Lottery_Admissions
00:00:00.000 | - Hello everybody, it's Sam from Financial Samurai,
00:00:03.220 | and in this podcast episode,
00:00:05.360 | I want to talk about admissions to schools,
00:00:08.400 | whether it's better to use an entrance exam
00:00:11.320 | or to use a lottery system,
00:00:13.280 | and I'm inspired by the presidential debates in this episode
00:00:17.440 | which is why I have my wife, Sydney,
00:00:19.440 | who is going to argue why the lottery system is a no-no
00:00:24.440 | and why she'd rather have an entrance exam,
00:00:28.120 | and I'll argue the other side and say,
00:00:30.600 | "Hey, I think a lottery system is the way to go."
00:00:33.680 | So what's going on here is that
00:00:35.640 | at Lowell High School in San Francisco,
00:00:38.000 | it's a top-magnet school, it requires an entrance exam,
00:00:42.880 | you gotta pass that exam,
00:00:43.960 | and you gotta have a top-tier GPA in middle school,
00:00:48.200 | and that entrance exam has been abolished
00:00:50.640 | for a lottery system,
00:00:51.840 | which is what every single other high school,
00:00:54.760 | middle school, and elementary school in San Francisco
00:00:57.640 | is under.
00:00:58.480 | It's a lottery system where you may or may not get
00:01:01.320 | your local neighborhood school
00:01:02.600 | that's a couple blocks away,
00:01:05.000 | and if you lose the lottery,
00:01:06.360 | you might end up at a school 30 minutes away,
00:01:09.120 | which has really kind of befuddled
00:01:12.160 | and angered a lot of parents in San Francisco,
00:01:15.060 | but that's just the way it is.
00:01:16.080 | Yes, there are some weightings
00:01:17.960 | where you can have a higher weighting
00:01:19.920 | because you're living in the neighborhood,
00:01:21.760 | but at the end of the day, it's a lottery,
00:01:23.080 | and you really don't know what you're gonna get,
00:01:25.360 | and so therefore, you gotta rank
00:01:27.160 | something like 10 schools,
00:01:28.400 | and hopefully, you'll get your top five,
00:01:30.640 | and you just go from there.
00:01:32.480 | So now, Lowell High School is just like
00:01:34.560 | every other high school.
00:01:35.620 | Thanks to the global pandemic,
00:01:36.880 | the school board voted unanimously
00:01:39.200 | to eliminate the entrance exam for 2021
00:01:42.280 | and 2022 school year because there's no grades,
00:01:45.760 | and there are no exams to be evaluated for entrance,
00:01:49.640 | and that's kind of crazy because as of late October 2020,
00:01:54.320 | public schools are not open in San Francisco.
00:01:57.920 | This is a problem because the kids in public school
00:02:00.960 | are probably falling behind to those kids
00:02:03.240 | who are in private school or charter schools
00:02:04.920 | who have started the school year a month earlier,
00:02:07.720 | and there are talks that school won't open until January,
00:02:10.920 | so that is really a big concern.
00:02:13.520 | So the heart of the matter comes down to equality
00:02:17.200 | as an equal access to opportunity.
00:02:20.920 | Opponents of the entrance exam claim
00:02:23.800 | that the system is elitist and racist
00:02:27.320 | given the high school is a public institution,
00:02:29.920 | and it's not accessible to everyone.
00:02:32.480 | Not everyone is born with two parents who are wealthy,
00:02:37.040 | who have unlimited resources.
00:02:38.960 | There are a lot of households
00:02:39.960 | who are single-parent households
00:02:42.600 | who don't have the resources or time
00:02:44.340 | to take care of their kids.
00:02:45.720 | So of course, there's gonna be a lot of inequities
00:02:48.120 | growing up, and the people who do have the resources,
00:02:51.520 | who are able to study for many, many hours
00:02:53.920 | are gonna be able to get into schools like Lowell
00:02:56.520 | and Thomas Jefferson in Washington, D.C.,
00:02:59.200 | and Stuyvesant in New York City and so forth.
