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I think this is a crazy reason to shut it down, but I'm curious about how the system works over there. I'll describe the grammar school system here in Kent, wh

I think this is a crazy reason to shut it down, but I'm curious about how the system works over there. I'll describe the grammar school system here in Kent, which is adjacent to London. Over here they call the selective government schools "Grammar Schools". Grammar schools are free, and the top grammars send a comparable number of kids to Oxbridge as the top independent (aka Private for internaional readers, Public for British readers) schools. For reference the most expensive school in the area is also one of the most expensive schools in the country, at about £33K a year for day and £45K for boarding. The year the kids turn 11, (year 6), they start the year with a test. It looks a lot like an IQ test, complete with silly questions like "what does this shape look like from this direction". There's also a bunch of standard stuff like arithmetic and vocabulary. It is a single sitting on a single day, so try not to be ill. The thing is, and I didn't know this until after we got the results, almost every kid who gets in had a tutor for the test. My kid was getting fewer and fewer playdates after school in years 4 and 5, and I suspect this is why. Nobody admits to hiring a tutor for some reason, but everyone does it. The kid then gets in anyway, and what do you find? Most primary school kids were not privately educated, but most of his classmates came from private schools. He went to one, and this school has the highest representation in the new intake. I met the other parents, and it's just a selection of other private schools in the area. Maybe one or two from local state schools. I got my kid to ask, and sure enough everyone had a tutor. In terms of ethnicity, it's pretty mixed. There's more Chinese/Asian kids there than I suspect there are in the local population. There's more Indian/Asian (Asian in the UK means India/Pakistan/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka) kids there than I see in everyday life. There's a few black kids as well, and a lot of mixed kids. The majority is white, as you'd expect. So if you care about race, you'd probably say it's nicely mixed. If you care about social mobility, I think you might be disappointed.

adastra22 3y ago
I'm from the SF Bay Area, not Seattle. But this sounds pretty comparable. There are a few merit-based programs in various regions of the US that I know about (SF, Chicago, New York), and their demographics are predominantly East Asian, South Asian, Jewish, and rich white kids. And yeah, those kids had tutors and after-school programs that prepared them for the entrance exams. But where I am from this kind of test-based entrance is really rare. We used to have that in my kids school district, but not anymore. They switched the specialized schools for gifted students to be lottery-based instead of exam entrance. And guess what? After a couple of generations there's not much difference. My daughter's school used to be a special science-oriented "magnet" school (called a magnet school because it "pulls in" students from across the district who specially apply for it). Now it's really no different in practice than any of the other neighborhood schools. It all comes down to mixing up correlation and causality. Progressives said it's not fair that only rich white kids and model minorities are getting into these schools, as these schools setup the kids for a better life. Everyone should have that opportunity! So they make the entrance a randomized lottery instead of merit based. Only guess what? The schools had good outcomes because the student body was well-prepared kids with private tutors. Get rid of that factor and they revert back real quick to being regular schools just like any other. > If you care about social mobility, I think you might be disappointed. These people don't want social mobility. They want equal outcomes--there's no need to move through society if everyone is at the same level. And they do end up achieving that... by lowering standards for everyone.
- workingdog 3y ago
  >>model minorities I'm starting to suspect that "minority" really means one group of people. Model minorities are just everybody else.

adastra22 3y ago

I'm from the SF Bay Area, not Seattle. But this sounds pretty comparable. There are a few merit-based programs in various regions of the US that I know about (SF, Chicago, New York), and their demographics are predominantly East Asian, South Asian, Jewish, and rich white kids. And yeah, those kids had tutors and after-school programs that prepared them for the entrance exams. But where I am from this kind of test-based entrance is really rare. We used to have that in my kids school district, but not anymore. They switched the specialized schools for gifted students to be lottery-based instead of exam entrance. And guess what? After a couple of generations there's not much difference. My daughter's school used to be a special science-oriented "magnet" school (called a magnet school because it "pulls in" students from across the district who specially apply for it). Now it's really no different in practice than any of the other neighborhood schools. It all comes down to mixing up correlation and causality. Progressives said it's not fair that only rich white kids and model minorities are getting into these schools, as these schools setup the kids for a better life. Everyone should have that opportunity! So they make the entrance a randomized lottery instead of merit based. Only guess what? The schools had good outcomes because the student body was well-prepared kids with private tutors. Get rid of that factor and they revert back real quick to being regular schools just like any other. > If you care about social mobility, I think you might be disappointed. These people don't want social mobility. They want equal outcomes--there's no need to move through society if everyone is at the same level. And they do end up achieving that... by lowering standards for everyone.

workingdog 3y ago
>>model minorities I'm starting to suspect that "minority" really means one group of people. Model minorities are just everybody else.