As if an arts degree nowadays wasn't already worthless.

Disclosure: I minored in visual arts. I could never imagine majoring in it.

"... those from other neighborhoods in the district are enrolled on a first-come, first-served basis. The district doesn't even let parents know about the program in its materials on school choices."

Sounds to me like a perfect formula for admission based on inside information. I guess if merit doesn't enter the equation, who you know becomes that much more important to success.

"... who you know becomes that much more important to success."

Teaching the children a valuable life lesson. Sounds like the real world to me.

Why 30 percent, why not 25 or 10?

There is no rational basis for this sort of discrimination against the more talented student. Ah, you will say we are just helping the neighborhood kid, but that spot is being denied to one who deserves it more.

Mark, I thought the same thing. Thirty percent seemed pretty arbitrary.

No it isnt, its exactly the opposite of what they have now

"...none of its admissions are based on merit. Local students are picked by lottery..."

So if you don't like your regular government school, you can send your child to the arts school - even if they have no artistic talent. Wow! That's the only way I would ever gotten into an arts school. Another brilliant idea from the government.

I'm sure that they will all get great training on how to apply for and obtain government grants, though.

As the arts world drifts farther and farther away from relevance to the real world, the ordinary citizen will eventually decide that money spent on the arts is wasted. Oh wait, that's already happened.

Vouchers for everyone. Enough with this lottery bullshit.

I hope they reverse the admission percentages.

It would be a greater service to the neighborhood to have 30% of the neighborhood children admitted to a school renowned for its arts curriculum and talented students - and far more advantageous for them to build a network with the 70% of the students who hail from a variety of other socio-economic groups.

Those connections are key to helping poor kids access the kind of networking that helps people get jobs, learn how to behave in different cultural/economic/social situations, and all the other things our friends help us with along the way.

Also, when funding is threatened, the school would have widespread support across many political sectors and with people who have money and connections.

We lost our Governor's School for the Arts, but not without a fight.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2009/02/governors_schools_alumni_submi.html

Great, just what we need. Let's train no-talent people in art for years, and then when they grow older, and they are unemployable except for minimum wage jobs, their sense of frustration and upset will lead them to demand "social justice."

They will define social justice, naturally, as ever more direct funding of art and, of course, artists. All you fat, wealthy private sector types can pay for it! You wealthy fat-cats, you.

And as they produce worthless art mocking your middle class and bourgeois values, while taking government money obtained from your middle class and bourgeois pockets, they will continue telling you how they are vital to your life. Without them, there would be no beauty, no wonder, no....Art. Oh, fix their pipes, Mr. Plumber. And their teeth, Mr. Dentist. Payment? Oh, the government takes care of that...

But don't you think for a minute that you have the option of *not* paying for their gifts to mankind. What kind of ingrate are you?!

Now, they need a latte allowance too, you know. What form do they fill out for their latte allowance?