Private School, College Admissions and the Value of Education.

Abstract: In this article, I defend a proposal to cap the proportion of students admitted to elite colleges who were educated at elite, often private, schools to not more than the proportion of students who attend such schools in society as a whole. In order to defend this proposal, I draw on recent...

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Published in:Journal of Applied Philosophy Vol. 35; no. 2; pp. 448 - 462
Main Author: Shields, Liam
Format: Article
Published: Wiley-Blackwell May2018
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        au: Shields, Liam
        affil: School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
      su:
        Private schools
        University & college admission
        Educational benefits
        Educational equalization
        Fairness
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          Private schools
          University & college admission
          Educational benefits
          Educational equalization
          Fairness
      ab: Abstract: In this article, I defend a proposal to cap the proportion of students admitted to elite colleges who were educated at elite, often private, schools to not more than the proportion of students who attend such schools in society as a whole. In order to defend this proposal, I draw on recent debates that pit principles of equality against principles of adequacy, and I defend the need for a pluralist account of educational fairness that includes both elements. I argue that while equality best captures our convictions about unfairness in access to the instrumental and positional benefits of education, such as job prospects and college admission, adequacy best captures our convictions about unfairness in stunting the development of human talent and the intrinsic benefits of education. The proposal to cap the proportion of private school students at elite universities advances both of these, usually conflicting, principles because it permits unequal but efficient talent development through the vehicle of private tuition and elite schooling, and yet promises to seriously curtail the unfair positional instrumental benefits of private or elite schooling by having those students compete against each other and not students who did not attend elite schools. The policy also achieves its aim consistent with preserving some attractive aspects of parental choice. Towards the end of the article I consider a number of practical objections and an alternative proposal.
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