I went to a private Catholic High school and we had plenty of kids in my class without the financial resources that my parents gave me. They were driven, dedicated, and smart as hell and they came from backrounds that can only be described as “poor”. They got scholerships, and they succeded. My class had 100% college attendance, though only a few were to Ivy league. Most were UC, some CSU, and the rest to places like pepperdine and texas christian. So when I hear things like genetics make the student I think BS, because drive and desire will trump any slight disadvantage from not having a PHd parent. I have seen it in action.
Just a few other points:
1) when the UC system takes the top 7.5% of each class, maybe it is a good idea to send your kid to a very good, but not the best, school and let them be top ten in the class instead of top ten percent?
(UC system being one of the most presdegious in the world.)
2)Public schools inability to teach a student without raping the tax payers is terrible. My old HS taught a student for 60-70% of the public schools, and I only know one kid who had to drop out, and that was due to stress because she was a prefectionist.
3) I totally agree with the statements about parental desire for an education relating to a kids and therefore school performance. The best students, assuming normal human intellengence, are those that are driven, and in most cases that drive comes from the parents. Bad schools need alot more parents and alot less lawyer/political excuse reasoning.