00:03:01.320 | And so I just wanted to have a conversation
00:03:03.200 | and really a debate, I guess, with my wife
00:03:06.720 | regarding the lottery system and the entrance exam.
00:03:10.480 | And so, Sydney, I want you to argue
00:03:13.040 | why you believe that the entrance exam,
00:03:16.200 | which is based on a meritocracy,
00:03:17.920 | one would say, is the better way.
00:03:20.360 | So Sydney, why do you think Lowell High School
00:03:22.600 | should have kept its entrance exam
00:03:25.320 | that it's had for decades now?
00:03:26.920 | - So Lowell is one of 25 public high schools
00:03:32.560 | in San Francisco, so it's not affecting
00:03:35.600 | the majority of high school students.
00:03:38.460 | And there are also enough high-quality high schools
00:03:42.980 | in San Francisco besides Lowell.
00:03:44.980 | And in addition, I think there are kids
00:03:48.200 | who have been preparing to go to Lowell
00:03:52.520 | specifically based on the reputation that the school has,
00:03:56.880 | their academic record, and studying extra hard.
00:04:01.880 | They feel they deserve a chance to get into that school
00:04:06.700 | based on their merit versus some random lottery selection.
00:04:11.700 | And another point that people are making
00:04:16.720 | is that Lowell is a very diverse school.
00:04:19.920 | If you look at the breakdown of the student body,
00:04:24.300 | there are 61% Asian, 11% Hispanic,
00:04:28.720 | 8% students who are two or more races.
00:04:32.880 | So saying that Lowell needs to be more diverse
00:04:37.720 | doesn't seem to be a super strong argument.
00:04:40.800 | - Do you think Asian people are considered minorities?
00:04:45.480 | For those who are arguing for the lottery system,
00:04:49.920 | it seems as if they are not treating Asians as minorities.
00:04:54.640 | - Right, well, I think there's about 6% Asian people
00:04:57.720 | in America, and so obviously there's a 10x
00:05:00.040 | overrepresentation of Asian people at Lowell High School
00:05:03.440 | with 61% of the population who's Asian.
00:05:06.140 | So the minority that you forgot or you didn't get to
00:05:09.880 | was the black population of only 2% at Lowell.
00:05:15.520 | And then the Hawaiian Native Pacific Islander population
00:05:17.760 | of only 1%.
00:05:19.160 | So I think the goal of the lottery system
00:05:22.240 | is to try to have the representation
00:05:25.600 | of the school population be more representative
00:05:27.840 | of the city population.
00:05:29.680 | - The black population of San Francisco
00:05:31.760 | is still pretty low, though, isn't it?
00:05:34.800 | - Well, let's take a look at the latest Census Bureau data.
00:05:38.520 | It says San Francisco population is 45% white,
00:05:42.800 | 5.2% black.
00:05:44.760 | There you go, you're right.
00:05:47.000 | The population is pretty low,
00:05:49.480 | but it's still higher than the 2% at Lowell.
00:05:53.360 | But I guess that's not that huge of a difference.
00:05:55.120 | I thought it was gonna be much wider.
00:05:57.520 | 34% Asian, 8% some other race,
00:06:01.980 | and then 0.3% Native American.
00:06:05.400 | So 34% Asian, and then 61% Asian population at Lowell.
00:06:11.920 | 5.2% black population, and only 2% at Lowell.
00:06:16.920 | So what it looks like is that the San Francisco
00:06:21.080 | Unified School District Board, or whatever,
00:06:24.600 | is trying to make these percentages at Lowell
00:06:29.160 | more equal to the city population,
00:06:31.040 | which I think is a reasonable goal.
00:06:33.600 | What do you think?
00:06:34.480 | - Well, my side of the argument isn't focused on race,
00:06:39.200 | it's focused on merit.
00:06:41.840 | - Well-- - Academic achievement.
00:06:44.000 | - But my belief is that merit,
00:06:48.000 | there's not really a true meritocracy.
00:06:50.120 | There's no such thing as true meritocracy,
00:06:52.680 | and it has to do with race,
00:06:54.000 | because this is the underlying reason, I think,
00:06:56.360 | why they're going to a lottery system,
00:06:58.280 | is to make it more equal for underrepresented minorities.
