Texas top 10% HS admissions challenged (again)

Parents Forum
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<p>Btw...an article in today's Houston Chronicle stated that 71% of last year's freshman class at UT-Austin were top ten percent auto admits compare to about 40% the year the top ten percent law went into effect. This is a pretty dramatic effect.</p>

<p>I think modification of the law at a minimum is in order, but all discussion is likely to be quashed if Senator Royce West gets his way. He is only 11 votes short of blocking the bill from making it to the Senate floor for debate. It is expected he WILL find those 11 votes. Something is wrong with the picture when free exchange of ideas and discussion is thwarted by elected officials...especially when thwarting this debate is contrary to the wishes of the people.</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4663691.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4663691.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Thanks for the link yaya. </p>

<p>An interesting comparison. Over the last 5 years at UT-Austin, the number of top ten percenters accepted has increased by more than 75%, while the number of African Americans enrolled has only increased by 9.6% and the number of Hispanics by 7.8%. In actual numbers over five years, that is an additional 123 African American students and an additional 399 Hispanic students. </p>

<p>The ethnicity/racial makeup of the student body of UT-Austin doesn't remotely reflect that of college eligible students in the State of Texas. The top ten percent law just has not accomplished it's prime directive. </p>

<p>More attention from Senator Royce West and others in gov't should be turned toward making UT-Austin and Texas A&M financially feasible for minorities. Let Admissions worry about increasing diversity in the acceptance process and let the State of Texas worry about getting these kids the funds to attend.</p>

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<p>TO sybbie</p>

<ol>
<li>sybbie i know you are a very respected member in CC and i do have tremdous respect for you.<br></li>
<li>And yes, even they knew they would still let me in. You are making a assumption based on such a narrow statement when the story isn't about that. </li>
<li>cheating on couple hw doensn't make me a lazy person.I worked hard. Period. Wow! what a way to analyze such reply in a narrow view.</li>
<li>you see... i could argue back like "wow sybbie are you saying your child is so freakin perfect and never ever made mistake?" but i don't. b/c it would be a narrow assumption. I am surprised you would make such statement.</li>
<li>i just argued against my word again on my first post, but please excuse such minor misdemeanor</li>
<li>hook 'em</li>
</ol>

<p>thank you</p>

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<p>I read that article too and my first thought was that people better start writing their legislators. I agree that it is a travesty if Royce West can get the votes to keep the new legislation from even being discussed by the entire senate.</p>

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<p>Calif has a 4% rule rather than a 10% rule, the purpose is to try to increase URM enrollment since AA is disallowed by prop 209. Again it does not help much. Apparently the reason is that if those poor schools there are often minorities like poor Vietnamese who are the top of the class.</p>

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<p>ag - I was thinking the same thing. It's happened before you know...the Texas House has passed bills modifying the top ten percent law (lowering percentages and introducing caps) only to have Senators from inner city Dallas/Houston/SA band together with Valley senators and certain rural Senators to block the House bill from leaving Senate committee. The bills never make it to the Senate floor. </p>

<p>I think there is compromise to be found somewhere in this issue...either lower the percentages to those of Cali as bomgeedad mentions; or allow caps, so that certain campuses are not overrun. Theoretically, I will still disagree with allowing rank to trump all...using rank is not a measure of merit, but of relative merit. It makes no sense to determine relativity in the context of a single high school rather than the entire state. To me, it is a meaningless, misleading comparison. But sometimes, you have to take the compromise.</p>

<p>Unfortunately to get to that compromise, the issue has to get past Royce West and his compadres. .</p>

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<p>I think it is in Florida where the law states that if you are in the top 20% you are guaranteed admission to a college in the Florida state college system, but not necessarily the "flagship" universities of UF and FSU. That way, they can look at the total application, not just rank to fill the spots at UF. So, if there are kids who are perhaps less prepared for the rigor of the most challenging campus, they are sent to a "satellite" campus. They don't have the CAP system though and I don't know how easy it is to transfer between campuses.</p>

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<p>ag - I think this is how it's done in the UC system in Cali too. Not sure if there is a way to 'earn' your way into a top UC like Berkely or UCLA though. Maybe a CA parent will inform us. Something like this would be at least a good start at reform here in Texas.</p>

