Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools

#31

Post by swsieber » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:01 AM UTC

confiscate wrote: post #24

Test scores are race-blind and fair. Test instructors do not give more scores to a test because they see it was completed by an Asian test-taker. It's great that schools are looking for a better "mix" of ethnicities in the incoming class, but they should encourage the underrepresented ethnicities to do better, in tests or other race-blind admission standards. They should not put an admission "cap" based on the color…

This. The end of the pipeline is not the correct place to change pipeline demographics, and in cases like this, is actually harmful.

Re: Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools

#32

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:02 AM UTC

Reactionary_ wrote: post #26

1. I believe black and hispanic students could do just as well as asian students if their cultures were similar to that of the asian students. Let's not kid ourselves. The asian students doing well on these tests are born into cultures that value academic achievement more than the average black or hispanic family. There's nothing inherently different about the different groups aside from their cultures. Keep the test…

[deleted]

Re: Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools

#33

Post by throwaway2048 » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:03 AM UTC

dilap wrote: post #11

Here's another, more critical take on the plan: https://quillette.com/2018/06/27/bill-de-blasios-plan-to-pur... I think it's terrible. It's robbing poor kids of a rare opportunity to get a first-rate education, to make elites feel better about themselves. If you insist that the racial demographics of the schools match those of the city, a much better way to do it is to keep the admissions test, but simply take the to…

the supreme court declared racial quotas illegal.

Re: Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools

#34

Post by icelancer » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:04 AM UTC

This is pretty standard and has been going on for decades. Asian-Americans are the last race you can openly commit racist policies against without dogwhistling. I don't know what it is, maybe it's because they are politically underreprsented or it's because they are underrepresented in popular culture in general, or their general attitude to be anti-political in nature, but it's just totally fine to withhold educational resources and outcomes for an entire race of people. It is particularly bad against Chinese-Americans, I've found.

I remember dealing with it as a young child growing up in the Midwest as a Japanese-American whose grandparents were interned in California. I didn't come to "appreciate" the level of systemic, acceptable racism baked into society against Asian-Americans until much later in life.

My feelings on it now are kind of whatever. It is what it is and I don't see it changing much. I sure don't see white activists taking up the Asian banner, though.

Re: Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools

#35

Post by icelancer » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:05 AM UTC

confiscate wrote: post #24

Test scores are race-blind and fair. Test instructors do not give more scores to a test because they see it was completed by an Asian test-taker. It's great that schools are looking for a better "mix" of ethnicities in the incoming class, but they should encourage the underrepresented ethnicities to do better, in tests or other race-blind admission standards. They should not put an admission "cap" based on the color…

>> Test scores are race-blind and fair.

Kind of. There is a fair criticism to be made about tests being unintentionally culturally slanted towards the people that make them, often white Americans.

Of course, in this case, your point is correct, since the people that are overindexing on the tests are Asian-Americans.

Re: Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools

#36

Post by guard0g » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:05 AM UTC

tylerhou wrote: post #7

guard0g wrote: post #2

First Stuy, then UofC goes test-optional, and now CMU eliminating demonstrated interest in their application process...the race to mediocrity.

Why does CMU admit more mediocre candidates if they eliminate demonstrated interest? Visiting campus doesn't really say anything about how talented/hard working a candidate is -- all it does is signal that they have enough money and time to visit.

Demonstrated interest isn't about visiting campus - it's about interviews, essays, standardized tests, maker portfolios, etc...

Re: Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools

#37

Post by manfredo » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:05 AM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #25

camdenlock wrote: post #4

This is some bullshit. Trying to exert such rigid control over educational outcomes by favoring people based on their race? Talk about unfair discrimination. It’s 2018 (aka $CURRENT_YEAR), haven’t we grown beyond this fruitless social engineering wheel-spinning? In a sane world, this kind of legislation would be shot down with cogent arguments from smart and knowledgeable lawmakers. The only reason such ill-conceived…

The suggestion is that educational outcomes are already favoring people by race, just with a veneer laid over it, and we're revisiting the question as to whether or not that's working.

I may be reading too much into your use of the word "favoring", but I think it's not safe to assume that any disparate outcome is the effect of favoring certain races. Certainly, educational outcomes differ by race but there are non-discriminatory factors that can play a large role, such as time dedicated towards academics [1]. In other words, I think it's worth asking whether it's the education system that's favoring certain groups, or if it's certain groups that are favoring academic achievement. I don't think it's right to use discriminatory policies to ensure equity of outcome if it's the latter.

1. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012026/tables/table_35.asp

Re: Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools

#38

Post by JPKab » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:06 AM UTC

justinpombrio wrote: post #22

zeth___ wrote: post #5

This is an very good example of why 'people of color' is red herring no one believes. Asians, both yellow and brown, are out performing whites. Blacks are under performing everyone and 'latinos' are doing either ok or pretty badly, depending on if you split them according to skin color. The issue in America has been and still is why are blacks doing so poorly? Dressing it up as anything else does no one any favors.

> The issue in America has been and still is why are blacks doing so poorly? If nothing else, enormous income differences? See the top graph here: https://www.financialsamurai.com/income-by-race-why-is-asian... It's hard to educate yourself well if your family is poor, I hear.

Income differences don't explain disparities between equally poor groups.

Culture does.

Re: Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools

#39

Post by confiscate » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:06 AM UTC

If a student is not doing well in school, it makes no sense to just "give" that student a higher grade, for "equality" with the rest of the class.

You need to help that student get better, so he/she can achieve the higher grade on his/her own.

If a student can't do multiplication in a test, you don't just "give more points" to that student, for "equality" in the classroom. You need to teach that student to learn multiplication.

You need to bring that student "up" and not everyone else "down".

Re: Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools

#40

Post by akhilcacharya » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:07 AM UTC

tylerhou wrote: post #7

guard0g wrote: post #2

First Stuy, then UofC goes test-optional, and now CMU eliminating demonstrated interest in their application process...the race to mediocrity.

Why does CMU admit more mediocre candidates if they eliminate demonstrated interest? Visiting campus doesn't really say anything about how talented/hard working a candidate is -- all it does is signal that they have enough money and time to visit.

I agree. I did a single college tour and that was a school that doesn't take demonstrated interest into account (that I also had no chance to get into). I had only briefly visited the others because they were basically in my backyard.