Live data from Hacker News

New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

nytimes.com

221–230 of 274 posts

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

#221

The inconvenient truth about NYC G&T program is that it is 40% Asian. Asians have dominated the G&T program, even "stealing" spots from white kids where 43% of NYC is white, but only 35% of spots taken by white kids. And Asians are dominating the NYC G&T program NOT because of hundreds of years of systemic racism, NOT because Asians wrote the admissions tests an inbueing cultural bias, and NOT by cheating or bribing…

> 43% of NYC is white, but only 35% of spots taken by white kids.

The NYT deftly avoids mentioning this by stating it as

> Though about 70 percent of the roughly 1 million public school students in New York are Black and Latino, about 75 percent of the roughly 16,000 students in gifted elementary school classes are white or Asian American.

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

#223
post #116
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Race does not exist genetically. https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-res...

That's true... but then "racism" cannot exist. So people keep the idea on life support. Maybe culturalism is a better word.

Not if race is a social construct.

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

#224

The inconvenient truth about NYC G&T program is that it is 40% Asian. Asians have dominated the G&T program, even "stealing" spots from white kids where 43% of NYC is white, but only 35% of spots taken by white kids. And Asians are dominating the NYC G&T program NOT because of hundreds of years of systemic racism, NOT because Asians wrote the admissions tests an inbueing cultural bias, and NOT by cheating or bribing…

I don't really get that undercurrent to the decision making processes here.

Yes, NYC's specialized public schools have become heavily disproportionately filled by its Asian and Asian-American population.

The competitive forces and consolidation does a disservice to them and the rest of the admitted population as well.

When a 4.2 GPA overachieving student can't get selected to good universities or other opportunities because of all the 4.5 GPA students at the same school, that undermines the point of the system. And that system also has the side effect of exacerbating segregation?

And you want to defend it by making it about other Americans focusing specifically on disrupting Asian achievement? I understand your sentiment is and has been shared and represents a collective assumption with some groups in NYC, but its a huge stretch! The other perspective is that it just doesn't accomplish externalities well. Mix the schools up, let cultural overachievers be dispersed instead of consolidated, the mindshare will help the overall local population better.

I agree that public schools should be about education, so focus on fixing where the education occurs. Try to get better teachers and materials to other parts of the city! Yes, if your child is trying to go through school before any of this better infrastructure is set up, I can see how defensive one would be about it, I can see why the low hanging fruit of "they dont want us/my race to win" is the goto argument, but all I can say is.. welcome to the rest of the country? Shitty public schools is the most American thing ever!

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real thing about the asians is: There is a whole narrative that people are equal and have same capabilities. Anyone can be a sport start if trains enough or a super scientist if study enough. Then looking at statistics it is not true. The same people with cognitive dissonance claim that because social factors, etc. Usually whites get a better treatment thus because and only because of that they have better repres…

Asians are not genetically more intelligent than other races. If this were the case, Asia would be more of a powerhouse than just the "factory workers of the world". Only a small amount of innovation is coming out of Asia compared to the US. Asians in the US are more motivated to study, it's the culture. It doesn't take a lot of dedication to studying to get a major advantage over those that don't study as hard.

China used to be the first world power and economy a few hundred years ago. And they are slowly but surely reclaiming that title.

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

#226
post #91
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…

> There is some emerging evidence that this is the case for Black students, as the identification gap between Black and White students closes when the G&T assessor is Black

Could you provide details on this? My impression had been that for magnet high schools the only admissions evaluation was made on the basis of test scores, but you make it sound like admissions are more subjective, with an "assessor".

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

#227
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in NYC, Asians are the poorest demographic by a large margin. Do you have evidence for this? Asians are by far the richest minority in the US so I was surprised by this statement. > Activists have no problems openly discriminating against Asians because whites, blacks and Latinos think of "Americans" as whites, blacks and Latinos. Asians are considered foreigners. So when a prestigious program is dominated by Asian…

> Diversity means increasing representation. In a situation with limited resources, increasing representation for all means decreasing representation for some. This is the natural conclusion to pushing for equality/representation. This is the natural result of equality of outcomes, which is achieved by dragging down the top to meet those who can't excel. That is not at all what most people mean by equality, and is fr…

They confuse the word equality with equity of outcome

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

#228

The inconvenient truth about NYC G&T program is that it is 40% Asian. Asians have dominated the G&T program, even "stealing" spots from white kids where 43% of NYC is white, but only 35% of spots taken by white kids. And Asians are dominating the NYC G&T program NOT because of hundreds of years of systemic racism, NOT because Asians wrote the admissions tests an inbueing cultural bias, and NOT by cheating or bribing…

I don't really get that undercurrent to the decision making processes here. Yes, NYC's specialized public schools have become heavily disproportionately filled by its Asian and Asian-American population. The competitive forces and consolidation does a disservice to them and the rest of the admitted population as well. When a 4.2 GPA overachieving student can't get selected to good universities or other opportunities…

That's not how cultural overachievers work though. Group overachievers together and they form a stronger culture of achievement. Split them up and they stop achieving.

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

#229

I am generally quite liberal but I strongly disagree with he current strain of progressive education reform. There are inherent differences within the capabilities of students, we can detect these early, and we should use them to provide students with appropriate challenges. Our education system should provide avenues for top students to excel, ad hopefully these top students become the people who create businesses o…

Yes, kids are different. That does not mean that existing systems do a good or fair job of determining which kids would benefit from special programs. My experience being in a "gifted" program in middle and high school in Florida was that the students in the program had parents who knew enough to get them tested. That alone marks a privileged class. I sincerely believe that if every student had been tested, the makeu…

The difference is what you describe, every kid takes the tests now because they are standardized.

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

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get that undercurrent to the decision making processes here. Yes, NYC's specialized public schools have become heavily disproportionately filled by its Asian and Asian-American population. The competitive forces and consolidation does a disservice to them and the rest of the admitted population as well. When a 4.2 GPA overachieving student can't get selected to good universities or other opportunities…

That's not how cultural overachievers work though. Group overachievers together and they form a stronger culture of achievement. Split them up and they stop achieving.

might need a patch for that. the rest of America requires a support system and some distribution of self motivated exist through any set up
Post reply on HN