitely gross. AP classes should be open to all. Merit based magnet programs are more complicated

Sure open the AP program to all but teach the same curriculum and don’t lower standards and be ready to give D’s and F’s if warranted.

I don’t have a problem with the above scenario but what ultimately happens is standards are lowered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Merit-based high school admission is so gross.

you sound like a teenager.

Why is it "gross"? Why shouldn't very highly able students attend a merit based program?

Did you know that in some public HS, a student cannot opt to take AP classes, that they have to take AP placement exams to take the class? Is that "gross", too?

That is definitely gross. AP classes should be open to all. Merit based magnet programs are more complicated

Sure open the AP program to all but teach the same curriculum and don’t lower standards and be ready to give D’s and F’s if warranted.

I don’t have a problem with the above scenario but what ultimately happens is standards are lowered.

This will not happen. Because it will objectively document continued racial disparities. The goal of reducing these disparities has already led to AP exam redesigns that de-emphasize factual content knowledge, and provide reading passages and very stylized essay formats. - AP teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Democrats' plans in action.

Do away with all standards because any quality metric based on objective measurements is racist. The only thing that matters is diversity at all costs.

Quality of education predictably goes rapidly down the toilet.

Lol democrats plan???

The goal of ending public education had and always will be republicans agenda. Democrats are just unfortunately abetting it under good intentions. Public school education for the most part is pretty much done unless you’re living in a wealthy area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Merit-based high school admission is so gross.

you sound like a teenager.

Why is it "gross"? Why shouldn't very highly able students attend a merit based program?

Did you know that in some public HS, a student cannot opt to take AP classes, that they have to take AP placement exams to take the class? Is that "gross", too?

That is definitely gross. AP classes should be open to all. Merit based magnet programs are more complicated

Sure open the AP program to all but teach the same curriculum and don’t lower standards and be ready to give D’s and F’s if warranted.

I don’t have a problem with the above scenario but what ultimately happens is standards are lowered.

This will not happen. Because it will objectively document continued racial disparities. The goal of reducing these disparities has already led to AP exam redesigns that de-emphasize factual content knowledge, and provide reading passages and very stylized essay formats. - AP teacher

I don’t quite understand what you are trying to say. Are you saying learning information and content is no longer important? And that AP exams now are just reading passages and answering questions from those passages??

[Anonymous]

Next they will say it’s very racist that only certain kids get Fs and D’s.

[Anonymous]

I work in a high FARMS Title 1 school and my friend who teaches in a Blue Ribbon practically no FARMS school wondered what would happen if we switched our student bodies. Something similar to this would happen. Her school would become my school but probably worse because they aren't used to so many students with problems like chronic absenteeism, major behavior issues, uneducated parents, lots of poverty, lots of ESOL students, etc. That SF school was only "good" because of its student body. Change the student body and this is what happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"San Francisco’s Lowell High School, regarded as one of the best in the nation, is seeing a record spike in Ds and Fs among its first batch of students admitted in fall 2021 through a new lottery system instead of its decades-long merit-based admissions.

Of the 620 first-year students admitted through the lottery, nearly one in four (24.4%) received at least one letter grade of D or F in the said semester, according to internal records obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. This marks a triple increase from 7.9% in fall 2020 and 7.7% in fall 2019."

https://news.yahoo.com/top-sf-high-school-sees-192303605.html

It looks as if the main point of this thread is Republicans trying to use one fairly obscure issue to try persuade Democrats and independents that some dumb fringe Democratic policies are worse than Trump and other Republicans trying to give control of the United States to Putin. Personally, I’d prefer a country with crappier test schools over one in which Putin puts the students in the test schools in filtration camps.

But the funny thing is that the numbers here suggest that switching to a slightly modified lottery system might work out.

These failure numbers are not actually that bad. They mean that, even after all of the unfairness of COVID-related lockdowns, most of the students who came in through the lottery passed most of their courses. The well-prepared kids might have an easier time ranking highly and doing well in college admissions. The lower-ranked students who are happy and get diplomas might come away with a much better education than they would have received otherwise and experiences that will change the course of their lives.

Some simple solutions for making the lottery system better, based on what European universities that face similar constraints do:

- Have the kids could complete the kind of short, simple assignment that they might do in the second week of classes, with phone access to a homework helper line, and get a grade back, to see how they like that, before they apply. Let them apply even if they fail, but require them to make a real effort to complete assignment. That way, they’re providing proof of seriousness, and they can gauge for themselves whether they can deal with the level of work.