00:07:02.120 | And so the underrepresented minorities
00:07:04.280 | are the black and Hispanic population
00:07:05.920 | in San Francisco at Lowell High School.
00:07:08.520 | - But if we look at the numbers,
00:07:10.280 | the student body has 11% Hispanic,
00:07:14.120 | and San Francisco has roughly 15%,
00:07:17.560 | so that's not that big of a difference.
00:07:20.360 | And the white population of San Francisco is 40%,
00:07:25.360 | however, at Lowell, it's all the way down to 18%.
00:07:29.560 | So that's the biggest difference between,
00:07:33.840 | if you look at race of the student body
00:07:35.840 | versus San Francisco as a city.
00:07:39.080 | - So it sounds like maybe, actually,
00:07:41.560 | the lottery system is to try to help white people,
00:07:44.360 | because they're the most underrepresented, not minority,
00:07:48.840 | they're the most underrepresented racial group
00:07:51.720 | at Lowell High School.
00:07:52.680 | - You could say it that way.
00:07:54.920 | - So that's actually something really interesting
00:07:57.640 | that you pointed out regarding
00:07:59.480 | the white percentage difference.
00:08:01.440 | Right, if it's 40% population
00:08:03.000 | and only 18% representation at Lowell,
00:08:06.600 | that is what, 22% differential,
00:08:11.600 | 22 percentage point differential,
00:08:14.520 | whereas the black differential
00:08:16.640 | is only a three percentage point differential.
00:08:20.000 | And so yeah, the lottery system
00:08:21.800 | will actually help white people more, right?
00:08:24.920 | And maybe black people, and maybe Hispanic people,
00:08:29.240 | and probably not Asian people,
00:08:31.120 | because there's such a massive over-representation.
00:08:33.600 | - All right, so using race as a reason
00:08:36.160 | to abolish the admissions exam
00:08:40.680 | doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense
00:08:44.400 | if it's to help underrepresented minorities,
00:08:48.240 | when, when we've looked at the numbers,
00:08:50.640 | the white population could end up benefiting the most.
00:08:55.440 | - Well, it probably should end up benefiting the most,
00:08:57.680 | because like in any lottery system,
00:08:59.880 | whether it's NBA, draft pick lottery, NFL,
00:09:02.400 | I think, let's talk about the NBA draft lottery.
00:09:05.800 | The bottom line is,
00:09:07.000 | if you have a greater percentage representation,
00:09:09.680 | you have a greater percentage chance of winning the lottery.
00:09:13.000 | It's very correlated.
00:09:14.680 | So white people have 40% of the population,
00:09:17.040 | so they're gonna win the lottery 40% of the time.
00:09:20.000 | It's very consistent.
00:09:21.400 | I think that's how it works.
00:09:22.680 | And therefore, I think you're right.
00:09:24.800 | The lottery system,
00:09:26.560 | which is supposed to make things more equal,
00:09:29.840 | will make things more equal for white people.
00:09:33.120 | And you say it that way, could be.
00:09:35.800 | - It could be.
00:09:37.040 | I mean, I think that's the truth.
00:09:38.280 | That's math.
00:09:39.720 | Unless, you know, like you're a white kid
00:09:41.920 | and you win the lottery to Lowell High School
00:09:44.240 | or, you know, Thomas Jefferson or whatever,
00:09:46.320 | and you say, you know what, I don't wanna go.
00:09:48.160 | And that's kind of one of the arguments that I've heard
00:09:50.840 | is that white kids, white parents are intimidated.
00:09:54.800 | They don't wanna send their kids to Lowell High School
00:09:57.840 | because they would be the minorities.
00:09:59.640 | And that's pretty interesting
00:10:01.160 | because that's what minorities face all the time
00:10:03.760 | when they do anything, join an organization, go to school.
00:10:07.360 | Minorities are always the minorities by definition.
00:10:10.160 | And so, you know, welcome to the minority world, folks.
