anyway zoning
bad for the most part but i guess you have to take into account how many kids want to go to that school
also i think mhs and mcrob are fine for selecting on acedemic merit but WHY is there a 3 person from each school limit
that's what makes it unfair imo
my friend's sister deliberately went to a crap school for year's 7 and 8 just so she had a better chance of getting into mcrob and of course she DID cos only she applied from her school
whereas a school like mine gets about 30 girls applying and many of them are probably smarter than those coming from other schools but they won't get into mcrob cos of the 3 person limit
Unlike other State schools, Melbourne High School and MacRobertson Girls High School, selects its students based on an entrance examination held in Year 8 for entrance into Year 9, but "the maximum number of students admitted into Melbourne High School and The MacRobertson Girls High School combined must not exceed 3% of any one school’s Year 8 enrolment." That is, if at St. Albans Secondary College, the Year 8 cohort was 200 students, then the maximum number students that can be admitted into MHS and MacRob is 6.
One might ask, what is the reason for this cap? Well, in short, the Victorian Department of Education fears that individual schools like St. Albans Secondary College might be negatively affected if more than 3% of its best students were to allowed to leave to MHS or MacRob.
Here is an example of the argument being made:
“Professor Lamb said based on enrolments at Ringwood Secondary College, which could be a neighbour of the new select-entry school in Melbourne's east, a 3 per cent cap would result in up to 10 year 8 students leaving the school each year.
"Now that's not small when these schools probably get about that number of students into high-entry university courses," he said. "So there are immediate effects in terms of the productivity and marketability of the school and then there's the effect on the climate of the school in terms of the peer effect. On both those grounds it's, I think, potentially damaging."”
This argument is fundamentally flawed and one that I find highly insidious. It suggests that the more academically able students should carry the burden of improving the academic performance of their peers, and thus should be held back - even at the expense of their own academic performance. I find this a highly offensive expection, especially when many of these able students report they have been marginalised in their previous schools because of their ability. Such a cap imposed by Department of Education serves to distort the only merit based selection process in the whole State, and consequently, results in some less deserving students from one school gaining a place, at the expense of more deserving and able students from another school.
Enrolment caps essentially reduce the incentive for comprehensive schools to cater to the needs of the more academically able, and ensures the school has a continued captive audience.
Professor Lamb also ignores the basic fact that if the original school were to better cater to the needs and abilities of the more academically able, then these students wouldn’t want to leave in the first place. These students are only leaving because they believe that the selective school can better cater for their needs. If a student can have his needs and abilities better catered for at another school, what right does his original school have in holding him back? The argument that the school has this right is one that is ethically compromised.
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