Not all of SF’s private schools are like that.
He’s doting on Proof School. His girls will be quite welcome there. And they will get a better math education than Kumon for sure.
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Proof school would be perfect for math nerds. That’s one extreme. The other is a dumbed down curriculum that doesn’t even teach baby algebra. I learned baby algebra back in primary school. You know those baby word problems like counting chicken and dog feet and ask you how many animals of each kind?
A mind that doesn’t get challenged is a wasted mind.
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Castilleja?
Hmm… 
Competing with wuqijun? Other than these 2, who else got a scholarship?
Profound observation. This could be a thread in itself.
To be clear, sfdragonboy started this thread because he’s not happy at the direction Lowell is going… That’s not a good sign.
Yeah. You have experience with that school?
It really goes back to why fix something that is not broken. Lowell has been around for over 100 years and has produced some of the finest minds in various fields around. Don’t make me break out the list again. You have someone, whom I think is thinking he/she is doing the right thing by helping lower achieving students, but honestly is not. You are putting a beginner swimmer in the deep end and forcing the experienced swimmers to expend resources/time with the beginner swimmer when they could be reaching for even deeper waters. Public schools like a Lowell have it tough as it is. How so? Limited moola. Private schools have all the resources and if they need it, they simply call Mommy and Daddy for it. Does it really make sense to dumb down Lowell? No.
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We toured Alice Fong Yu couple years back. It’s a Chinese immersion K-8 public school in SF. I asked the principal where their kids go for high school. She said a third go to the feeder high school (forgot which one), a third go to Lowell and the last third to private schools.
Our tour was led by a PTA parent. I asked her what’s her plan for high school. She said private high schools. She didn’t put her kids to private primary and middle because she felt she can get the most bang for the buck in high schools. And Lowell is too big for her. Some kids thrive in a big jungle some don’t.
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That is a fair statement about size of school, but the vast majority of students will end up in, what, massive schools later. Your UCs of the world. Come on, most kids who are smart enough to get in do fine. You can’t baby your kids forever…
Has Lowell produced any crazy rich Asians?
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Unfortunately, not that I am aware of to the point of crazy but I think we do all right for ourselves. In my class, we had a movie star. A friend of mine won a Grammy (yes, that Grammy). Other classes had judges or Nobel Prize winners. Shoot, too many doctors (my bro-inlaw is a surgeon and went there). Keep in mind how many of the alum come from lower class standings and then are able to raise themselves to very good decent paying professions. Homers are nice, but I would rather have more singles and doubles anyway. That is all we can ask of our institutions. Do they prepare you well for what is real life, if not something more than that.
Nope.
I agree with you, but I was just pointing out that you’d started the thread to harriet who was complaining that we were all bashing the school. Which I didn’t think we were really. Just people advocating for a private school. 
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The article was timely. I felt it was important not only as an alum but for discussion’s sake. Why are we dumbing down a distinguished institution of higher learning when we really should try to make more Lowells out there? Let’s not make things easier. Is the global world easier? Of course not. Compete, or, die…
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The truth is that liberals and legislators don’t care about the top achievers. Someone once said “Gifted students are the most neglected students in the US” because they are bored out of their minds, but everyone thinks they’re doing fine because they get good grades and doesn’t want to expend any $$'s challenging them.
What people care about right now is trying to help out the minorities and underrepresented lower income groups achieve academically.
Unfortunately, the best way to help these kids is starting in Kindergarten and first grade, not 9th grade. By the time they’re applying to Lowell, it’s too late.
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Hmm, not sure how I feel about this…
Yet the heated debate focused only on the small tweak to the school’s admission policy and failed to address whether Lowell’s overall admission policy — based on academic performance — is illegal.
In recent weeks, some district officials have told The Chronicle that Lowell’s use of grades and test scores to select students appears to violate a state law that bans the use of such factors for admission to regular public schools.
That’s the end of Lowell. It had a good run. RIP.