Baltimore Public School Admissons Scandal

The Baltimore Sun reports:

A day after the disclosure that admission standards were lowered at Western High School, the principal of Polytechnic Institute, another of Baltimore's elite public schools, said that "a substantial number" of the most qualified applicants were turned away there in favor of students with lower grades and test scores.

All 425 students accepted to Poly's class of 2010 meet its entrance requirements. But Principal Barney J. Wilson said the city school system rejected top students because they had made Poly their second choice when they sought admission to the city's prestigious high schools. Other students who barely met the requirements were admitted because they had made Poly their first choice.


Meanwhile, school system officials released figures showing that fewer than a quarter of next school year's freshmen met admissions requirements at Paul Laurence Dunbar High, a historically black school trying to toughen its standards.

Maybe public education isn't the answer.