Toronto’s Largest School Board to Drop Auditions, Aptitude Requirements for Specialized Programs in the Name of Equity

The Toronto District School Board will be dropping “assessments of ability” for admission into specialized arts, athletics, and STEM programs. Instead, applicants will be selected through a random lottery. Kurt Vonnegut saw this coming decades ago.

Source: Toronto’s Largest School Board to Drop Auditions, Aptitude Requirements for Specialized Programs in the Name of Equity - Foundation for Economic Education

This may come as a news flash to some, but we are not all equal. We may be equal in the eyes of God, to some extent we have (or should have) equal opportunity, and certainly everyone should be treated equally under the law. However, none of that means that we have the same talents or equal talents or skills. If you want a job that requires a certain skill set then you need to actually have that skill set. If I need a plumber, I want to hire a plumber that is good at his job.

There's no reason this shouldn't also be true when you get to higher levels of education. There is a prerequisite set of skills you need at that point. You can't start Calculus or College Algebra if you don't know addition and subtraction. If you want to compete in college sports then you need a certain minimum level of ability to do so. The same is true for music or virtually anything else. How are you supposed to measure this ability? Normally, some kind of assessment, try-out, etc. A random lottery certainly doesn't do it.

The logic of picking people by lottery makes no sense. In many cases, the people who are best at what they do have also worked the hardest and are most deserving. In any case "deserve" is subjective to some degree but you want the best, not a random selection. This has nothing to do with "equity" and can't end well.