Last year, in its wisdom, the Toronto District School Board decided that students applying for entrance to its specialized secondary schools for math, science, the arts and other subjects would no longer have to pass tests, do auditions or submit portfolios.
Backers of the idea said that these entrance hurdles favoured privileged students whose parents could afford lessons and tutors, giving them a leg up over other contenders. So the specialty schools tended to have fewer students from some racial groups than the public school system at large. Under the new system, says the TDSB, “priority is given to those from underserved communities” and “then a lottery is used for remaining spots.” Essentially, successful candidates are chosen by drawing names from a hat.
The result of this decision has been to crush the hopes of hundreds of talented, hard-working, ambitious young people. Some had been planning for years to attend a high school where they could hone their skills in musical theatre, computer science or community leadership. Many have now learned that their names were not drawn from the hat and they will never go to the school of their dreams.
At a meeting this week to protest the lottery system, a tall, poised 14-year-old girl shed tears as she spoke about how hard she had worked to get ready to apply for the respected dance program at a North York high school. She took extracurricular classes, joined her school’s choreography club and put together a modern-dance routine of her own design.
It was all for nothing. She never had the chance to show her dancing chops skills in an audition. She went into the lottery instead. Her name didn’t come up.
Another speaker said his computer-mad son had hoped to get into a program where he could spend time with other kids who share his passion. He was devastated when he didn’t get a place. His dad is struggling to explain to him why this happened.
His confusion is understandable. How does it make any sense to select students for specialized schools at random, paying no heed to whether the applicants have the aptitude for advanced schooling in their chosen subject? The new system isn’t fair to the aspiring young mathematicians and violinists who desperately want this special training and who stand to get so much from it. It isn’t even fair to those less-talented or driven students who get into the schools through the lottery. They may find themselves struggling with the material. Teachers may have to water it down as a result, eroding the quality of these excellent programs.
Many parents want the TDSB to reverse itself and do away with the lottery. The board should listen to them. Events this month showed what kind of troubles can arise when officials engage in this kind of equity engineering. It emerged that, because of a technical error, some students from underrepresented groups had been excluded from a similar lottery for places at elementary alternative schools. After an outcry from parents, the board is offering up extra seats.
Opponents of the lottery argue that if the goal is equity, there are better ways than throwing the merit principle out the window and slamming the door on promising young people. One way is to help students from disadvantaged communities learn about and compete for spots in specialized schools. New York has a program, called Dream, that runs Saturday and summer classes to prepare students to take the entrance test for its specialized high schools.
Whatever the solution, the lottery is a mistake. Telling all those striving kids that their hard work and preparation don’t matter – that it’s all down to a roll of the dice – sends a terrible message. That’s not how things happen in life after school. You don’t get a job at the aerospace lab or a spot on the philharmonic by lottery.
Merit still matters in the real world – and it should. The merit principle is a friend of equity, not an enemy. Countless students whose families don’t have the means to send them to private schools have earned admittance to Toronto’s specialty public schools and gone on to brilliant careers, a win not just for them but for all of us. These kids are not some pampered elite. They come from all sorts of backgrounds and income groups.
Yes, the TDSB should do everything possible to make these sought-after programs accessible and welcoming to everyone. But not through a system that tramples on the dreams of the young.