Wisconsin Law Guarantees the State’s Top Students a Place at a UW School
“Our UW System is a critical partner in this work as a major economic driver and a critical resource for building our state’s next-generation workforce by helping train and retain the talented students we already have here in Wisconsin”
This is one of the things that came out of the battle between Republicans and the University of Wisconsin over DEI issues.
The Wisconsin State Journal reports:
New law guarantees top Wisconsin students a spot on a UW campus
UW-Madison must accept all Wisconsin high school students who finish in the top 5% of their class, and other UW system colleges must admit students who finish in the top 10% of their class under legislation Gov. Tony Evers signed Tuesday.
The new law is one of several required under a deal brokered between legislative Republicans and UW system President Jay Rothman that authorizes about $800 million for the UW system in exchange for the reclassification of several diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, positions.
In a statement, Evers said the new law will help bolster the state’s workforce and that to “make sure it can meet the needs of the 21st Century means working to keep our state’s homegrown talent right here in Wisconsin.”
“Our UW System is a critical partner in this work as a major economic driver and a critical resource for building our state’s next-generation workforce by helping train and retain the talented students we already have here in Wisconsin,” Evers said.
The UW system’s Board of Regents in December approved the deal, which raises wages for about 35,000 UW system staff and funds several construction projects, including a new engineering building for UW-Madison.
In addition to reclassifying 43 DEI staff as “student success” employees, other concessions include the UW system instituting a three-year hiring moratorium on new administrators and DEI employees, and eliminating from admissions applications any “diversity statements,” which often serve as an opportunity to describe an applicant’s experience and understanding of diversity and equity issues.
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Comments
Sounds promising. But considering how a system can be gamed, I wonder if it isn’t just pushing the equity masquerade down onto the high schools to achieve the same “desired” results. For example, if College Park were required to accept the top 5% from all Baltimore City high schools, would the college, the students, potential employers, or society as a whole be better off?
I believe Texas has a similar system in place for years if not decades.
Iirc, the number of mandatory admits far exceeds the slots at A&M an t.u.
This is a backdoor way of getting more undereducated students into law schools. The student may be in the top 5% of his/her school but may not be able to perform as well as as the bottom of the entering class. The primary way to determine how such a student might perform compared to other students is with a standardized test, such as the LSATS.
…And Med School, too.
This is one measure that I would support. It is based in large part on merit as the students have demonstrated the highest performance relative to their peers. This is much much better than a demographic selection method. I understand the argument that not all public high schools have equivalent academic performance. But state universities should be institutions for the citizens of the state. A long trend has been for state universities to accept large numbers of foreign and out-of-state students paying full freight resulting in fewer admission slots for local students. Some of the 5% or 10% top local high school students may be by any objective measure poorly prepared for college, but even if only a small fraction of these students find success then I think that is good for society.
“I understand the argument that not all public high schools have equivalent academic performance.”
And the way to correct for that is already well-known. It’s the way things used to be done 40 years ago — standardized tests. Why settle for something you know gives worse results than something else you could easily do instead, and already have the means and experience to do?
yeah except when YOU OR YOUR FAMILY is going to use that surgeon or pilot who graduated at the top of their 5% class
but is the equivalent of the bottom of the overall graduating class
not including the “adjusted” scores they will again be given due to
dei thinking
lefty wins again
the top 5% of certain schools are the bottom feeders at other schools
and then those 5% get the protections of being hired despite their trueeee lack of understanding of say
how to fly a plane
or do heart surgery etc etc
wow
those gop are realllly looking out for our safety and justice/////S
The headline contradicts the article.
The students who finish in the top 5% or 10% of their class are usually not “the state’s top students”. I really hate this system, because it was introduced by Republicans in several states (Texas comes to mind) for the express purpose of keeping racial “diversity” in admissions while officially abolishing it. The idea is “Look, we can achieve the same results without being explicitly racist”. If the results are the same, if it’s designed to produce the same results, then obviously the racism is still happening, you’re just pretending it isn’t.