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Neutrality

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I am calling the neutrality of this article into question, as it is suspect at best. It reads as a lauding brochure for the school rather than an even-handed summation, likely planted by the school's extensive recruitment office. Of particular note are the Academics, and School Life.

Hahbie 03:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC) I am not making up the fact that from University-preparatory schools, over 98% of graduates matriculate to university. Neither am I making up the fact that, from some public schools, university matriculation is an exception, rather than the rule. These are both independently verifiable. The other facts explain why the matriculation rate numbers are what they are. The article would have been non-neutral if it explained the $35,000 tuition for boarding schools. As to the fundamental right parents have to see to the education of their children, and choose, among other choices, to send their kids to these Schools, read Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972).[reply]

I do not mean to suggest that public schools should not exist. Nor do I mean to suggest that they do not provide university matriculation, for a capriciously-chosen few. It's just that for parents who want their child to matriculate to university, sending their child to public school is like buying some kind of raffle ticket, and betting the future on the receipt of whatever prize might be won.

Simply because you may have been fortunate enough to have capriciously received a bargain from public-school teachers and administrators in allowing you to matriculate to university from a public secondary school, it does not diminish the superiority of prep schools to the mission of preparing students to matriculate to university. Public schools serve missions other than preparing students for university matriculation. And, which students are chosen to matriculate to university ought not to be placed in the capricious power of public-school teachers and administrators. Imagine sending your child to public school where your intent is that your child matriculate to university, but the agenda of that public school's government-employee teachers and administrators is not. That happened to me and my parents, which is why, among other reasons, we sought admission for me to a University-preparatory school.

Some members of society could care less whether their children go on to higher education, but they do want their children to be basically numerate and literate. Our society obliges them, too. But even people with such limited expectations complain when, as often happens, public schools fail in that basic and unambitious mission. Differing Wisconsin v. Yoder prerogatives can and often do make divergent goals incompatible within the culture of one particular school.

It is unavoidable that the disparity in matriculation rates, assuming a similar cross-section of ability among their student bodies, means that University-preparatory schools are superior to public schools in the mission of preparing their graduates for university matriculation. Neutrality? Nonsense. My personal experience has been repeated by many people throughout North America, who are being failed by the public school system their taxes finance. One need look no further than the matriculation rates. University-preparatory schools are simply one more expression of the American Dream. You want to extol the virtues of public schools? Fine. Stand and Deliver, or put up with the status quo at public schools, or send your children to a University-preparatory school. By the way, imagine a School where every teacher is a Jaime Escalante. That's Ridley College. Hahbie 03:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 16 March 2016

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. (non-admin closure)  — Amakuru (talk) 11:53, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Ridley College → Ridley College (St. Catharines) – There is no clear primary topic for this name, when Ridley College (Melbourne) is taken into account: Ridley College should be the disambiguation page. I'm not sure how best to disambiguate the Canadian school - maybe Ridley College (Ontario) would be better. StAnselm (talk) 21:56, 16 March 2016 (UTC) relisted – sst✈ 03:44, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose – page views clearly show that this is overwhelmingly primary topic for "Ridley College". The Australian school only received about 2% of the page views of the Canadian school. sst✈ 03:44, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, when the previous name (Ridley Melbourne) is taken into account, that figure rises to 20%. StAnselm (talk) 06:22, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
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Move discussion in progress

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There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Ridley College (Melbourne) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 21:31, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 23 May 2023

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Move Ridley College to Ridley College (Ontario) and make a DAB (non-admin closure) >>> Extorc.talk 06:59, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

– There is another Ridley College, in Australia. This is a K-12 school, the other Ridley College is a degree-granting institution that grants bachelors, masters and doctorates, including research degrees (PhDs). I think a degree-granting institution has to be considered more notable than a K-12 school, unless the K-12 school is especially famous – and this school isn't especially famous. Somewhere like Eton, people on the other side of the planet have heard of it; I doubt many people outside of Canada have heard of this school.

Both Wikipedia and dead-tree encyclopaedias have inclusion standards which are biased towards higher education institutions over K-12 institutions. Higher education institutions sometimes make important contributions to scholarship (e.g. former principal of the other Ridley, Leon Morris, is a significant figure in the history of Protestant theology in Australia), K-12 institutions almost never do. For biographies, where an academic did their PhD can tell you something about how they approach their discipline, while which K-12 school they went to is usually biographical trivia. Both these institutions are religious (Anglican), but seeing the theological college in the biography of an Anglican priest/bishop tells you something important about them (they comes from an evangelical theological background), their K-12 school doesn't tell you much at all.

I know last time this was considered, people argued against it on the grounds of page views, but I think that's a bad metric – any K-12 school page is likely to be visited by parents researching possible schools for their children, but it isn't Wikipedia's purpose to be a schools directory. Likewise, many students at a K-12 school are likely to be motivated to visit or even edit their own school's page. I don't think which institution is more notable for an encyclopaedia should be determined by page views from people with non-encyclopaedic motivations. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 23:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: to fix a request at Talk:Ridley College (Melbourne)#Requested move 23 May 2023, that proposal was transferred to this talk page. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 01:34, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support first, oppose second. The move to Ridley College (Ontario) would certainly improve WP:RECOGNIZABILITY. On the other hand, there is no evidence that the institution of the same name in Melbourne is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. As a matter of fact, the Ontario institution is the primary topic based on pageviews[2]. In any case, neither has a truly strong case to be the PTOPIC so it's best the both have disambiguators with Ridley College left as a dab page. estar8806 (talk) ★ 01:57, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think, in reliable sources, mentions of "Ridley College" are significantly more likely to be the Australian institution than the Canadian one. For example, searching on JSTOR, the search "Ridley College" Melbourne gives me 1078 results, whereas "Ridley College" Ontario gives me only 263 – so mentions of "Ridley College" in JSTOR appear to be roughly 4 times more likely to be about the Melbourne one than the Ontario one. Both tend to return quite a few results in which the mention is just the institutional affiliation of the author; to try to single out documents which have it in prose, I compared "Ridley College in" Melbourne (63 results) to "Ridley College in" "St Catharines" (11 results), which again seems to support the significantly greater prominence of the former. This actually makes sense, given one is a higher educational institution, and the other a K-12 school – scholarly sources tend to pay more attention to institutions of higher education than K-12 schools. I think the greater prominence of the Melbourne one in scholarly sources supports the idea that it is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 07:52, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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