- In a district that wants to provide equal access to opportunity but is open to some self-tracking: Provide discipline-based magnet schools as well as acceleration-based schools. Some of the kids applying to the academic magnets might know they’re not great students. They simply want to go to safe, orderly schools. Solution: Set up some schools that hold costs down by allowing a higher-than-normal average class size and apply tough disciplinary standards. Don’t let any kids who are hard to manage apply to these schools, unless they have an IEP that provides for, say, a minder that they share with two other students, and the minder can keep them on track. Let kids who want apply to the discipline magnets, as long as they turn in most assignments, even if they have bad grades. Use the money saved on the minder schools to give the schools with the remaining students more money. Chances are the money available in the discipline schools will go a lot farther, and the kids there might learn a lot more when freed from the unmanageable kids. And, this way, the academic acceleration schools won’t face pressure to save nice students with weak skills from hellhole schools. And the schools with hard-to-manage students can focus more on basic literacy, dealing with the kids’ issues, and arts and life skills issues, rather than struggling to pretend to teach algebra to kids who are weak on counting to 1,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"San Francisco’s Lowell High School, regarded as one of the best in the nation, is seeing a record spike in Ds and Fs among its first batch of students admitted in fall 2021 through a new lottery system instead of its decades-long merit-based admissions.

Of the 620 first-year students admitted through the lottery, nearly one in four (24.4%) received at least one letter grade of D or F in the said semester, according to internal records obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. This marks a triple increase from 7.9% in fall 2020 and 7.7% in fall 2019."

https://news.yahoo.com/top-sf-high-school-sees-192303605.html

It looks as if the main point of this thread is Republicans trying to use one fairly obscure issue to try persuade Democrats and independents that some dumb fringe Democratic policies are worse than Trump and other Republicans trying to give control of the United States to Putin. Personally, I’d prefer a country with crappier test schools over one in which Putin puts the students in the test schools in filtration camps.

But the funny thing is that the numbers here suggest that switching to a slightly modified lottery system might work out.

These failure numbers are not actually that bad. They mean that, even after all of the unfairness of COVID-related lockdowns, most of the students who came in through the lottery passed most of their courses. The well-prepared kids might have an easier time ranking highly and doing well in college admissions. The lower-ranked students who are happy and get diplomas might come away with a much better education than they would have received otherwise and experiences that will change the course of their lives.

Some simple solutions for making the lottery system better, based on what European universities that face similar constraints do:

- Have the kids could complete the kind of short, simple assignment that they might do in the second week of classes, with phone access to a homework helper line, and get a grade back, to see how they like that, before they apply. Let them apply even if they fail, but require them to make a real effort to complete assignment. That way, they’re providing proof of seriousness, and they can gauge for themselves whether they can deal with the level of work.

- In a district that wants to provide equal access to opportunity but is open to some self-tracking: Provide discipline-based magnet schools as well as acceleration-based schools. Some of the kids applying to the academic magnets might know they’re not great students. They simply want to go to safe, orderly schools. Solution: Set up some schools that hold costs down by allowing a higher-than-normal average class size and apply tough disciplinary standards. Don’t let any kids who are hard to manage apply to these schools, unless they have an IEP that provides for, say, a minder that they share with two other students, and the minder can keep them on track. Let kids who want apply to the discipline magnets, as long as they turn in most assignments, even if they have bad grades. Use the money saved on the minder schools to give the schools with the remaining students more money. Chances are the money available in the discipline schools will go a lot farther, and the kids there might learn a lot more when freed from the unmanageable kids. And, this way, the academic acceleration schools won’t face pressure to save nice students with weak skills from hellhole schools. And the schools with hard-to-manage students can focus more on basic literacy, dealing with the kids’ issues, and arts and life skills issues, rather than struggling to pretend to teach algebra to kids who are weak on counting to 1,000.

I live near SF and have friends with kids at Lowell. The actual stats are so much worse than this. The teachers were under enormous pressure to pass the lottery kids. They gave out Ds and Fs to kids who essentially cut class all the time only. Kids who showed up and barely out their names on paper would pass.

