The city of Cambridge, Mass., is proposing the Controlled Choice Plan that would assign students to schools according to their parent’s income. This “liberal” city of 100,000, and home to Harvard University, is the first city to propose such a plan. The Controlled Choice Plan should be supported. It could be the beginning of a better educational status for this nation.
This plan could be a stepping-stone in bettering education throughout the nation.
According to CNN, the theory behind the CCP is that “poverty is a better indicator of poor academic achievement than race.”
This theory is so basic. It’s surprising that no one else thought of it .
Cambridge officials believe that academic performance of students from poor families can improve.
The students from low-income families can have a better education, and a higher chance of going to college.
According to CNN.com, Cambridge voluntarily desegregated its schools in 1980. Having a junior high or high school that is over 75 percent of one race would bring rumors of segregation, and that is what Cambridge is trying to avoid. The program has already received unanimous support from the school board. Junior and senior high schools throughout the nation have students whose parents have similar incomes. You may notice that many cities around the nation have a high school where all the “rich kids” attend. On the other hand, you have high schools with middle- and lower-class parents where the high school is placed on the outskirts of a housing project. Now, instead of having a certain status of students at one school, there will be more diversity in each school.
Parents in the upper-class families have one qualm: that the curriculum will go through a “dumbing down.”
If these parents with such large incomes have college funds stored for their children, why should they worry? This program has reached San Francisco, Charlotte, N.C., and Raleigh, N.C.
Florida is 42nd in the nation in students graduating from high school. This program can make its way to the Sunshine State anytime now.
– Antione Davis for the Editorial Board.