I only ask because you've admitted to living near Boston.

Racial preference in admissions and scholarship awards is a blunt instrument. I don't like it, particularly as the mother of a white male.

On the other hand, do you think our current system supports equal opportunity? What do you call it when youth from impoverished neighborhoods (read: not the suburbs, constructed partly by white flight), a rather large number of whom happen to be members of racial or ethnic minorities, whose school districts lost major funding (decline in property values, which determines the tax base for public schools in my state, anyway -- not sure about MA), can't make the grade in the standardized tests that are used for admissions and awarding of scholarships? There are only so many spots in the athletic programs, the one area in which some objective form of evaluation -- i.e., points scored per season -- is possible.

The whole point of bussing was to spread the concern for substandard schools (based on de facto segregation and the resulting unequal educational facilities) across the entire citizenry. If my kid has a chance of being sent to a place where the plumbing is broken and there aren't enough science books (copyright 1987) to go around, I'm more likely to put pressure on to get conditions improved, right? But what happened instead was resistence, sometimes violent, followed by a flight from public schools.

This is why I look askance at school vouchers. I see them less as an opportunity to shore up poor kids' education and more as an opportunity to make sure that those who can already afford private tuition can continue to do so.

Anyway, to return to the point: If the blunt instrument isn't the answer, what is? Do you suggest that the cream of the poor students -- the geniuses -- will rise to the top regardless, so it's OK to allow the merely talented to molder? Might this explain the popularity of crime as a road to material success in poor neighborhoods?

What do we do about unequal opportunity to prepare for admission? What do we do about the method we use for evaluation of a student's talent and potential? And I mean today, not the 7-Year Plan for Educational Excellence. Smart kids without the training to improve themselves through legal means are still smart kids whom we can't afford to sacrifice. They can demonstrate their aptitudes in ways we don't measure, but could.

I think that a portfolio system is the answer, and to hell with the standardized testing except as a diagnostic tool for school performance. It would be more subjective on its face, but our current system is subjective too, only hidden: Go to the wrong school, and you have to be Voltaire to win admission.

Regards--
Mary Anne