Latest Texas education whine: suburban victimhood
By RUBEN NAVARRETTE / The Dallas Morning News

From school finance to desegregation to affirmative action, Texans make education policy more complicated than it needs to be.

For instance, who knew that attending an elite high school could be considered a disadvantage?

That's how some wealthy and well-connected parents see it now that their children have suffered the indignity of being ranked below the top 10th percentile of their graduating class. That sort of thing matters in a state with a "10 percent plan."

In Texas, students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class are guaranteed admission to the public college or university of their choice.

That's simple enough, but getting even this far was anything but simple. After the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Hopwood decision banned racial preferences at the University of Texas, legislators dreamed up the 10 percent plan to maintain racial and ethnic diversity. It worked. Now UT officials say that the incoming freshman class is more diverse than any other since before the decision.

But there are new protests. Wealthy parents insist that it's not fair that kids who went to rural and inner-city schools are admitted to the University of Texas or Texas A&M while their own children, who they say attend more competitive public and private schools, are turned away. The parents claim that their kids are being unfairly penalized for going to "better schools."

I've heard it all now. I understand people being discriminated against because of race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. But are we now expected to believe that someone can be discriminated against because their own academic achievements put them outside the top 10 percentile?