00:10:14.000 | All right, so we've got some progress,
00:10:17.920 | but I wanna hear more of your arguments
00:10:19.640 | why you think the lottery system
00:10:22.000 | is not good for this particular school
00:10:23.640 | and maybe other magna-type schools.
00:10:26.040 | - So Lowell has a reputation
00:10:28.320 | for being very academically rigorous,
00:10:30.680 | very competitive.
00:10:32.120 | The students are under a lot of pressure.
00:10:34.640 | So if you throw a bunch of unprepared kids
00:10:37.880 | into that type of environment,
00:10:39.480 | they're probably not going to thrive.
00:10:42.160 | They may struggle, they may get frustrated and stressed out,
00:10:45.760 | they may wanna quit and just drop out.
00:10:48.600 | It's hard to say.
00:10:49.680 | It could be very tough on them.
00:10:51.360 | - Yeah.
00:10:52.360 | And I guess if you have bad grades from a good school,
00:10:55.760 | I think that's worse than getting good grades
00:10:57.840 | from a bad school, a mediocre school,
00:11:00.280 | because a lot of these universities,
00:11:02.520 | they're not gonna just accept everyone from the best school.
00:11:06.400 | They wanna diversify their student body pool as well.
00:11:09.040 | - Yeah.
00:11:09.920 | - All right, are there any other arguments
00:11:12.360 | you have against the lottery system?
00:11:15.080 | - I'll just throw one more in there.
00:11:16.560 | So teachers tend to be attracted
00:11:19.040 | to good schools with good students.
00:11:20.960 | They want to teach, that's their passion.
00:11:23.720 | So they wanna be able to help students
00:11:27.160 | who are interested and who are excited
00:11:29.720 | about being there.
00:11:30.800 | If all of a sudden they have students
00:11:32.520 | who are frustrated and struggling
00:11:34.640 | 'cause they simply can't keep up with the curriculum,
00:11:37.360 | that's gonna be not only frustrating for those students,
00:11:40.360 | it's gonna be difficult for the teachers as well,
00:11:43.120 | which may over time lead those good teachers
00:11:46.640 | to go to another school,
00:11:49.480 | potentially in the private sector
00:11:50.960 | instead of staying in the public school system.
00:11:54.120 | We just don't know.
00:11:54.960 | - Do you think that students rise to the top
00:11:59.960 | and get better as a whole
00:12:01.920 | or do you think they rise to the, don't rise,
00:12:04.600 | they just fall to the bottom as a whole?
00:12:06.920 | - I'm sure that personality has a lot to do with it.
00:12:10.200 | So I don't know that you can make
00:12:12.240 | a generalized argument that way.
00:12:15.400 | It's hard to say.
00:12:17.120 | I think if you are maybe not the brightest student
00:12:21.600 | in the class but you're not that far behind,
00:12:25.560 | you might be inspired to try to learn like your peers
00:12:30.560 | and try to get good grades like they do.
00:12:33.300 | But if there's too much of a gap,
00:12:35.600 | I think it's just demotivating.
00:12:37.800 | - Do you really think there's that big
00:12:39.000 | of a gap of intelligence?
00:12:40.400 | - I have no idea but--
00:12:41.520 | - I mean, just let's recall high school in our days.
00:12:44.600 | - Well, weren't we looking at some article the other day
00:12:47.080 | that was showing literacy or something like that,
00:12:51.120 | breakdown by race for the San Francisco School District.
00:12:55.840 | - I don't remember.
00:12:57.400 | I don't remember.
00:12:58.240 | But I'm just trying to ask you directly.
00:13:00.200 | In your school, did you notice a huge gap?
00:13:04.480 | - In my public school, yes.
00:13:06.480 | - Yeah?
00:13:07.320 | - Yeah, there was a very broad range and--
00:13:12.080 | - And wasn't there like gifted
00:13:13.760 | and talented programs or whatever?
00:13:15.720 | - There was, there was but not for, I don't think,
00:13:19.480 | I mean, it was a long time ago.
00:13:20.920 | My memory's not the sharpest.
00:13:22.800 | But I think it was only for certain subjects.
00:13:25.040 | It wasn't for every single subject.
00:13:26.840 | - Right.
