Laura Randalls, professora emérita do Hunter College, City University of New York, e co-coordenadora do Seminário sobre o Brasil da Universidade de Columbia, nos envia um artigo sobre “As lições da City University de New York para o estabelecimento de cotas nas universidades brasileiras. O texto completo está disponível no site do Brazilink. Em resumo:
“Lessons from the City University of New York for the Establishment of Quotas for University Admission in Brazil” provides new information that is relevant to the discussion of establishing quotas for University Admissions in Brazil. It describes a compensatory program “Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge” (SEEK) for low income and minority students, and presents retention and graduation rates for regularly admitted and SEEK students both as a group and for black and for white subgroups. Data regarding the impact of the degree of academic deficiency when admitted on retention rates is presented. We do not have enough information to estimate what share of the lower retention and graduation rates of blacks than of whites is due to socioeconomic conditions and what share is due to color. We note that the differential between blacks and whites is now roughly the same among regularly admitted and SEEK students.
Regularly admitted students graduate more rapidly than SEEK students; however, SEEK students’ retention rates are greater than those of students with equally deficient academic preparation who are not in the SEEK program. The importance of using low or no cost techniques to improve teaching and other school conditions and of increasing housing integrated by income to provide better education at pre-university levels is presented as policy choices that should be considered as well as quotas in evaluating the appropriate distribution of spending on interventions throughout the educational system, from pre-kindergarten through university levels.
