A significant share of young people in Texas select a high school based on whether they are likely to graduate with a class rank high enough to guarantee them admission to any Texas public college under the state’s “top-10-percent plan,” a new study concludes. Such decisions to enroll in high school based on class-rank considerations have the effect of making many such high schools slightly more racially integrated while knocking minority students out of the pool of college applicants qualifying for the state’s class-rank-based college-admission guarantee, the researchers found. The study, available on the Web site of the National Bureau of Economic Research, was conducted by Julie Berry Cullen, an associate professor of economics at the University of California at San Diego; Mark C. Long, an associate professor of public affairs at the University of Washington; and Randall Reback, an assistant professor of economics at Barnard College.
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38 Responses to Texas’ 10% Plan Found to Influence Choice of High School
amcneece - January 10, 2011 at 4:47 pm
If you read the full report, the implication is that students should not be allowed to choose their neighborhood high school. That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
hellenist - January 10, 2011 at 5:53 pm
I love stories that are presented as a surprise. I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer but even I could have predicted this outcome (btw, many back then did).
This “policy” can only be seen in context of recent trends to limit the use of race and gender as proxies for diversity in public colleges. Texas faced with a dearth of qualified minority students to its Flagship U of T, and case law that was limiting what was questionable behavior, it created this policy. This policy, which selected the best students from EACH school (as opposed to the best students throughout the state), effectively ensured that they could get additional students of color. Unfortunately it also ensured this OTHER outcome (Basiat’s unintended consequences rules). Given all high schools are not equal in rigor. Given that students and parents want to maximize the chance of entering U of T, it makes total sense for kids and their parents to school shop for the place where his or her student can place the highest relative to the others students IN A GIVEN SCHOOL.
Oh well. This is what happens when the government tries to socially engineer an outcome. The only surprise was where this happened, Texas. It sounds far more like Cal nonsense to me
rmelton5 - January 10, 2011 at 7:56 pm
“This is what happens when government tries to socially engineer”– No, not necessarily. The Texas legislators should have predicted this and “socially engineered” even more to head it off, by requiring students to attend the high school closest to their home. This is what happens when you “socially engineer” in a half-hearted (or half-assed) fashion.
–Proud California social engineer.
mbelvadi - January 11, 2011 at 6:46 am
First, I would like to read the study but it’s NOT “available” on the NBER web site, but locked behind a pay wall – I hope my taxes didn’t pay for the research. Second, I suspect the article above is yet another example of the invisibility of whiteness as the “default”, that the “share of young people” really means “share of white young people” who are apparently gaming the system (I wanted to read the entire study to confirm that, but see point 1). Third, I doubt the “young people” are “selecting” so much as their parents are.
11890636 - January 11, 2011 at 9:51 am
So based on the NBER abstract (didn’t pay the $5 fee for full article), the Chronicle summary seems misleading — “A significant share of young people in Texas select a high school ….” The abstract states, instead:
“Among the subset of students with both motive and opportunity for strategic high school choice, as many as 25 percent enroll in a different high school to improve the chances of being in the top ten percent. Strategic students tend to choose the neighborhood high school in lieu of more competitive magnet schools and, regardless of own race, typically displace minority students from the top ten percent pool. The net effect of strategic behavior is to slightly decrease minority students’ representation in the pool.”
“Subset of students with both motive and opportunity” is a substantial qualifier. And if the real focus of the study was some families’ choosing neighborhood schools over magnet schools, this is interesting but not much evidence of a failure of social engineering. And were neighborhood schools enriched by enrollment of students who were qualified to attend magnet schools?
rick1952 - January 11, 2011 at 9:54 am
I think our time, energy and efforts with respect to college admissions would be better invested in:
1) Improving secondary schools that serve low-income students (given the concentration of poverty in highly segregated schools, this would certainly help.) There is plenty of statistical data that show low-income African-Americans and Hispanics are concentrated in certain schools which are under-resourced.
2) Further develop plans like the Carolina Covenant which reward “strivers” (to borrow from the title of the recent book edited by Richard Kahlenberg.) Again, there are many African-American and Hispanic students who would meet the definition of “strivers”, thereby gaining admission to the selective colleges to which they apply.
Since the Supreme Court has willfully blinded itself to racial disparities under Chief Justice Roberts (though Sandra Day O’Connor certainly blinded herself when she opined that affirmative action would not be necessary in 25 years) and wants citizens to believe that the USA is really a meritocracy rather than a free-market, winner-take-all society, we must improve the schools which serve the most disadvantaged (which include many African-American and Hispanic students) and then recognize and reward their efforts to qualify themselves to advance educationally. (BTW, if you are inclined to criticize the concept of “strivers” and the Carolina Covenant, be sure to read the book. It will probably address any criticisms you might have.)
esgphd - January 11, 2011 at 12:01 pm
Re: “Proud California Social Engineer” ‘s comment
You know, maybe it’s because I’m old, but years ago I seem to recall there was a thing called “busing”, that was designed to PREVENT students from attending their neighborhood schools, on the theory that mixing students from different neighborhoods would be good for them, or at least for some of them, and would increase diversity in each school. Now you are suggesting the reverse? We should now REQUIRE people to attend their neighborhood schools so that the top 10% rule will function as originally intended?? You can’t have both, you know. This would mean LESS mixing of communities and LESS opportunity for students stuck in poor school districts to get out.
