Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 94 posts

Re: Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago

#81

Post by yequalsx »

rayiner wrote: post #54
yequalsx wrote: post #27

To fix inequality of opportunities one would be well advised to start with the way k-12 schools are funded. It's too late for most disadvantaged students by the time they are old enough to go to college.

Some of the best-funded and worst-performing school systems are ones in inner cities with high minority populations. Baltimore, MD public schools spends more per student than the wealthy D.C. suburb of Montgomery County, MD, despite having a lower cost of living.

Sure. But many of the worst performing schools are under funded. You can find outliers either way. There's also the fact that the way k-12 schools are funded causes socio-economic segregation. People with means congregate together due to schools (among other reasons). I don't know if this would be true but maybe if there was genuine equality of funding throughout the country then maybe there would be less socio-economic segregation.

Re: Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago

#82

Post by Danihan »

jacalata wrote: post #79
Danihan wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those are reasons not to try it. It worked well on a smaller scale and hasn't been tried on any sort of larger scale. Maybe I just hold the value of having an objectively fair playing field higher than some others here. I personally love the idea of bling hiring in orchestras, in technology jobs, and in college admissions. People's upbringings are never going to be fair. Nor is their potential, if we're being…

> Maybe I just hold the value of having an objectively fair playing field higher than some others here. ...People's upbringings are never going to be fair. Maybe you value it less than others, and that's why you're willing to give up on a whole section of the playing field so easily?

It takes wisdom to know what things you can fix and what things you cannot.

Re: Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago

#83

Post by evanlivingston »

evanlivingston wrote: post #76
fiter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you phrase it that way, it sounds like you think it's hopeless to have a system with objectively fair rules. Notwithstanding the probably uninspired resulting college environment, I think it would be hypothetically fair to admit people solely based on their standardized test scores without any other consideration. The admission standard while somewhat arbitrary would be clear, such that anyone who wants to get a…

I do think a fair system can't exist, but I'm very fearful of moving towards a libertarian meritocratic system that fails to consider many of the issue you bring up. There's a guy up above going hard on genetic IQ differences making a nuanced claim that higher IQs are more valuable and thus deserving of more merit. Is that a fair system?

Can exist

Re: Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago

#84

Post by evanlivingston »

Danihan wrote: post #78
evanlivingston wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of The cuff; a whole slew of reasons. Entry into an orchestra isn't something that is cost prohibitive for an economic class of individuals. Applicants to orchestras likely enjoy a certain level of affluence given how demanding the required practice is for performers. Musical performers enjoy slightly less systematic discrimination throughout their careers and technkal musical ability is something that is largely sel…

None of those are reasons not to try it. It worked well on a smaller scale and hasn't been tried on any sort of larger scale. Maybe I just hold the value of having an objectively fair playing field higher than some others here. I personally love the idea of bling hiring in orchestras, in technology jobs, and in college admissions. People's upbringings are never going to be fair. Nor is their potential, if we're being…

No man, its not going to give you genuine diversity. It's going to give you a bunch of people who score well in classes and according to standards that the standard creators determined. The standards are often blind to the cultural nuances of the questions themselves and often reward those who belong to the normative culture. It's the same problem with IQ tests. I don't want the people in college to be all the people who scored top of their class in AP history and AP econ, I want to also see the kids who struggled through the extreme boredom of those classes while having underground poetry meetings after school or having other interests other than those rewarded by the schoolastic institution.

Re: Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago

#85

Post by jacalata »

Danihan wrote: post #82
jacalata wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe I just hold the value of having an objectively fair playing field higher than some others here. ...People's upbringings are never going to be fair. Maybe you value it less than others, and that's why you're willing to give up on a whole section of the playing field so easily?

It takes wisdom to know what things you can fix and what things you cannot.

If you don't think a fair playing field is achievable then why pretend you care more and are working harder to achieve it than others, instead of admitting that you're focusing your energy elsewhere?

Re: Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago

#86

Post by whatnotests »

gwern wrote: post #49

Note how systematic and inexorable the graphs are; it's not any individual college or policy or region. I suspect that this is a mechanical effect of top colleges keeping enrollment essentially static even as the population continues expansion; this means that getting in becomes ever harder (see for example average SAT scores at MIT or Harvard), which in turn changes group admission ratios by the usual tail effects -…

Best comment in this thread. Thank you.

Re: Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago

#88

Post by ManlyBread »

jacalata wrote: post #58
ManlyBread wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of angst in your reply, but no alternatives to what the OP is proposing.

the alternative is what OP is attacking - affirmative action.

Which doesn't seem to work very well, as shown by the source link for example.

Re: Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago

#89

Post by rayiner »

yequalsx wrote: post #81
rayiner wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the best-funded and worst-performing school systems are ones in inner cities with high minority populations. Baltimore, MD public schools spends more per student than the wealthy D.C. suburb of Montgomery County, MD, despite having a lower cost of living.

Sure. But many of the worst performing schools are under funded. You can find outliers either way. There's also the fact that the way k-12 schools are funded causes socio-economic segregation. People with means congregate together due to schools (among other reasons). I don't know if this would be true but maybe if there was genuine equality of funding throughout the country then maybe there would be less socio-econo…

There is more or less equality of funding (at least, between rich and poor counties in the same state): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/in-2....

> Federal spending — including through Title I, money meant to bolster programs for poor children — is serving as an equalizer, according to the federal data. When federal dollars are included, just five states are spending less in their poorest districts than in their wealthiest. Nationwide, the average disparity drops from 15 percent to less than 2 percent.

Re: Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago

#90

Post by yequalsx »

rayiner wrote: post #89
yequalsx wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But many of the worst performing schools are under funded. You can find outliers either way. There's also the fact that the way k-12 schools are funded causes socio-economic segregation. People with means congregate together due to schools (among other reasons). I don't know if this would be true but maybe if there was genuine equality of funding throughout the country then maybe there would be less socio-econo…

There is more or less equality of funding (at least, between rich and poor counties in the same state): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/in-2... . > Federal spending — including through Title I, money meant to bolster programs for poor children — is serving as an equalizer, according to the federal data. When federal dollars are included, just five states are spending less in their poorest dist…

From what I've read school funding for k-12 varies widely throughout the country.

http://www.asha.org/Advocacy/schoolfundadv/Overview-of-Fundi...

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/05/18/the-k-12-fundin...

I'm no expert on the issue but I have seen schools in poor neighborhoods lacking in computers and with dilapidated equipment. In rich districts I've never seen this. I doubt that just looking at numbers as in the Washington Post article is sufficient to get to the bottom of the issue. Of course, I'm not certain I'm right either.

Whatever the reason I think there is no doubt that some schools are run down and have crappy learning environments. They certainly, on the outside, give the impression of being underfunded.

Post reply on HN