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New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

nytimes.com

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Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#101

Post by tomp »

endisneigh wrote: post #92
tomp wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If wealth ultimately is the driver for such a disparity Fortunately, we know it's not. Black Nigerian immigrants slightly outperform whites in many careers, and very likely start with substantially less wealth (because they're immigrants). So one variable is constant (skin color), a few are "worse" (wealth, knowledge of English), a few might be better (motivation, IQ, work ethics, cultural expectations, ...).

A single counterexample doesn't invalidate a trend, lol. One could say Nigerian immigrants, coming from the richest country in Africa, would show better outcomes over other African immigrants. Oh wait, they do.

A single counterexample does invalidate a theory that poor Black American (not other black immigrants') performance is caused by poverty and/or racism.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#102

Post by mc32 »

pacbard wrote: post #91
_hilro wrote: post #13

> But the highly selective and racially segregated program will be replaced for incoming students. Wow, using a word such as segregation, which has connotations of 'by design' sure lays bare their hand. Just to be clear, there is no segregation(of any kind) amongst the students in the program. In fact, there is no segregation at all. There's just not equal representation of the makey-uppy USA racial classifications.…

The context for the use of "racially segregated" is probably within the current anti-racist movement (see, for example, Kendi's work). This movement has moved away from labeling racist a policy that was implemented with racist intent (like segregated schools during Jim Crow) towards labeling racist a policy that has unequal outcomes based on race, regardless of policymakers' intent. If you start from that perspective…

Among humans it's likely evenly distributed, but... the blame for unevenness should fall more on the parents who rear their kids to fail rather than on the system who fails to find those rough diamonds. The parents should suffer most of the culpability. They are the ones steering their kids to poor outcomes via parenting styles.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#103

Post by raxxorrax »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #77

Why can't we acknowledge the simple fact: some kids are smarter, they learn faster, they remember better? I went to gifted and talented programs, and even there I felt like the pace was slow and easy for the top kids. If you put those kids into classes with even less academically apt, less focused children, those top kids are going to be bored out of their mind and wasting their time. Do we truly want to waste the ti…

> bored out of their mind and wasting their time.

Wasting their time wouldn't even be much of a problem. Many become really destructive and it can result in them dropping out. A bored kid will not have iron discipline, maybe especially not the smart ones.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#104

Post by detaro »

endisneigh wrote: post #98
_hilro wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> word such as segregation, which has connotations of 'by design' My entire comment does not rest on a false premise. 1) My comment commented on the use of the word segregation and it's implications. * and 2) the fact that the program is not racially segregated using any dictionary definition of the word. > Segregation is defined by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance as "the act by which a (natura…

Webster, Dictionary.com, Oxford and others define segregation as: > separated or divided along racial, sexual, or religious lines. Perhaps the NYC editor was using that definition. If you use any of those definitions, then yes your comment is objectively incorrect.

And several of those also provide definitions that include explicit policy of doing so, further reinforcing the point that the connotation exists.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#105

Post by threatofrain »

bloooop wrote: post #71
_hilro wrote: post #13

> But the highly selective and racially segregated program will be replaced for incoming students. Wow, using a word such as segregation, which has connotations of 'by design' sure lays bare their hand. Just to be clear, there is no segregation(of any kind) amongst the students in the program. In fact, there is no segregation at all. There's just not equal representation of the makey-uppy USA racial classifications.…

It's important to realize that the program is segregated by intent and by design. The segregation is NOT accidental. That's true of many of the gifted-and-talented programs in the US. That's not fundamental, and not true of many of the gifted-and-talented programs worldwide. Worldwide, such programs are meritocratic pathways to socioeconomic mobility. In the US, the story is much more complex. Most such programs were…

Under your perspective, were NY gifted and talented programs designed to exclude blacks but include Asians (among the poorest demographics in NYC) as the largest plurality? And why?

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#106

Post by endisneigh »

detaro wrote: post #104
endisneigh wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Webster, Dictionary.com, Oxford and others define segregation as: > separated or divided along racial, sexual, or religious lines. Perhaps the NYC editor was using that definition. If you use any of those definitions, then yes your comment is objectively incorrect.

And several of those also provide definitions that include explicit policy of doing so, further reinforcing the point that the connotation exists.

Sure, but words have different definitions. My point is that a charitable read of the article is using the definition that applies in this scenario per the article, and therefore the original comment is incorrect.

Obviously an uncharitable read can lead one to dismiss the intentions of everyone involved.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#107

Post by seoaeu »

refenestrator wrote: post #12
civilized wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I just don’t buy into the narrative that any one ethnic group owns admission to these schools.” - Richard Carranza, former NYC school chancellor The bigotry from certain "progressives" is just staggering.

It's a test. The test, as far as I know, doesn't include the question "are you asian".

HN regularly has threads full of complaints about how whiteboard interviews don't test the right things and unfairly harm a subset of people that doesn't correlate well to programming ability. It doesn't seem that implausible that the test the district is using has similar flaws in selecting gifted students

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#108

Post by endisneigh »

tomp wrote: post #101
endisneigh wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single counterexample doesn't invalidate a trend, lol. One could say Nigerian immigrants, coming from the richest country in Africa, would show better outcomes over other African immigrants. Oh wait, they do.

A single counterexample does invalidate a theory that poor Black American ( not other black immigrants') performance is caused by poverty and/or racism.

OK, but I never said it's caused by poverty

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#109

Post by geofft »

_hilro wrote: post #36
bitwize wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a school system or program doesn't have enough black kids in it, it is by definition segregated. School antisegregation laws care nothing for intent, only for effect.

> If a school system or program doesn't have enough black kids in it, it is by definition segregated. No, it is literally not "by definition" segregated. Using the phrase 'by definition' is not that powerful a modifier that every word that surrounds it suddenly becomes true. That's the most nonsense thing ever. Secondly, read the line I quoted: > highly selective and racially segregated program The program is not rac…

I grew up in a school district in the deep south that was racially segregated, as found by the court system, until a month before I graduated.

This was in 2006. Not last century.

The school district didn't, of course, test people by race or have a Colored Students High School or whatever. What they did was to put schools and school zones in ways that happened to line up with strong demographic differences in swaths of the city. My elementary school was in a white part of the city, and I can remember maybe two black classmates. My middle school (because that's where they put the gifted and talented program, as it happens) was in a black part of the city, and from my memory it felt like a majority of the students who were zoned to be there were black.

This school district was, once again, "racially segregated" in the eyes of the law. The law didn't ask whether the school district officials were motivated by racism in how they drew the lines; that's simply not what the term means.

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