Mandating that the top 10% of every school should be automatically admitted to UT was not a bright idea in the first place, since in addition to guaranteeing greater inclusion from some lower performing high schools it also guaranteed that some students admitted would be under-prepared. It also guaranteed that some well prepared students would be crowded out. Fortunately, the Texas public higher ed system is large, and not all students have to go to UT Austin to be part of it. These days, the admissions offices of these and most schools are highly motivated to admit a diverse student body, and in fact they usually compete to admit qualified students from minority groups and disadvantaged backgrounds. Having lived in Texas a long time, it appears to me that few motivated students are prevented from going to college here.
Legislators seem to believe it is their job to force people to do things, by using their legislative powers to create mandates, rules, laws, whatever means necessary. Their hubris consists in assuming they know more than everybody else about everything: case in point, telling the universities how to select their students.
How about less social engineering and more attention to improving the quality of secondary education and the high school completion rates in Texas?
ralphelton2 - January 11, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Lots of ignorant comments about the school systems of the state of Texas. School districts are independent in Texas and students can only transfer within each district if allowed by the rules of the district. Most metro areas have more than one high school within their district zones. However, the majority of districts in Texas have only one high school and there may be several school districts represented within one town.
The city limits of my home town in Texas has parts of four districts intersecting at some point witrhin its boundries. No child within the the city can go to a school outside of their school district unless that district allows for transfers and then the transfer may have to pay tuition.
I didn’t have a choice of schools to attend unless I physically moved to one of the other districts within my town.
So, this study has lots of potential flaws.
The 10% rule was mandated to potentially allow for a more diverse student body at the flagship universities-UT and A&M. It has worked and then some due to how the school systems are structured within the state. But, as stated above, it doesn’t guarantee a qualified student body.
Most students (outside of metro areas) are stuck with the school one option for their high school choice. The only way they can choose a different school is to move. Most parents will not move to an inferior school district so that thier student could be in the top 10%. Most of the time it works the other way.
quacker - January 11, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Full disclosure: I haven’t read the study either (yet) and I would sure like to know what constitutes a “signficant share”.
That said, I echo the comments from raphelton2 and esgphd. I’ve lived in Texas my whole life and have worked in Texas public higher ed institutions for 35 years, much of that time in support of various student service operations like admissions and financial aid. Thus, I feel as close or closer to the data than the researchers in this study.
My questions to all of you who are parents are simply:
1) How many of you can honestly say you did NOT give great consideration to the reputation of the neighborhood school system/district BEFORE choosing where to rent/buy/build your home?
2) How many of you based that choice even marginally on your child’s potential class rank?
I believe the answers are ALL and NONE, respectively, and are the same in Texas as they are anywhere else, despite the state’s Top 10% admission guarantee.
brunobehrend - January 11, 2011 at 3:11 pm
This article and discussion perfectly highlight the difference between “controlled chaos” and “spontaneous order.” It also shows the futility in “reforming” a 19th Century legacy system that needs to be dismantled, not “reformed.”
Students moving to different schools to game a “top 10%” policy??!!
Such as system is beyond defense or support. School districts need to be abolished. Citizens deserve an independent testing system far outside of the control of the school producing the “education.” Money should follow the child to the school of their choice (just like most of Higher Ed)
How long will it take people to see the value of “spontaneous order” over the crushing stupidity of the existing K-12 system we have in America?
Will some fall through the cracks in a choice-based system? Yes, but nowhere near the number being failed by the current system.
I guess it takes a hurricane to reform a school system. It shouldn’t.
djweatherford - May 24, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Well, you know, corporations are people, too, of course.
Think they can get their prescriptions for Viagra and birth control filled?