<p>(You know...side note...it's almost like a DUH thing. Other states can figure out how to do this properly; so why is it so hard for our elected officials??)</p>

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<p>Well, we Texans know how well our legislature has handled the school financing issues ;)</p>

<p>As long as a few (and I mean very few) can hold up EVEN discussing an issue, nothing will change!!</p>

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<p>While it requires a bit of effort to finish reading it, this paper goes a long way in framing the issues in California, Florida, and Texas.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/affirmativeaction/tristate.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/affirmativeaction/tristate.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Now, as far as school financing, I doubt that there is much worth emulating in California, and this forum would not allow the adequate adjectives for their admissions' procedures. </p>

<p>Surprisingly, in comparison to other states that face similar challenge in demographics, Texas does pretty darn "good." :)</p>

<p>PS For further research on Texas school issues, I like to read the musings posted by this author:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/staff_member.php?staff_id=40%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.texaspolicy.com/staff_member.php?staff_id=40&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Thanks xiggi - I will most definitely read both.</p>

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<p>sorry to revive an old thread, but I found this new article on the Texas 10% debate interesting....</p>

<p>ironically, I'd imagine that just about any other selective school would relish the trend UT is experiencing now....a raising of the academic bar for entering freshmen....but in this case more academic selectivity may come with a diversity cost.</p>

<p>81</a> percent of UT's admission offers go to top 10 percent grads | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle</p>

<p>entire article:

[quote]
The University of Texas at Austin reserved a record 81 percent of its fall admission offers this year to students guaranteed a spot on campus under the state's top 10 percent law.</p>

<p>School president William Powers is using those 2008 figures — which mark a 10 percent jump from last year — to renew his criticism of the decade-old law that he believes is as an obstacle to student diversity.</p>

<p>Powers said Wednesday that admission offers at UT-Austin will be soon be exclusive to high-ranking graduates unless lawmakers give admission officers more flexibility in choosing students.</p>

<p>"Only about one in four students admitted under the top 10 percent law is African American or Hispanic, so there's a natural limit if we don't have discretion in who we can go after," he said. "It's a capacity problem."</p>

<p>Currently, Texas students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class are guaranteed admission to the state university of their choice. UT-Austin has complained for years that the law limits its ability to recruit a well-rounded student body.</p>

<p>But changing the law has been a tough sell for Powers. The university's minority enrollment is higher now than any time in the decade since lawmakers enacted it.</p>

<p>UT-Austin had just over 37,000 undergraduate students last fall. Of those, 6,700 were Hispanic and 1,700 black.</p>

<p>The top 10 percent law was adopted after a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision made affirmative action illegal in Texas college admissions. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision, allowing universities to use race as one of many decision-making factors.</p>

<p>Democratic Rep. Helen Giddings, who co-authored the top 10 percent law, credits the measure with drawing more students from urban and rural schools.</p>

<p>"We cannot back away from making sure that these universities reflect the population of the state," she said.</p>

<p>The current law primarily affects UT-Austin and, to a lesser degree, Texas A&M University in College Station.

[/quote]
</p>

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<p>Yes, I read this yesterday. WOW, is all I can say!! I've got a freshman at UT now, and a sophomore in highschool - who, needless to say, is working his tail off to stay in the top 10%.</p>

<p>By the time he's a senior, it could be that 100% of the class is filled with top 10% kids. YIKES.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Powers said Wednesday that admission offers at UT-Austin will be soon be exclusive to high-ranking graduates unless lawmakers give admission officers more flexibility in choosing students.