00:13:28.440 | I don't know, I just feel that,
00:13:30.640 | I mean, how much do you remember of college,
00:13:33.800 | what you learned in college or in high school?
00:13:36.440 | - You know, it's a small percentage, I would say.
00:13:39.840 | And I think most people would agree with that.
00:13:42.440 | I do think it's important to teach a broad range of subjects.
00:13:45.880 | - Yeah.
00:13:49.080 | - Did I need to really understand chemistry or physics?
00:13:52.640 | No, but I'm glad I was exposed to it.
00:13:55.800 | It helped me realize in high school
00:13:57.680 | that I did not wanna take a career
00:14:00.800 | that would require physics
00:14:02.200 | 'cause it was just way too hard for me.
00:14:04.360 | - Okay.
00:14:05.200 | Well, I just wanna argue against the entrance exam.
00:14:09.320 | - Okay, let's hear it.
00:14:10.160 | - Against meritocracy.
00:14:12.160 | One, because I think there's no true meritocracy.
00:14:14.880 | Nobody is born with equal opportunity.
00:14:19.120 | We know this, you know this.
00:14:20.880 | Some people are born wealthy,
00:14:23.520 | some people have two parents,
00:14:25.400 | some people have stay-at-home parents,
00:14:27.160 | and some people are born strictly into poverty.
00:14:29.560 | You cannot pit these students together
00:14:31.960 | and expect them to have the same outcome
00:14:33.880 | when they don't have the same opportunity.
00:14:36.840 | It just isn't that way.
00:14:38.140 | So when you have an entrance exam,
00:14:40.260 | what you're testing for,
00:14:42.140 | what you're testing for are the people
00:14:43.560 | who have the most opportunity to study,
00:14:46.160 | to learn, to have extra resources and so forth.
00:14:48.680 | So what you're doing is you're siloing
00:14:52.120 | these people who have the most opportunity
00:14:54.920 | to have more opportunity as they get older.
00:14:57.160 | And the people who didn't have the opportunity,
00:14:58.920 | who are not gonna get those good grades,
00:15:00.200 | who don't have those high test scores,
00:15:01.800 | are not gonna get bunched in with these other people.
00:15:03.800 | And that gap is gonna continue to widen
00:15:06.280 | in school, in college, in the workplace
00:15:09.160 | for generations and generations to come.
00:15:13.160 | - Even though Lowell is only one of 25 schools?
00:15:16.440 | - Well, why do we have to do one,
00:15:17.840 | why don't we make them all the same?
00:15:18.960 | Why does it have to be this one school out there
00:15:22.880 | being the iconoclast and saying, "We're different"?
00:15:26.000 | - Yeah, I don't know.
00:15:27.480 | - And so in a world where the rich are getting much richer,
00:15:30.960 | we've seen this during the pandemic,
00:15:32.680 | it's a K-shaped recovery, right?
00:15:34.720 | The investor class, the super wealthy,
00:15:37.000 | the mega millionaires, the billionaires
00:15:38.880 | are just raking it in,
00:15:41.340 | while the working class are losing their jobs
00:15:44.440 | and they're hurting, right?
00:15:46.440 | Do we want that to continue?
00:15:47.920 | I don't think we want that to continue.
00:15:49.880 | And there needs to be an artificial way
00:15:51.480 | to break the cycle if we're truly
00:15:53.840 | to help those who have less opportunity.
00:15:55.960 | And so introducing a lottery system
00:15:59.120 | is not the cure-all, end-all, right?
00:16:01.640 | It's, okay, here is a chance to break
00:16:05.240 | what has been happening for the past several decades
00:16:08.680 | and see what can happen.
00:16:10.340 | Maybe there will be a lot of good
00:16:11.840 | that comes out of the lottery system
00:16:13.120 | with different types of students
00:16:14.960 | from different backgrounds, and they can build upon it.
00:16:18.000 | It shouldn't be this 40-year inertia
00:16:21.360 | of the way things are.
00:16:22.760 | We should change, I think, and evolve to help society.
00:16:27.760 | You know, one of the things I hear a lot
00:16:30.840 | about going from an entrance exam to a lottery system
00:16:33.980 | is that it's very anti-Asian.