Unemployed_Northeastern - May 24, 2012 at 4:41 pm
So, in other countries attorneys can get decent non-legal jobs? What a concept!
fullprof99 - May 24, 2012 at 4:41 pm
We don’t care how the banks “feel” but may feel sympathy for the employees who wasted days of their time on either end of this transaction. (Actually, I am surprised that the originating bank didn’t refuse to provide the cash instead of a wire transfer or cashier’s check.) Kenjeev is clueless, though his last statement suggests that he may have learned something as a result.
greilly - May 24, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Employees who wasted days of their time?!? It is their job. They are paid to go to the bank every day and do whatever is needed to run the business… such as counting a customer’s money brought in for deposit. What else would they be doing if not taking care of their customer— playing solitaire on the bank’s computers?
lynnefox - May 24, 2012 at 4:55 pm
I’m sure this guy has a great future as a money launderer or mule for organized crime.
cwinton - May 24, 2012 at 4:56 pm
I might be more sympathetic if it weren’t for the mess bankers visited on our financial system. It’s just too bad their overpaid executives weren’t the ones losing time dealing with this prank. It may be that most bankers didn’t do anything technically illegal, but then neither did Mr. Kenjeev. I hate to think of all the time (not to mention money) so many have lost dealing with questionable banking practices. They at least are deserving of our sympathy.
Joe Kraus - May 24, 2012 at 5:00 pm
But, what did he do with the extra 30 cents received?
renellin - May 24, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Having worked in Las Vegas, I am inimately knowledgeable about the task. It used to take a half hour to count $30,000 in and out each day. Lots of people think of money as a symbolic gesture, i.e. pouring money all over a bed and jumping around on it.
As a bank, I wonder why the people that took 3 days (jeepers, how many breaks were in there? Or did they get to 28,564, and mess up and have to restart like 19 times?) didn’t ask what he planned to do with it (he wouldn’t have to tell them, but it would have helped) and they could have enclosed it in plastic and sealed it. Maybe not. But hey, a bank is a bank. Tons of transactions are very short but are costed at more. It’s kind of like a buffet.
renellin - May 24, 2012 at 7:16 pm
I can’t help but wonder if the reason so many former bankers work in government (especially goldman sachs) is because the government people didn’t understand how it all works and figured they were experts. Instead they seem to have worked the system to benefit themselves in an industry that is difficult to understand (because the paid off congress and the lobbying banks made it this way) so they are trusted with the cookie jar.
renellin - May 24, 2012 at 7:20 pm
sorry greilly, I am more answering elsie than you, because i agreed with you. I was bothered when the bank started telling people they wouldn’t feed your $200 in change into their change machine and give you a total. Instead, they said “we’ll get back to you.” It is incumbent on banks to provide for the services of their customers in the same way it is incumbent upon me to serve my customers who show up 1 minute before closing time. Be glad you have a job.
The first bank that took 3 days should be closed.
1adam12 - May 24, 2012 at 10:06 pm
Many things come to mind:
1. Why would it take more than 10 minutes for any bank employee to handle this transaction? Did he do the whole transaction in 1 CAD units (What, loonies)? I have exchanged 15,000 USD at the airport dozens of times and the actual transaction takes <5 minutes. You are in line much, much longer than the actual time to finish the cash counting. Why the heck are Canadian Banks so darn poorly managed?
2. Why is it anyone's business how Mr. Kenjeev's pays his loan back. The whole thing seems like a foolish show-off thing to do, but why does anyone care if he pays in cash? Too many people spend too much time worrying about how much money other people have instead of worrying about how they need to live their own lives.
Reed.
greilly - May 24, 2012 at 10:37 pm
But he wouldn’t have paid in small unbundled bills… the first bank would have given him bundles of new (or relatively new) bills in large denominations. He then went down the street with those bundles and gave them to another bank.
AnnaAnastasia - May 25, 2012 at 8:01 am
Most here seems to think that the bank employees’ time is well-spent doing this sort of busywork. What about Mr. Kenjeev’s time? Shouldn’t he have been spending his valuable time making obscene amounts of cash in a far overpaid profession, rather than drawing out more than $100K of cash in small bills for the fun of it, then watching people count it?
Maybe if he spends a little more time working and a little less time creating a scene, he can start his own business and employ all the university and law school grads who are working underpaid hourly jobs at banks, counting cash for no good reason?
lucero - May 25, 2012 at 8:17 am
This is to Elsie: Have you been in a bank lately? Maybe it is different in Canada, but every time I go to my bank it is empty! I don’t know why they even bother to keep any tellers or info people in there. And it is a major international bank. I actually started going there and taking my money out from the teller (instead of the ATM) and buying quarters just to give these people some work to do! Hardly anybody goes to the tellers anymore. They just use the ATM–at least in my city.
11182967 - May 25, 2012 at 8:20 am
John Ward: Our cashier says that occasionally students do pay our (admittedly modest) tuition in cash (in our State some people still bank in mattresses), and our policy is to cheerfully accept payment in whatever legal form it arrives. She said she’d be thrilled to have the opportunity to count $300K in cash as long as it was institutional income.
evansolomon - May 25, 2012 at 8:28 am
I suspect that Mr. Kenjeev has always been and will always be the sort of person who would rather prove some point than accomplish a simple task.. People like that are a pain in the butt.
jorieallen - May 25, 2012 at 8:44 am
Duh…it’s his money and their job. Good for him for paying his debt.
retiringsoon - May 25, 2012 at 8:47 am
Here is the point: HE PAID OFF HIS LOAN, and, for whatever reason, he chose an unconventional payment method. (That being said, I do have compassion for those who owe huge amounts for relatively worthless education and are struggling to pay their own loans. There is no easy fix for bad choices, but the interest rate on education loans should remain very low.)