You should not celebrate this or assume this shows any sort of learning happened. It did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"San Francisco’s Lowell High School, regarded as one of the best in the nation, is seeing a record spike in Ds and Fs among its first batch of students admitted in fall 2021 through a new lottery system instead of its decades-long merit-based admissions.

Of the 620 first-year students admitted through the lottery, nearly one in four (24.4%) received at least one letter grade of D or F in the said semester, according to internal records obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. This marks a triple increase from 7.9% in fall 2020 and 7.7% in fall 2019."

https://news.yahoo.com/top-sf-high-school-sees-192303605.html

It looks as if the main point of this thread is Republicans trying to use one fairly obscure issue to try persuade Democrats and independents that some dumb fringe Democratic policies are worse than Trump and other Republicans trying to give control of the United States to Putin. Personally, I’d prefer a country with crappier test schools over one in which Putin puts the students in the test schools in filtration camps.

But the funny thing is that the numbers here suggest that switching to a slightly modified lottery system might work out.

These failure numbers are not actually that bad. They mean that, even after all of the unfairness of COVID-related lockdowns, most of the students who came in through the lottery passed most of their courses. The well-prepared kids might have an easier time ranking highly and doing well in college admissions. The lower-ranked students who are happy and get diplomas might come away with a much better education than they would have received otherwise and experiences that will change the course of their lives.

Some simple solutions for making the lottery system better, based on what European universities that face similar constraints do:

- Have the kids could complete the kind of short, simple assignment that they might do in the second week of classes, with phone access to a homework helper line, and get a grade back, to see how they like that, before they apply. Let them apply even if they fail, but require them to make a real effort to complete assignment. That way, they’re providing proof of seriousness, and they can gauge for themselves whether they can deal with the level of work.

- In a district that wants to provide equal access to opportunity but is open to some self-tracking: Provide discipline-based magnet schools as well as acceleration-based schools. Some of the kids applying to the academic magnets might know they’re not great students. They simply want to go to safe, orderly schools. Solution: Set up some schools that hold costs down by allowing a higher-than-normal average class size and apply tough disciplinary standards. Don’t let any kids who are hard to manage apply to these schools, unless they have an IEP that provides for, say, a minder that they share with two other students, and the minder can keep them on track. Let kids who want apply to the discipline magnets, as long as they turn in most assignments, even if they have bad grades. Use the money saved on the minder schools to give the schools with the remaining students more money. Chances are the money available in the discipline schools will go a lot farther, and the kids there might learn a lot more when freed from the unmanageable kids. And, this way, the academic acceleration schools won’t face pressure to save nice students with weak skills from hellhole schools. And the schools with hard-to-manage students can focus more on basic literacy, dealing with the kids’ issues, and arts and life skills issues, rather than struggling to pretend to teach algebra to kids who are weak on counting to 1,000.

tl;dr but I’m pretty sure this poster is why we’re going to lose the house, Senate, and presidency. a pathological inability to take any responsibility, and an obsession with blaming Trump and Putin. yeah, Putin is why a 99.999% democratic city decided to gut its flagship public high school.

[Anonymous]

I'll vote for Democrats at the national and state level if they align with my views on a women's right to choose and stronger gun control, but they sure as hell are ruining our local public schools with their obsession with equity and their commitment to eradicating the idea of academic merit.

- Independent who'll continue to split votes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll vote for Democrats at the national and state level if they align with my views on a women's right to choose and stronger gun control, but they sure as hell are ruining our local public schools with their obsession with equity and their commitment to eradicating the idea of academic merit.

- Independent who'll continue to split votes

it’s really inexplicably tragic that Democrats fail on education- from PK to college. get it together!!

[Anonymous]

I'll vote for Democrats at the national and state level if they align with my views on a women's right to choose and stronger gun control, but they sure as hell are ruining our local public schools with their obsession with equity and their commitment to eradicating the idea of academic merit.

- Independent who'll continue to split votes

I am not sure the right for abortion, particularly past 12 weeks, will trump education chaos for me. Gun control may be my tipping point issue. All hot mess issues.

[Anonymous]

I can’t vote Republican. I’m a moderate but abortion, Jan. 6th, and gun control are too much. But I accept I’m agreeing to weakening education by voting Democrat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remove achievement and you will have no achievement gap!!!

Not exactly true because the thing you're calling achievement is more a measure of privilege.