Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene

[Scholar]

That article was 100% on point.

Thanks for sharing OP.

Less than 2 percent of the nation’s students attend so-called independent schools. But 24 percent of Yale’s class of 2024 attended an independent school. At Princeton, that figure is 25 percent. At Brown and Dartmouth, it is higher still: 29 percent.

College admissions is one of the few situations in which rich people are forced to scramble for a scarce resource.

The god of private school is money.

In a just society, there wouldn’t be a need for these expensive schools, or for private wealth to subsidize something as fundamental as an education. We wouldn’t give rich kids and a tiny number of lottery winners an outstanding education while so many poor kids attend failing schools. In a just society, an education wouldn’t be a luxury item.

 

[ogc163]

That article was 100% on point.

Thanks for sharing OP.

Some of the numbers in the article are crazy, even to someone like me who considers himself well-read on the topic.

This stat is jaw dropping...

More than 50 percent of the low-income Black students at elite colleges attended top private schools, according to Anthony Abraham Jack, the author of The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. This means that these schools, which collectively educate a tiny proportion of Black teenagers, have a huge influence on which of these kids get to attend the best colleges.

I picked up this book twice and never got around to reading it, I may have to pick it up again You couple the current system with the high potential that Affirmative Action will be overturned and an already Hunger Games like education system will become even more savage.

 

[Mook]

Some of the numbers in the article are crazy, even to someone like me who considers himself well-read on the topic.

This stat is jaw dropping...

More than 50 percent of the low-income Black students at elite colleges attended top private schools, according to Anthony Abraham Jack, the author of The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. This means that these schools, which collectively educate a tiny proportion of Black teenagers, have a huge influence on which of these kids get to attend the best colleges.

I picked up this book twice and never got around to reading it, I may have to pick it up again You couple the current system with the high potential that Affirmative Action will be overturned and an already Hunger Games like education system will become even more savage.

I imagine the type of parent to just even research and do the paperwork to apply their kids to those schools already puts those kids at an advantage.

 

[mastermind]

The thing to know is that these schools all inflate grades.

New study shows widespread grade inflation in high schools | Inside Higher Ed

 

[Scottie Drippin]

I went to as elite a "public" school (you had to audition to get in, but no tuition) as possible in the U.S., and by middle of sophomore year the richest kids with the most mediocre grades got pulled and put into the hyper elite private school around here where the brand name and inflated grades could carry them past their own ability

 

[mastermind]

I went to as elite a "public" school (you had to audition to get in, but no tuition) as possible in the U.S., and by middle of sophomore year the richest kids with the most mediocre grades got pulled and put into the hyper elite private school around here where the brand name and inflated grades could carry them past their own ability

Grade inflation at elite schools is another way they game the system. The Ivys inflate grades too. It’s all a cycle.

If you get your child(ren) into one of these high schools, you have set your family up for generations.

 

[Shogun]

Grade inflation at elite schools is another way they game the system. The Ivys inflate grades too. It’s all a cycle.

If you get your child(ren) into one of these high schools, you have set your family up for generations.

While I hate to endorse it, it's not even money, really. If you want to ensure your kid gets good grades (regardless of if they deserve them or not), you just need to complain. Complaining parents rule all in public education...regardless of how ludicrous their complaint every district I've worked for (poor and wealthy) caves equally to the complaining parent.

 

[ogc163]

Grade inflation at elite schools is another way they game the system. The Ivys inflate grades too. It’s all a cycle.

If you get your child(ren) into one of these high schools, you have set your family up for generations.

On one hand the inequality and nepotism is crazy, but on the other hand a part of me can't knock parents for playing the game as best as they can.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

While I hate to endorse it, it's not even money, really. If you want to ensure your kid gets good grades (regardless of if they deserve them or not), you just need to complain. Complaining parents rule all in public education...regardless of how ludicrous their complaint every district I've worked for (poor and wealthy) caves equally to the complaining parent.

i've heard this as well, friends teaching in LA with kids who aint turn in their assignment, yet between complaining parents and politics around school rankings, they can't give the kid a 0. it's stupid that parents enable this

 

[Shogun]

i've heard this as well, friends teaching in LA with kids who aint turn in their assignment, yet between complaining parents and politics around school rankings, they can't give the kid a 0. it's stupid that parents enable this

Yeah, a lot of them don't seem to care. Same kind of people that think it's appropriate to call their kid's boss (once they're older) to complain about their child being mistreated. I've even heard of parents going to interviews with their kid.
It's a strange thing...

 

[mastermind]

While I hate to endorse it, it's not even money, really. If you want to ensure your kid gets good grades (regardless of if they deserve them or not), you just need to complain. Complaining parents rule all in public education...regardless of how ludicrous their complaint every district I've worked for (poor and wealthy) caves equally to the complaining parent.

