Obstacles Hinder U. of California in Plan to Admit Top High-School
Graduates Obstacles Hinder U. of California in Plan to Admit Top High-School
Graduates
Officials Fail to Report Students' Grades, Ruining Their Chances and Prompting a Lawsuit
By Ben Gose
The Chronicle of Higher Education
January 12, 2001
When University of California officials announced in March 1999 that they would admit the top 4 percent of graduates from each of California's high schools, state leaders billed the change as a way of ensuring that top students, even at poorly performing schools, would have access to the prestigious system.
"What we're going to get now are high achievers with guts and heart, people who have flourished maybe not in the best of surroundings, " Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat and president of the university's Board of Regents, said at the time.
But in the first full year of the program, system officials are learning that the schools that have trouble supplying their students with books and desks also have trouble complying with the rules for the 4-percent program. Some 134 public high schools--16 percent of the state's total--did not submit students' transcripts by the July 2000 deadline for participation in the program. And many of those high schools are from low-income areas that were supposed to be the prime beneficiaries of the policy.
Those lapses might have ruined the chances of hundreds of students who otherwise would have gained admission under the special program. But last month, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the university system on behalf of seven high-school seniors, saying that the bureaucratic bungling threatened to keep the students out of the university system, and that the system should have devised a better process for acquiring information from the schools.
Two days after the lawsuit was filed--and some five months after its first deadline--the University of California agreed to extend the period for accepting transcripts to January 26, 2001.
The problems with the 4-percent plan couldn't have come at a worse time for the university, which is banking on new admissions plans based on class rank as a way to preserve diversity on its campuses. (Similar class-rank programs exist in Florida and Texas.) California banned most forms of affirmative action in 1995.
The new strategies complement the university's traditional admissions process, which relies heavily on grades and SAT scores and yields proportionally few black and Hispanic students. In September, the university proposed extending a version of the 4-percent plan to students who rank between the top 4 percent and 12.5 percent in their high-school class. Those students would be offered provisional admission to a University of California campus, and would be required to first complete an approved two-year course of study at a community college. The regents may vote on the proposal in March. (Both class-rank plans would only guarantee admission to the university system--they do not assure admission to the most sought-after campuses, such as Berkeley or Los Angeles.)
In part because of the many changes under way, A. C. L. U. officials say they won't drop their lawsuit until they are convinced that the university has a better plan in place for obtaining information from students and high schools.
"The system that was instituted this year didn't have the flexibility to deal with the fact that lot of public schools in California are dysfunctional, " says Christopher Calhoun, a spokesman for the Southern California branch of the A. C. L. U. "The University of California knew back in July that one in six schools failed to participate. That should have been more than a red flag; it should have been a red light. They should have figured out back then who was left out, and they didn't do that."
Officials for the university system say the program's rules were made clear to the high schools. Terry Lightfoot, a University of California spokesman, says that the deadlines and procedures were established with advice from school officials, and that letters describing the program went out to every superintendent, principal, and guidance counselor in the state. The system also held five workshops around the state to explain how the plan would work.
"We think that we did a lot," Mr. Lightfoot says. "But most importantly, we are continuing to make sure that those who should be able to benefit from this program can still do so."
Before the lawsuit, the university system seemed content to move ahead with decision-making under the 4-percent program--even though only 84 percent of public schools, and 62 percent of private schools, had sent in students' transcripts by the July deadline. In October, the program's coordinator, Charles L. Mastern, said in a letter to a concerned citizen that he was "very pleased with the participation rate" in 2000, and that the program "will be working to increase participation next year."
To be sure, not all of the nonresponses were cause for alarm: Public schools in several affluent areas, including Beverly Hills and Palm Springs, didn't send in transcripts.
Some school officials have said that they were confident that their best students
would gain admission to the university through the traditional process.
"The suggestion that [the nonrespondents] were only schools that traditionally haven't sent kids to the University of California is an oversimplification," Mr. Lightfoot says.
The University of California system was willing to take isolated steps to accommodate aggrieved students. Last fall, after students at Pittsburg High school in Contra Costa County complained that school officials had failed to submit their transcripts, the university system responded with an especially generous offer. It would admit all 40 Pittsburg students who ranked in the top 10 percent of their class. In 1998, only 11 Pittsburg graduates enrolled at a University of California campus.
"They created a specific solution for that school, but didn't offer it on a larger basis," says Mr. Calhoun of the A. C. L. U. "Even after the public raised quite an outcry, we still didn't see a solution. They did offer a solution after the lawsuit."
Three of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the university are from Manual Arts High School, in Los Angeles. The school is of the type that the 4-percent plan is designed to help: It enrolls 3,900 students, but only 13 of its 1999 graduates enrolled in the University of California system.
One of the Manual Arts plaintiffs, Victor Cabada, says he didn't even know about the 4-percent plan until last month, when one of his teachers drew attention to an article in the Los Angeles Times that listed the Manual Arts among the schools that had failed to turn in transcripts.
Mr. Cabada, who says his grade-point is at least a 4.0 (some students exceed 4.0 by taking Advanced Placement courses), joined other high-achieving seniors in seeking an explanation from school administrators. "We found out that no one had any idea what the program was about, or when the forms were supposed to have been in," Mr. Cabada says.
Officials at Manual Arts did not return phone calls last week. A college adviser at the school told the Times in December that the error occurred after four administrators--including one responsible for calculating grade-point averages--departed following the 1999-2000 academic year. "It's obviously something that should not be missed and won't be missed again," said the advisor, who did not give her name.
Mr. Cabada hopes to attend Stanford University, but says he would like to be assured of a spot in the University of California system as a backup. He is not surprised that his school didn't submit the transcripts on time. "Our school is practically known for that," he says. "Things never get done."
Although he mostly blames his school, he also hopes the lawsuit will send a message to the University of California officials.
"They need to be better aware of the schools that they're sending their stuff out to," Mr. Cabada says.
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