Equality and excellence

Stuyvesant High School

The tension between the pursuit of excellence and the search for equality is one theme in Mary Renault's novel, The Last of the Wine, set in fifth century B.C. Athens.  She has one of her characters ask whether fervent proponents of the latter will demand that every beautiful child have her face slightly disfigured, preventing her from beginning life with an undeserved advantage over her less favored peers.

This struggle between objectives is one that confronts any society that calls itself "democratic."  It is playing out at present in New York City. 

New York has eight public high schools with rigorous curricula that admit applicants on a competitive basis, one criterion being high scores on the "Specialized High Schools Admissions Test."  Another school, the LaGuardia  High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts, offers admission based on auditions.  These schools offer an excellent education, often the equivalent of that provided by expensive private schools.  The opportunity for talented and academically oriented students to attend such schools induces many better-off parents to keep their children within the public school system. 

They also have student bodies that are heavily white or Asian, and upper middle class.  Aye, there's the rub.

The city's mayor has suggested that twenty percent of the admissions to each special school should be awarded to students who are low-income, and who fall just below the minimum acceptable test score for that school.  The objective would be to integrate the schools to some degree by social class and, not so incidentally, by race.

I find it impossible to think about this issue without feeling completely ambivalent.  First of all, I question the effectiveness of the mayor's proposal.  I look at magnet schools in Seattle, notably Garfield, which include both lower income students from the neighborhood and talented students in various disciplines drawn from across the city, and see schools where the students quickly re-segregate themselves from within.  Not out of racial or class hostility, I gather, but simply out of the desire to hang out with friends who have similar interests and aspirations.

On the other hand, if we are not to be a polarized society, we have to begin somewhere.  I suspect that rubbing shoulders with people unlike ourselves -- whether at school, at work, or in other activities -- increases understanding and acceptance of each other, even where that contact tends to be superficial.

The issue is often discussed in terms of fairness to the low-income students who need to escape low-expectation schools versus fairness to the well-off kids who want a superior education.  And that's an important balance to make.  But I also am concerned about the national welfare -- don't we want to produce the brightest, best educated young people we can?  Kids who can create the scientific and technological advances we''ll need in the future, as well as the writers and students of the humanities that the nation will need to govern itself?  Every country that wants to be a leader in the future is finding ways to give its brightest kids the most intense education possible.  Certainly China is.

On the other hand -- again -- the national welfare will not be served by allowing creation of a vast underclass of poor and poorly educated citizens.  America enjoyed its best years economically after World War II, when universal education gave all students as much education as then seemed required -- a high school diploma -- which in turn created a population with a smaller gap between the highest and lowest paid than known at any time before or since.

One problem with the creation of schools limited to gifted students is that those become the schools that the best teachers naturally vie to teach in.  But -- to a certain degree -- the smartest and best motivated kids have the ability to teach themselves.  It is the poor learners, the kids from homes that have not motivated their kids to study and learn, who need the best teachers.  Regardless of whether we segregate or integrate our good students from our more problematic students, maybe we should be focusing on higher incentives for good teachers to teach the more difficult children.

This has been a rambling post, as I knew it would be.  It rambles, because I have no solutions to suggest.  If I did, I'd write a book.  I merely see the problems.  I hope the political and educational leaders in New York City have the background and experience that I don't have -- as well as the wisdom and concern for all elements of the community -- that will enable them to make the wisest decisions for their schools, and for their diverse student bodies.

New York's problems aren't limited to New York.  School districts all over the country will be watching.