Top 10 percent rule

I just read the Associated Press story about the House vote to amend the "Top 10 Percent" admission rule to Texas' public colleges and universities. I have one response - hogwash! The part that really sticks in my craw is this passage:

Supporters of changing the law say it has caused a “brain drain” at UT-Austin, prompting exceptional students who fall just outside its top 10 percent parameters to go elsewhere, including out-of-state schools.

To me, this is a blatant attempt to limit the number of vals and sals from the Class A and 2A schools, and from the troubled schools around the state, who want to attend UT Austin. Seems to me an attempt to cut out the small country schools to bring in more of the kids fortunate enough to live in a large "name" school district. The kids have little control over where their parents choose to work and live. If a child worked hard enough to be named valedictorian or salutatorian, no matter where the school or how big, then why are we going to tell that student "I'm sorry, you don't look to cut it here as well as somebody from one of the large, prosperous districts."

I won't name names but I call to mind two students - one from a Class A school 13 miles from here and the other from a 2A school 23 miles from here - who either took advantage of the Top 10 rule or could have. I was blessed to have both young women in class when I taught. The Class A student should be graduating from USC with a political science type degree in an international relations field, if I remember correctly. The Class 2A student just graduated from UT-Austin in December with a Radio-Television-Film degree, and could have done computer science, as well. She's working for a PBS station now. These two were exceptional, but they were not the exception. They were the best of some very good, and highly motivated, students at both schools.

Life has plenty of tough lessons to learn. Let the kids prove in the college classroom whether they can make the grade.