Op-Ed: The Admissions Dilemma

These students know that they are privileged, and can observe firsthand how the student body is changing. The less diverse Masterman gets, the guiltier students feel. When this decision came out, promising to reverse the changes that students have been seeing, people were reluctant to say how they really felt. Most students know that the decision is almost right; it is addressing an existing problem and some students feel that it is wrong to speak negatively about the change. Besides, it is obvious that families’ criticism of the decision is selfish; parents are frantic now that there is no option for their high-achieving kids. Every Masterman parent can anticipate the drop in rankings that is bound to occur, and believe that protesting against the change is the best course of action. The incredible push back against the decision that occurred when it was first announced is likely to be equalled when high school admission decisions come out in the spring.

So parents are convinced that their children won’t be admitted, and if they are, that admission is worthless if the school is polluted by less-than-stellar test takers. But the protest won’t last forever. When the new admissions system carries on into the new school year, which it will, parents are going to resign their efforts to save the school that they were counting on and consider other possibilities for their children. Many families will stay at Masterman, if they are admitted. Others will move to Central, which many believe will be ranked higher than Masterman after the shift is in full effect. However, the biggest and most likely student migration will be to private schools.

If a public school in the city can’t help with admission to a prestigious college, the richest families will pursue it elsewhere. Part of the beauty of Masterman is that it presents a quasi-equitable opportunity for all students to make it to an Ivy; wealthy and working-class students comprise the same student body, submit the same homework, and procure similar outcomes. Rich parents didn’t feel it was necessary to send their kids to suburban schools, knowing Masterman could provide the same advantages to build their child’s resume. These parents could live closer to their law firms or financial offices in the city, using a public institution instead of a private school.

These parents are not going to stick around. Masterman’s outrageously high ranking offers parents security; if their children work hard, they will have success. All Masterman parents want this result, but those who can afford private school are now going to be the only ones to get it. This means that wealthy families will move out of the district without looking back. Penn Charter and Germantown Friends can expect an influx of urban families, while Philadelphia could lose some of its most valuable taxpayers.

That doesn’t mean that the admissions change is a bad decision, or at least not one in the right direction. It's no secret that our school has become less diverse over the past decade, as all Masterman teachers can attest to. It's also true that the rest of the district suffers from severe underfunding, and operates without an HSA as powerful as Masterman’s. There are most definitely problems that need to be addressed with the inequity of education in the district. In spite of this, all the district accomplished by making this decision was to push money out of the district. The inequity will continue, but instead of Masterman being the institution that everyone wants to attend, it will be a private school, an institution that will never undergo changes like these.

Without any state funding or power, the Philadelphia School District is doing the best that it can. It's true that Masterman is a beacon of inequity, but in order to make things truly equitable, these private schools cannot exist as an alternative for wealthy families. Making this a reality is far beyond the reaches of any public school district, or most government figures, for that matter. Thus, this change will never come about, and Masterman and schools like it will forever be stuck between rock and a hard place.