[/quote]
:eek: The horror.</p>

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<p>"Apparently the reason is that in those poor schools there are often minorities like poor Vietnamese who are the top of the class."</p>

<p>(i.e., "it doesn't work")</p>

<p>Sorry, but Vietnamese are URM's for U.C. (That part of it does work. But yes, the Vietnamese will likely tend more often to be in the top 4% of their h.s. than African-Americans or Hispanics.) They are still URM's at the moment.</p>

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<p>To repeat for the non-Texans, this argument appears to the outsider to be about race and ethnicity. Not in Texas. ;) </p>

<p>In Texas it's about a coalition of urban and rural legislators holding the suburbanites at bay. At the root, the argument is about fairness in K-12 school financing and an achievement gap between students at better-funded suburban schools and those in poorer districts. Some feel the two things have some relationship. Imagine that. ;) To then use standardized test scores (conclusively related to income by the testing institutions themselves) and AP/Honors/IB's (common sense and basic math tells us the richer the district , the more programs) , seems to some to be another kick in the teeth to the students in the less advantaged schools. </p>

<p>It is far easier to just think the top 10% rule does not provide the finest students in Texas access to her "finest institutions" then to ask "Hmmmmmmmm. Why are the students in the richer districts doing better on SAT's and taking and passing more AP's than the poorer districts?". Is it the water? ;)</p>

<p>Is this fair to an individual Highland Park kid who is in fact an exceptional student capable of great things, but ranks as the first kid OUTSIDE the top 10%? No, but this program was not designed to choose between two kids. Never was. It's about bigger issues that we have no will to confront. </p>

<p>Two thoughts I've raised before-
1) We could solve some of this by dismantling the huge endowments of UT and A+M and rationally dispersing that money to all Texas state schools. As the facilities and staffing improve at Tech and UTEP and State and North Texas and Sam and Stephen F., they could offer large - even tuition-free access to their improved campuses to top 10% kids. Many would rather go there under those circumstances. I know several kids who would have been more tempted.</p>

<p>2) Use some of that Texas and A&M money to equalize per student expenditures among our districts. Each district in Texas, however ridiculously small, is an autonomous fiefdom. Why? Because of local control issues and well....just because.;) Tax rates are set and collected locally using local folks and local rules. Why? Well....just because.;) (BTW, I'm not advocating an end to local control. Just an end to the funding , facilities, and program disparities caused by the existing system.)</p>

<p>Sometimes the issues are not what they first appear to be.</p>

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<p>"Two thoughts I've raised before-
1) We could solve some of this by dismantling the huge endowments of UT and A+M and rationally dispersing that money to all Texas state schools. As the facilities and staffing improve at Tech and UTEP and State and North Texas and Sam and Stephen F., they could offer large - even tuition-free access to their improved campuses to top 10% kids. Many would rather go there under those circumstances. I know several kids who would have been more tempted.</p>

<p>2) Use some of that Texas and A&M money to equalize per student expenditures among our districts. Each district in Texas, however ridiculously small, is an autonomous fiefdom. Why? Because of local control issues and well....just because. Tax rates are set and collected locally using local folks and local rules. Why? Well....just because. (BTW, I'm not advocating an end to local control. Just an end to the funding , facilities, and program disparities caused by the existing system.)"</p>

<p>Getting rid of the best is no way to improve education. It's a sure way to universal mediocrity and brain drain as more top students choose to go to schools outside the state.</p>

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<p>Who is advocating getting rid of the best?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Sometimes the issues are not what they first appear to be.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Ain't that the truth, Curmudgeon? </p>

<p>This issue is indeed complex, and one can find enough statistics to back an opinion "for" or "against" the 10% rule. As Cur wrote, this is mostly a fight between urban/rural districts versus suburban districts. One reality to remember is that many of the most selective schools do not participate in the 10% program (because they do not rank) and that many potential candidates from urban or rural areas do NOT use their otherwise automatic 10% ticket to UT or TAMU. Despite all the wealth of the Texas system, it's far from offering a free education. Accordingly, for many people from the poorest district, attending UT or TAMU is simply impossible, even if qualified academically. </p>

<p>As far as suburban kids who happen to fall just outside the top 10% (probably because of not having played the IB/AP games well,) their fate would made extremely harder by having ALL qualified students exercise their rights to the automatic admission. </p>

<p>In fact, the only sensible solution does not involve finding ways to grab more of the 11%-15% ranked (who are rarely shut out with decent test scores) but to LOWER the 10% to a 4% or 7% automatic admission and restrict the overall pool to a 40% or 50% of the total freshman class. </p>

<p>And yes, that is not what Highland Park nor Plano East wants to hear! And, fwiw, those schools would have a more legitimate right to complain AFTER making it tougher on the schools that have greatly benefitted from the system they love to attack.</p>