00:16:35.880 | And the reason why it's anti-Asian
00:16:37.680 | is because the majority population is Asian, right?
00:16:41.040 | 61% at Lowell, things like 70%
00:16:43.400 | at Thomas Jefferson High School.
00:16:44.760 | And it's very similar at a lot of these schools.
00:16:47.560 | If you look at the UC system,
00:16:49.080 | I think it's like 50% Asian at UC Berkeley.
00:16:51.560 | So if you go to a lottery system,
00:16:53.140 | that takes away meritocracy,
00:16:54.760 | takes away people who are studying hard
00:16:56.780 | to try to pass these exams and get good grades.
00:17:00.260 | And I think, unfortunately, the result is
00:17:02.840 | that there will be less qualified Asian students
00:17:06.280 | who are gonna enter these schools.
00:17:08.120 | However, we must not forget
00:17:11.280 | about the relativity of racism in this country.
00:17:16.140 | So black folks, they've been around for hundreds of years.
00:17:19.320 | They've had slavery to deal with.
00:17:20.880 | They've had systemic racism
00:17:22.640 | with regards to the banking sector, housing sector,
00:17:26.280 | every aspect of society,
00:17:28.360 | and we're still trying to right these wrongs
00:17:30.500 | and rectify the situation today.
00:17:32.840 | I'm not saying that Asian people
00:17:34.200 | have not faced a similar amount of discrimination in America.
00:17:37.720 | They haven't, actually.
00:17:38.880 | It's a different level of racism.
00:17:41.040 | I've experienced plenty of racism growing up in Virginia
00:17:44.600 | for high school and college,
00:17:45.680 | but it's a different level of racism.
00:17:48.960 | And so I believe, why not?
00:17:51.520 | Why not try to boost that population at Lowell High School
00:17:55.960 | from the 2% it is now to the 5%?
00:17:58.760 | It's still not a big percentage, but it can happen.
00:18:01.900 | It can happen with some effort and with some changes.
00:18:05.560 | And 61% Asian population
00:18:08.040 | versus a much lower San Francisco Asian population,
00:18:11.240 | I think it says it for itself.
00:18:13.000 | There is a lot of benefit to the Asian community already.
00:18:16.960 | Yes, of course, there are first-generation Asian Americans
00:18:21.720 | and poor Asian Americans,
00:18:24.200 | and the reality is, look, life is complicated,
00:18:28.080 | and we're just gonna have to figure out.
00:18:29.120 | If you can't get into Lowell, don't worry,
00:18:32.120 | because you're gonna have your fundamentals down pat.
00:18:34.260 | You studied hard, you prepared,
00:18:36.880 | nothing is ever gonna be easy street your entire life.
00:18:40.280 | You're gonna find different ways to get ahead.
00:18:42.660 | I think at the end of the day, this is a public school.
00:18:45.660 | So given it's a public school,
00:18:47.860 | everybody should have access to the school.
00:18:51.680 | Now, of course, not every public school
00:18:54.000 | can accommodate everybody
00:18:55.220 | because there are classroom size limitations.
00:18:57.980 | However, there needs to be a way,
00:18:59.860 | an equitable way to gain access to the school
00:19:02.820 | if you want to attend that school,
00:19:04.940 | and that's how the lottery system is.
00:19:06.840 | If the lottery system is truly a random system,
00:19:11.420 | that is the most equitable way possible.
00:19:15.140 | All right, what's done is done.
00:19:18.020 | It's gone to a lottery system,
00:19:19.880 | and we can't do anything about it.
00:19:21.380 | We'll see what happens a year from now.
00:19:23.580 | And I just wanna ask you, Cindy,
00:19:25.560 | what if our kids are in middle school
00:19:28.600 | and Lowell was still a lottery system admissions?
00:19:32.680 | What do you think?
00:19:34.580 | What would we do?
00:19:36.300 | - I think a lot will depend
00:19:37.480 | how our kids are doing academically.
00:19:39.920 | If they're doing very well
00:19:42.100 | and Lowell is still teaching at an above average,
00:19:47.000 | what would you call it?