I learned this in college. Every grade can be challenged, so I’m well aware the power parents have.

But grade inflation is something that’s baked into affluent schools through the dominance of AP and IB courses, which poorer schools don’t have. That’s much different.

On one hand the inequality and nepotism is crazy, but on the other hand a part of me can't knock parents for playing the game as best as they can.

But it’s a game that you need time to play. That time comes from having money.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

I learned this in college. Every grade can be challenged, so I’m well aware the power parents have.

But grade inflation is something that’s baked into affluent schools through the dominance of AP and IB courses, which poorer schools don’t have. That’s much different.


But it’s a game that you need time to play. That time comes from having money.

that's not grade inflation...i took AP classes and the workload was harder, they definitely warrant the higher weighting for each letter grade (ie A = 5 pts vs 4 in a regular class)

and i can't speak on all schools but I was tapped by A Better Chance to receive a full scholly if i wanted to go to one of these schools. the coursework was hard and the kids definitely were collectively more academically inclined than my local public school. my friends who took the ABC scholarship were all at the top of their class in public school and struggled or became B-students at these schools. i can't write them off as if they're just giving out A's to kids with no effort

 

[mastermind]

that's not grade inflation...i took AP classes and the workload was harder, they definitely warrant the higher weighting for each letter grade (ie A = 5 pts vs 4 in a regular class)

and i can't speak on all schools but I was tapped by A Better Chance to receive a full scholly if i wanted to go to one of these schools. the coursework was hard and the kids definitely were collectively more academically inclined than my local public school. my friends who took the ABC scholarship were all at the top of their class in public school and struggled or became B-students at these schools. i can't write them off as if they're just giving out A's to kids with no effort

That is considered grade inflation. The grades are also independent of the test to gain college credit.

When schools vary in the amount of those classes they can offer, that’s where all of that stuff with weighing classes heavier come into play.

You have that and active parents who complain and are vocal, and that C student now has a B, and so forth. It’s grade inflation.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

That is considered grade inflation. The grades are also independent of the test to gain college credit.

When schools vary in the amount of those classes they can offer, that’s where all of that stuff with weighing classes heavier come into play.

You have that and active parents who complain and are vocal, and that C student now has a B, and so forth. It’s grade inflation.

i've never heard AP classes referred to as grade inflation. we're going to have to disagree there as like i said, at least in my experience, the AP courseload and difficulty of the class warrants the higher weighting. the higher weighting existed in public AP classes as well as private.

grade inflation comes in when you change grading curves to give more people a higher grade, when you soften grading criteria to pull more people up

Grade inflation (also known as grading leniency) is the awarding of higher grades than students deserve, which yields a higher average grade given to students.[1]

The term is also used to describe the tendency to award progressively higher academic grades for work that would have received lower grades in the past, However, this is not grade inflation, as higher grades in themselves do not prove grade inflation and many[who?] believe there is no such problem. For this to be grade inflation, It is necessary to demonstrate that the grades are not deserved.[1]

 

[mastermind]

i've never heard AP classes referred to as grade inflation. we're going to have to disagree there as like i said, at least in my experience, the AP courseload and difficulty of the class warrants the higher weighting. the higher weighting existed in public AP classes as well as private.

grade inflation comes in when you change grading curves to give more people a higher grade, when you soften grading criteria to pull more people up

An analysis of the College Board's study on grade inflation (essay) | Inside Higher Ed

GPAs are conventionally calculated on a 4.0 scale (4.0 equals A, 3.7 equals A-minus, 3.3 equals B-plus, etc.). Since the 1960s, however, some high schools have given honors and AP course grades an extra bump through weighting, so that a B in AP psychology would be calculated as a 4.0 rather than a 3.0. One study has suggested, because practices are inconsistent across the country, that weighted GPAs are less predictive of college success than traditional GPAs. Many colleges unweight grades when they consider applications.

Weighting AP grades isn’t new. The practice goes back to the 1960s. What has changed is that the number of students enrolled in Advanced Placement classes has exploded in the last two decades. In 1998, the year with which Hurwitz and Lee began, more than 600,000 students took at least one AP exam. In 2015, around 2.6 million students did. With four times as many students getting weighted grades, is it any wonder that the average GPA has risen? This might not be the gradual change that has driven GPAs and A’s up, but it is agradual change that could have the power to do so, especially among a population of students limited to those who take the SAT. According to the study, both the weighted and the unweighted GPAs have increased over time.

Weighted grades could create a false inflation effect because the College Board student questionnaire does not provide clear direction on how to report weighted grades. It is quite possible, even likely, that a significant number of students who received a weighted B in an AP class might report that grade as an A or use their weighted GPA in the College Board survey, so that even though they have an unweighted B average, they will report it as an A.