I'm not sure we can. With the current way students are admitted to the Honors Program, there is no way to take a "top 10%". I don't think it would work out either. That would leave some students with high scores left out just because they are white and middle class. Wouldn't that be racist against them? "Oh, sorry. You're a white male from a middle class family. While your scores beat out many other applicants, we've filled our quota of white males." Isn't it more fair to just take people based on scores? (yeah, I know, I said 'fair')

The only thing that would make things fair all the way around would be to change the way we evaluate high school students. Find a way of testing that measures ability, not knowledge. However, I don't think that way of testing exists, and probably never will.

Or, we could take all children away from their parents at birth, then allow the state to raise them. That way, they will all be raised equally and have equal opportunities. (I am so joking right now. Seriously. Joking.)

Find a way of testing that measures ability, not knowledge.

I was wondering if the problems were in the test themselves. I don't know much about them, so are they internally assessed (assignments), one big written exam or an oral exam etc?

And how about the actual questions in the exams, could they be reworded to be more diverse?

The ACT is the standard test. You answer a series of questions in four areas: math, science reasoning, reading and English. The problem with the tests is not that they aren't worded diversely, but that students from economically lower classes do not do as well in school (typically) and therefore do not do as well on the tests. Students whose parents read to them as children are usually better readers than children whose parents did not. Children of parents that speak grammatically will do better on the English section. Children who have been encouraged to take advanced classes in math and science will do better on those sections.

Students have the same classes growing up. They are supposed to have the same opportunities for learning. This isn't universal, which is the biggest problem. Once they get to college, it is too late to try and even the playing field.

I was wondering if the problems were in the test themselves.

The problems are the tests themselves. ACT or SAT, the only thing they really test is a student's ability to do well on one test on a given day. That is why admission processes also include overall GPA, writing, and usually an interview. I still think there is too much emphasis put on standardized tests, and the GPA numbers also get skewed by the same disadvantages that lower income students are saddled with, but this is currently the best system we have.

We must strive not only to make all students' preparation equitable, but also to find a better way of judging students.

Some really don't Doc. There are minorities out there who are just as smart who don't get the chances at most opportunities just because their family can't afford it.

FS,

I must note that some WHITE kids don't get the chances either. And worst of all, white kids don't have advocacy groups to help them overcome the hurdle...they are just expected to deal with it, because caucasians are overrepresented in our institutions of higher learning anyway.

While I don't always agree with them, the motto of the UNCF says it pretty well: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste". Doesn't matter what the skin color of the head that mind comes in; a mind is a terrible thing to waste. I've seen plenty of minorities that have missed out on opportunities; enough that I can't dispute what you're saying, in the least. But I've seen white kids have missed opportunities as well. And it sucks just as bad for them.

They have the same opportunities to learn, just aren't encouraged to do so. It's true that children will do better if their parents help them, but it isn't required for a child to do well in school.

And, other than taking kids away at birth, I don't see how that can be changed.

I think the main question that should be asked with our program is, "If students of minority groups are not up to the same level of education as majority students, should the level of difficulty in the Honors program be lowered to allow for more diversity? This would also mean lowering the requirements for admission.

I think the main question that should be asked with our program is, "If students of minority groups are not up to the same level of education as majority students, should the level of difficulty in the Honors program be lowered to allow for more diversity?

The question should be extended further: If students of minority groups are not up the same level of education as majority students, what steps can we take to close the gap.

It's true that children will do better if their parents help them, but it isn't required for a child to do well in school.

Well said.

YES! Damn, I wish I was as eloquent.

Lowering standards accomplishes nothing at all. Improving the education system is the answer, but then that raises the question of how to go about it.

No matter what one does to improve the schools it isn't going to mean squat if the students don't want to learn. That's the one thing that can't be fixed by all of the well intentioned programs in the world.

It's more of a social problem than an education problem. Lowering standards doesn't fix that. If we lower admissions standards and the students still can't or won't function up to par what then? Lower the acceptable level of performance? So we then turn out college graduates who are still poorly educated and poorly functional. What exactly was accomplished other than making that degree meaningless?

As has been brought up, this issue often becomes about race when in reality, it is only coincidentally connected with race by the nature of race being frequently correlated with economic status.

I have to say as well, that it is NOT just minorities who have to deal with these kinds of problems. I was raised in a small town, and while the school was of decent quality, there was no attention paid to any but the most severe of learning disabilities. Thus it was that I was never diagnosed with ADD until I reached adulthood. Worse, I came from a very poor family. I never realised how poor we were because we were a large family in the country, so we raised a lot of our own food. However, I was always on the "Free Lunch" program at public school, and most of my clothes were out of fashion handmedowns.

I struggled through school. I tested early on with a 150 IQ, but I had no direction. I was so far ahead of my classmates in elementary school that doing the work that teachers assigned was not something I was interested in, particularly when you add in my undiagnosed ADD. This led to my NEVER learning proper study habits. I failed 3rd grade because I never did any work. They promoted me anyway to 4th, since I didn't NEED to repeat 3rd. I failed again. That time they made me repeat the grade. I learned how to do JUST ENOUGH to get by - until high school. Ultimately, I dropped out before my senior year started.

That could have been the end when I dropped out. I had a 10 year old hand-me-dow car that didn't run, my parents were recently divorced and had already spent the procedes from the sale of our run-down house. I was then stuck in a bad neighborhood in Houston, a country boy with no idea how to survive in the city, a recent dropout living in the shed behind my grandmother's house. My family did not have the money to send me to college. The best they could do was to let me live in the shed.

So I did what ANYONE can do - and don't tell me they can't!! I got my GED, applied for a PEL Grant and enrolled in the local community college. I completed a semester, then failed a bunch of classes. I ended up having to pay tuition after that with money I earned working at Taco Bell. Then I got my financial aid back, and applied to a state university, and received loans/pel grant. Because I was still young enough to be considered "dependent", I was only given partial loans. My parents however did not qualify for parent loans which the universities EXPECT dependent students to get, yet they would make no exception. So I was left working 30 hours a week, and proceded to fail EVERY CLASS that semester. I dropped out of college for the next 3 years.

Was I done? Society had conspired to do me in, hadn't it? I was too poor to aspire to the greatness of college, right? BullSh.... During the interim, I had been diagnosed with ADD and had learned how to deal with it (somewhat). I returned to college yet again, to community college, and raise my GPA enough to re-earn financial aid, and to transfer to a major university. I finished my BA with a double major at 30 years old in August 2004 at Stephen F. Austin University. My family did not pay for my education. I was not properly prepared for my education. I only managed to get into ONE honor society, by the skin of my teeth. Fact is, I still have difficulties in an academic environment because I *NEVER* learned how to be a student. I never get work done on time, I forget important assignments, I get panic attacks, etc. BUT I FINISHED - despite all odds.

Nobody can tell me that if they've got the brains for higher education that they can't achieve it. I know better. There is nothing, at least in the united states, stopping ANYONE with the ability to learn, no matter how ill prepared, from achieving as much as they desire. Will everyone have an easy ride? No - and they shouldn't. A big part of my problem is that I had an easy ride through public school, and due to that, I never learned how to be a student. I did not let that stop me, and if anyone does, it's their own damn fault.