00:19:49.080 | - Level?
00:19:49.920 | - Above average level, okay,
00:19:52.080 | then I would think they could do well.
00:19:55.800 | But if they were struggling,
00:19:58.140 | I don't think putting them in an environment
00:20:01.640 | where there's a lot of competition
00:20:04.060 | and it's really intense,
00:20:05.700 | the coursework is really hard,
00:20:08.200 | I wouldn't want our kids to be frustrated
00:20:12.560 | and feel like they're just lagging behind all the time.
00:20:17.160 | Nobody feels good in that kind of situation.
00:20:20.720 | - Imagine if you always felt like
00:20:22.880 | one of the dumbest people in class.
00:20:25.340 | That would be bad, right?
00:20:27.380 | - That hurts your self-confidence
00:20:28.920 | and I think a lot of high school students,
00:20:31.960 | they're under so much pressure
00:20:34.100 | with social media and all that stuff.
00:20:36.380 | And if they're struggling with self-confidence
00:20:40.220 | outside of academics to then throw on academic stress,
00:20:45.240 | I think it's just too much for a teenager to deal with.
00:20:48.820 | - You think so?
00:20:49.660 | - Maybe we're just, what do some people say, snowflakes?
00:20:53.580 | Maybe we're just so soft on the next generation,
00:20:57.500 | every single generation gets softer and softer and softer
00:21:01.380 | to the point where they're really not getting challenged
00:21:05.340 | and struggling as they should
00:21:06.980 | before they enter the real world.
00:21:08.180 | 'Cause the real world is not a very friendly place.
00:21:12.400 | - Yeah, I don't know.
00:21:14.600 | - I think at the end of the day,
00:21:15.620 | you gotta know your own child
00:21:17.300 | and see what their maximum tolerance
00:21:19.180 | for discomfort, stress, and pain is.
00:21:22.900 | And maybe try to get close to the max,
00:21:25.660 | maybe like 80% of the max, but don't go to the max,
00:21:29.740 | otherwise they might just turn out to be massively rebellious
00:21:34.300 | and not bother to study, maybe they'll do drugs,
00:21:37.660 | do all that stuff.
00:21:39.500 | So it's just such a tricky situation.
00:21:41.860 | - It's hard, parenting is hard.
00:21:43.740 | - And you don't really know
00:21:45.420 | what a school environment is like.
00:21:47.020 | - Right, you're not there unless you're the actual student.
00:21:49.380 | - Unless you're a student,
00:21:50.220 | and then the student only gets usually one perspective
00:21:53.700 | because students aren't going to multiple high schools,
00:21:57.060 | well, not normal students, right?
00:21:58.460 | They'll just have to suck it up and go through one.
00:22:00.420 | - Yeah, it's hard to say.
00:22:02.380 | - I think for us, if our kids cannot get into
00:22:06.660 | a well-rated public school that's within 15 minutes driving,
00:22:11.420 | hopefully that's 15 minutes walking,
00:22:13.900 | I think we're gonna have to homeschool
00:22:15.540 | or go to private school.
00:22:16.980 | That seems like the logical solution.
00:22:19.300 | - Yeah, I do think it's silly that some students
00:22:22.940 | have to go to a school that's all the way across the city
00:22:26.860 | and deal with traffic,
00:22:28.580 | 'cause I don't even think San Francisco
00:22:30.620 | has a school bus system.
00:22:33.140 | I think they have to take MUNI,
00:22:34.580 | which is our public transportation.
00:22:36.860 | - MUNI or your parents' drive.
00:22:38.420 | - Right, and MUNI is so low.
00:22:41.740 | - Right, and that's the sad thing.
00:22:43.140 | I don't think the lottery system
00:22:45.100 | is really working, unfortunately.
00:22:46.500 | I think if we're honest, you look at the data,
00:22:49.660 | the wealthier families, the white families,
00:22:53.820 | dominate the private school system,
00:22:56.060 | and minorities and poor families,
00:22:58.340 | and just normal middle-class families,
00:23:00.300 | dominate the public school system.