11182967 - May 25, 2012 at 9:06 am
And I don’t see anything in the article to indicate that employees at either bank complained, so why should we pontificate about it (other than that’s one of the things we academics are really good at)? My experience is that creditors care more about the fact of payment than the form. I once paid a speeding ticket by addressing the check to the “Speed Trap Division” of a police department in a small town in Ohio (where else!?). It was quickly cashed.
Colette Shaw - May 25, 2012 at 9:54 am
Cash? What’s that? Do they even make that stuff anymore?
Socratease2 - May 25, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Thanks, that makes sense now that you mention it. Scotiabank merely needed to count.
Ms Eryka - May 25, 2012 at 1:23 pm
lol… paying back the people who try to keep you in debt is awesome
dank48 - May 25, 2012 at 2:36 pm
I’m not feeling sympathetic to banks or bankers right now, so three cheers from here for Mr. Kenjeev. I made a stupid mistake that resulted in my checking account being four figures south of where I thought it was; having made the mistake, I wrote checks to pay bills and didn’t realize I’d screwed up until the first “Your account needs urgent attention” letter. It got it, from me, but getting anyone at the bank to help correct the error turned out to be a fool’s errand, perfect for me.
The bottom line is that my bank’s “overdraft protection” kicked in, except when it didn’t. Where it did, it charged a fee of about twenty percent of the amount, in effect a short-term loan, since it made the amounts good when the next paycheck arrived. Of course the bank people said I shouldn’t look at it as interest, “just” a fee. I don’t care what they call it: it was interest charged for a short-term loan, over about a week on average. The annual percentage rate for that “service” comes to over one thousand percent. At least they didn’t threaten to break my legs.
609zr - May 25, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Kudos Adam: This is a story about lazy, unproductive tellers who complain that they actually have to work. But, the most important part of the story is the unending LIES.
PROPER PROCEDURE: The teller puts the cash in the cash counter and its done in less than 10 minutes according to Adam. I say it is done in less than 5 minutes.
Even drug lords in South American have cash counting and bundling machines. I will not be banking in Canada if it is true that they are so primitive that people actually count money by hand. Do they also slip a couple hundred under the table so no one notices?
KUDOS Alex Kenjeev: While everyone is talking about your technique, NO ONE is giving you credit for being one of the VERY VERY FEW financially responsible students who actually pays off their student loans.
katisumas - May 26, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Response to Renellin, these banks cannot be closed. They are both controlled by regulations from the Canadian govt. Result: NO BAILOUT NEEDED!
Canada has not experienced the Great Recession in which we in the US are still mired (just ask anyone looking for a job –they cant find a job and the govt hands are tied by people who can’t understand that every $ the govt pays for stimulus the same amount or more in taxes by the newly employed comes in).
Same for banks in Europe. They too needed and need bailout and the lack of regulations might mean a double deep recession for all of us, or perhaps even Great Depression II…..
Incidentally, in the US, they don’t let you take all that cash out of your bank without getting checked out by the police, FBI, etc… I believe if you try to take out more than $20,000 of your own money you’re in trouble. I take Canadian regulations any day!
katisumas - May 26, 2012 at 1:50 pm
This happened in Canada. not the US. Last I heard Canada is an independant country!
Canadian banks did not bring a mess on the Canadian financial system. Unlike our banks that demanded and expected to be bailed out after squandering the wealth of the middle class and putting it in the pocket of billionaires, Canadian banks are regulated. They cannot destroy their country’s economy.
Incidentally, when a tiny financial elite of a country suddenly, in the space of a decade (basically the Bush Jr. years) suddenly find intself immensely more wealthy than they were previously, you know this wealth could only have been syphoned out of the middle class. I mean it’s obvious that they couldn’t have syphoned those billions from the poor who even when working 3 jobs still have trouble keeping a roof over their family and feeding their children properly….
katisumas - May 26, 2012 at 1:53 pm
The trillion dollar student debt applies to the US not to Canada.
katisumas - May 26, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Canada has strict immigration laws to keep people south of their borders from flooding their country just because it has a higher standard of living. Pretty soon, you’ll have Canadian politicians advocating building a giant electrified fence around their country…. (and perhaps even a moat with crocodiles?).
But would they build that fence with “illegal” workers as we are happily doing in the US? I taught a few years in Canada and I can vouch that as a whole Canadians seem smarter than Americans…..