... In which I get all philosophical up on you:
Is education a
privilege, or a
right?
A corollary...
If education
were a right (and I say this
strictly for the sake of argument), is it actually possible to provide a
quality education when an inherent property of that educaton is that everyone is entitled to it?
And I don't necessarily mean that in the sense that letting the unwashed masses study alongside the... er... washed masses somehow sullies the product, but rather that the machine that implements that which is mandatory in this reality somehow simultaneously strips the product of its quality.
And don't even try to enter in the discussion unless you've read
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and actually know what I'm trying to get at when I say "quality."
There, that oughta keep somebody busy for awhile.
So this morning I backpedaled out of this argument with my boss...
I had been crunching state testing numbers for our high school end-of-course tests, and had discovered that, at our technology magnet, the Hispanic subgroup had done better than ALL of the other subgroups (Asian kids, White kids, rich kids included), and everyone had done stunningly well.
I was sharing my excitement about this with my boss, and she said, "Yes, well..." then explained that this particular school had a policy of turning down the applications of anyone who hadn't scored on grade level, thus making it a clinch that nearly 100% would continue to be on grade level. Which, of course, they were.
Of course, as a department, we tend to frown on exclusionary practices, especially since LEP kids often are not well represented by their test scores, but part of me was a little chafed by this.
My boss explains that she doesn't want to see any kid miss the chance to be part of an excellent program because of exclusionary practices.
My stance is that a) when are kids who do well gonna get
rewarded for doing well? Singled out? Allowed to go to the good school? And b) how long will the program stay good after they let all the boneheads in?
I didn't actually go so far as to
share these thoughts with my boss, who's had just about enough of my shit for this month, but the question remains. All three of you who read, feel free to discuss...
