S.F. school board strips Lowell High of its merit-based admissions system
One of the top-performing public high schools in the country will no longer admit students based on academic performance, ending more than a century of merit-based admissions.
More than seven hours into a marathon meeting Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Education voted 5-2 to use the same lottery-based system to assign students to Lowell High as other district high schools instead of maintaining the previous system that used test scores and grades.
The vote was the latest in a string of controversial school board decisions focused on the country’s racial reckoning, including the renaming of 44 school sites affiliated with slavery, oppression and colonialism even as the district’s 52,000 students remain in distance learning, many struggling with academic and mental health issues.
District data shows students of color suffering greater learning loss than their white counterparts.
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