San Francisco’s school board may drop merit-based admissions to Lowell High School because of concerns that the tests reinforce “systemic racism” at the majority-Asian institution.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday that Lowell, “San Francisco’s elite academic public high school,” will “no longer admit students based on top grades and test scores, and instead use a random lottery system for admission” if a new resolution, introduced Tuesday, passes.
Local ABC news affiliate KGO reported:
Lowell High School is the oldest public high school west of the Mississippi. It’s quite often referred to as one of the nation’s academic gems.
There are two factors needed to get into Lowell. A high grade point average and students must excel in their admissions test.No other high school in San Francisco other than the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts has admission requirements.
However, the Chronicle noted Tuesday: “Critics argue that not only is Lowell exclusionary, but it lacks diversity — it’s majority Asian — and has more college-prep coursework and more resources than other district high schools.”
It added:
In San Francisco, school board members said they initiated the measure to end selective admission “in response to ongoing, pervasive systemic racism at Lowell High School.”
The measure comes a week after a three-hour public hearing and conversation about racism in general as well as a recent incident at Lowell, in which students were exposed to pornography, racial slurs and anti-Semitism in an online forum. The investigation into the incident is ongoing.
As part of the proposed reforms to Lowell, the board is also considering a new “antiracist” curriculum at the school.
SF School Board proposed resolution: Let's remove all academic admissions standards from Lowell High School and turn the city's best public high school into a Successor Ideology indoctrination camp: https://t.co/GkwPDINtMD pic.twitter.com/wsmRiu1MHF
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 1, 2021
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is attempting similar changes to magnet schools in his city, for similar reasons.
The San Francisco Unified School District Board also voted recently to change the names of 44 schools that were allegedly “racist,” including those named for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is How Not to Be a Sh!thole Country: Lessons from South Africa. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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