I have no idea if this should be in Education or Race Debate, so I will ask this in Education.

In 1999, the Florida Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions and, subsequently, Affirmative Action. Expectin this, Governor Jeb Bush began a plan called the One-Florida Plan. This plan guarantees admissions to Florida School for the top 10% of students from EVERY high school, regardless of reputation.

As always, there are supporters and dissenters. The supporters embrace the fact that more minorities were enrolled in Florida's top schools than ever under Affirmative Action. Democratic dissenters lambast that Affirmative Action is more effective, while Republican dissenters say it isn't fair to those who do good in the "good" schools.

So here's the question: Do you think the One Florida Plan is the nest step towards equality (in place of AA of course)?

Here is the link

Wow, I'm shocked no one was hooked by this topic. Well, I for one don't have a complete response to this yet but I have some opinions of course:

Affirmative Action needs to go. It needsto be replaced by something, but in it's present form it is unfair to everyone concerned. A small employer should have the right to hire and fire whomever he/she sees fit. If you are a bigot then you will likely, in this changing world, find yourself devoid of employees AND customers soon enough anyway. If you have good employees of any creed/race/etc.. there is no logical reason to get rid of them. Usually affirmative action is used by bad employees to get somethin they don't deserve.
In education affirmative action has had more success. In hiring college professors it is realistic, due to the glut of highly educated and jobless Phd's out there, to look for someone with a certain background in order to round out the "life experience" of the faculty. Gernerally speaking, in a college atmosphere the teachers look forward to having peers form all different backgrounds as it is beneficial to them and their intellectual endeavors.
However, when talking about students there is a different issue. Not all high school students (including many who go to college) should be going to college. Inceasingly college has become more like 13th grade as incoming freshmen have less academic preparedness. I think that students from disadvantaged schools do deserve the chance to compete with the well-to-do peers at the college level but they will probably make a difficult transition, or at elast they should. The worst outcome I can see from this is that colleges will begin alternate programs for preparing these "disadvantaged" students to compete at the college level. This would be a disservice to them and to the schoool. Those kids in troubled schools want to be challeneged and to be treated equally, not to be pampered and treated differently from other college kids.

My problem is that I can't imagine alternate programs for these kids NOT being created...

To address whether or not the top 10% plan is fair I would have to go with no. As you mentioned the quality of your school is not factored in, and oft times this can be a deciding factor for collage admissions.

As a senior in a extremely competitive high school I can understand why some people would complain about this system. I could even be considered a "victim" of this (although I don't consider myself to be one). I have a 3.7 GPA, out of four, am in the 27% of my class. But if I went to an inner city school, with the same GPA, I would be in the top fifteen people in my class.

So the question here raised would be who is better prepared for university? Me, or someone with a much lower GPA, but going to a less competitive school? While I probaley would get in, there still would be that element of uncertainty that is underseved.

I would think a system giving all students with a 3.5 GPA or higher would be a better system, that way only the cream of the crop would be able to get in.

I like the top 10% plan, and I also like targeting schools that are in poor areas and getting some scholarship money earmarked for qualified graduates of those schools.

I wonder how we get to the point where a 3.7 can be 27% of a school. That smacks to me either of grade inflation or of a 4.0 scale where an extra grade point is awarded for AP.

What I really like about the top 10% gaining admission is that it gives a chance to those who are trapped in the worst schools to prove that they have what it takes in college. The problem with many programs is that they are not adequately tracked after they are implemented. The other thing I like about it is this should not lock out all other students from gaining admission. It just helps give some kids from weaker schools a more tangible target for working harder in an atmosphere where that is not very common.

Finding out how the top ten percent students are performing who come from weaker schools would be a step in making the process more scientific and less theoretical.

I think the top 10% program, if it did work to penalize students from stronger schools, would also serve to balance out the talent pool at schools. If you know you want to go to FSU or U of F and you are worried about getting in because you never will make the top ten % at your school, then maybe you'll go to the school down the road piece.


I think class rank of a student and an assessment of the quality of the school a student went to are the most important factors in determining the quality of an applying freshman (and how much they deserve their spot in college)

Grade point average varies too much from school to school, and test scores reveal potential but show nothing about academic discipline and performance.