a salon author takes a
a salon author takes a look at imsa (the illinois math and science academy) in the article, perfect high. it notes, among other things, that imsa spends about $20,000 a student per year. this is considerably more than what even schools in the most affluent communities in illinois spend–which is around $13,000/student/year. and nearly three times the state average of $7,146 (according to the chicago tribune). the author attempts to discover if illinois is justified in pouring an enormous amount of money into an institution of learning that only accepts the top third of its applicants.
it would have been interesting if the author had also looked at new trier. new trier is a public high school located in the north shore, chicago suburb of winnetka, one of the most affluent areas of illinois, let alone the entire nation. new trier also throws a lot of money at their students–a little over $13,000/student/year. new trier made national news when it was featured in time magazine a few years ago. however, new trier did not make news because it consistently ranks as one of the top public high schools in the nation–which it does. rather, it was noteworthy because of the rampant drug use occurring there. a survey of new trier students found that over fifty percent of them had tried drugs at some point.