00:23:02.620 | So I think there needs to be some kind of change.
00:23:04.780 | We can't just focus absolutely on equality,
00:23:08.260 | equality, equality of opportunity,
00:23:11.260 | and then not look at the resulting data.
00:23:13.300 | And I think one commenter said something really smart,
00:23:16.220 | and that is, we should focus on equality of opportunity,
00:23:21.220 | but we can't focus on equality of outcome.
00:23:25.980 | We cannot say, hey, you guys have all the same opportunity,
00:23:30.100 | and you guys will all end up multimillionaires
00:23:32.780 | by the age of 30.
00:23:34.020 | We know that life is complicated.
00:23:35.980 | There's so many variables, a lot of lucky breaks,
00:23:39.180 | connections, all that stuff,
00:23:40.940 | that'll determine your actual outcome.
00:23:44.460 | So I thought that was a really, really smart
00:23:46.620 | and poignant comment, so thank you very much for that.
00:23:49.620 | And I wanna leave you guys with this one thought,
00:23:52.900 | and that is, it's so weird to think about education
00:23:57.300 | and just that hustle and grind
00:23:58.660 | to get into these best schools possible.
00:24:01.740 | For what?
00:24:02.660 | For what, to get into a prestigious university?
00:24:05.740 | I don't know, as a 43-year-old now,
00:24:07.420 | I look back and I'm like,
00:24:08.260 | I don't care where you went to university.
00:24:10.340 | I care what you do, I care what your character is,
00:24:13.500 | and if you lead a purposeful life.
00:24:15.580 | And people wanna get into a prestigious university
00:24:18.820 | so they can get a prestigious job,
00:24:20.860 | maybe make a lot of money,
00:24:22.100 | or maybe they can get into politics
00:24:23.540 | and get a lot of power and fame.
00:24:24.940 | And I look at that, I'm thinking,
00:24:27.140 | why do you want fame and power?
00:24:29.460 | I think that's so overrated.
00:24:30.660 | That's like a prison of your own making.
00:24:32.660 | But in terms of money, yes, money definitely is great
00:24:37.460 | because it can buy freedom,
00:24:38.620 | but after a certain amount of money,
00:24:40.540 | again, it doesn't lift happiness at all.
00:24:43.180 | I think it makes a lot of people miserable
00:24:45.180 | because they're constantly chasing more money
00:24:47.340 | and more status, climbing that corporate ladder.
00:24:51.220 | It's just so interesting to me
00:24:52.740 | now that we're so far removed from that way of living.
00:24:57.220 | I mean, what are your thoughts on status,
00:24:59.780 | money, and all that stuff?
00:25:01.580 | What's the point of all this
00:25:03.100 | if we don't even remember much of
00:25:05.860 | what we learned in college and high school?
00:25:07.380 | - I know.
00:25:08.340 | Maybe it's about seeing what your maximum potential is
00:25:11.220 | and finding yourself in the process.
00:25:13.900 | - Yeah, I think that's good.
00:25:15.780 | It's good to see what your max potential is
00:25:18.140 | because you develop a feeling of what if
00:25:22.020 | and kind of regret not trying to go as far as you can
00:25:27.020 | in your studies or in your career
00:25:29.660 | or playing a sport, even recreationally.
00:25:33.540 | So trying to discover your max potential is important.
00:25:37.740 | And I think at the same time,
00:25:39.140 | we've got to just realize if we've done our best,
00:25:43.340 | that's all we can ask for.
00:25:45.420 | Alrighty, well, let's just wrap up this podcast episode.
00:25:49.260 | Thanks so much for arguing with me.
00:25:51.900 | - Thank you.
00:25:53.500 | - We'd love to hear from you guys
00:25:55.340 | on whether it's better to have a lottery system
00:25:58.300 | or an entrance exam.
00:26:00.380 | I've written a pretty detailed post
00:26:02.140 | on the pros and cons of everything
00:26:03.940 | and also our personal thoughts and what we do.
00:26:06.820 | So check out the post and stick around
00:26:09.340 | and we'll talk to you guys later.
00:26:11.100 | - Thank you. - Take care.