Better ways than race-based preferential treatment
Maggie Tian-911 04/07 45754.5/107
While SCA5 is well-intentioned for increasing the college education opportunities for disadvantaged ethic groups, race-based preferential treatment is neither a just nor an effective way to achieve that goal. Colleges should use the socioeconomic status rather than race to help the disadvantaged applicants (on individual basis, not as a group based on race). If two students have the same academic achievements (e.g., GPA and SAT), the one from the poor family should have the priority for college admission, since with limited resources he/she is either smarter and/or works harder to attain that achievement. The socioeconomic status approach will benefit and reward aspiring students from disadvantaged families of all races.
To fundamentally solve the education plight of students of disadvantaged ethic groups, we should attack the problem early on in the K-12 process, helping these students reach up to the college standard, as opposed to lowering the college standard to reach them. We should pass laws that require school districts to shift more resources from better schools to poor schools and provide strong incentives to encourage best teachers to teach in poor schools. We should set up programs to send successful scientists / engineers / professionals to these schools as volunteers to tell students about their professions so that the students will follow these professionals as career role models. We should also set up programs to have students from good schools to partner with students in poor schools for tutoring and learning from each other's life experience. Such initiatives will help students of all schools and all races and will prepare all of them for a better college education.
By S. Miao
