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Level
UC's unequal playing field
GUEST
COMMENTARY
By Patrick Hayashi and William Kidder
Contra
Costa Times
July 18, 2004
(Note:
The same op-ed was published July 18, 2004, in the L.A.
Daily News.)
THIS
WEDNESDAY the University of California Regents postponed endorsing
a plan to tighten freshmen eligibility criteria, which will likely
erode socioeconomic and racial diversity.
Unfortunately,
while the current budgetary mood in California is certainly sour,
the regents may miss an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons.
They are not thinking creatively about ways to enhance integration
and fairness under California's Master Plan for higher education.
In
Contra Costa County and throughout California, the opportunity
to attend UC is strongly influenced by stark inequities in K-12
education. A few examples from 2002:
Monte
Vista High in Danville enrolled 111 students at UC, one-quarter
of its graduates, and many more were admitted but chose to attend
selective private universities.
Mt.
Diablo High in Concord enrolled only eight freshmen at UC, 3 percent
of its graduates.
Northgate
High in Walnut Creeek sent 93 of its 353 graduates to UC (26 percent),
while Richmond High sent 9 students (3 percent).
Miramonte
High in Orinda enrolled 86 students at UC (26 percent of its graduates),
while Antioch High enrolled 16 students at UC (4 percent).
UC
must do a better job of upholding its democratic mission, dating
back to the Organic Act of 1868, of admitting "a representation
of students ... (so) that all portions of the state shall enjoy
equal privilege therein."
This
mission is further threatened by the current eligibility proposal,
which will cause the percentage of African Americans, Latinos,
and American Indians in UC's freshmen eligibility pool to shrink
from 18.8 percent to 17.5 percent by 2007.
Here
are a few steps UC can take to craft a sound eligibility policy.
First,
under Eligibility in Local Context, Californians who take the
requisite courses and finish in the top 4 percent of their high
school class are eligible at UC. Further expansion of Eligibility
in Local Context to between 6 percent and 9 percent of each high
school class may promote both UC's democratic and meritocratic
ideals.
UC
projects that going to a 5 percent plan would increase the quality
of the eligibility pool even as it slightly increases the number
of Latinos (though better data are needed).
Expanding
Eligibility in Local Context means a corresponding contraction
in Statewide Eligibility based partly upon SAT scores.
But
while SAT scores correlate strongly with students' social background
at UC, they add little to the prediction of freshmen grades, so
this is a sensible policy.
Second,
the UC system and each campus should set measurable goals for
the admission of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and
disadvantaged high schools. In fact, a study last fall showed
that in 1999, UC offered admission to 101 of 199 graduates of
Campolindo High in Moraga, whereas the 50 public high schools
with the lowest admission rates in California had only 191 students
admitted to UC out of 9,600 graduates!
Third,
the regents are not confronting the unfairness of awarding extra
points for Advanced Placement courses. Forthcoming research indicates
there is no correlation between performance at UC and the number
of Advanced Placement courses taken.
Students
should take a challenging curriculum, but we should not punish
students from urban and rural high schools that offer few, if
any, AP classes.
In
the long term, it may be necessary to reexamine whether the 1960
Master Plan, which sets UC eligibility rates at the top 12.5 percent
of California public high school graduates, is optimal for California's
21st century economy. However, even under the current plan, we
can do more to put the dream of a UC education within the reach
of a broader cross-section of California's youth.
Hayashi
recently retired as associate president of the University of California
and previously served at Associate Vice Chancellor at UC Berkeley.
Kidder is a researcher for the Equal Justice Society and lives
in El Cerrito.
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