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New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

nytimes.com

231–240 of 274 posts

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

#231

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…

> Activists have gutted admissions at Thomas Jefferson high school in Fairfax, VA, arguably the top public high school in the US because it had a high percentage of Asians. Lowell High school admissions in SF, a top 100 high school, underwent the exact same thing because of its high percentage of Asians. Now NYC is doing the same thing. At Harvard, the admissions department openly discriminates against Asians by sayi…

>Math promotes white nationalism

Jesus they've completely lost their minds!

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

#232

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…

One of the first openly racist interactions I ever witnessed in the US was a white guy hurling slurs at a Vietnamese friend of mine. Asians are definitely in a strange predicament here.

It's almost like you can be racist to anyone.

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

#233

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…

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

Have they? The admission criteria is based on scores. The school is disproportionately filled with over-achievers who happen to be Asian.

> 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

How is that so?

> Mix the schools up, let cultural overachievers be dispersed instead of consolidated

How is that supposed to help anyone?

> all I can say is.. welcome to the rest of the country? Shitty public schools is the most American thing ever!

Because someone eats junk food I should have to eat it too?

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

#234

That's a terrible shame, G&T was the last reprieve from the mediocre school environment created by children whose parents don't own any books. If they did any reading they wouldn't vote for Deblasio, though..

Hah, good thought. DeBlasio is quite popular among the woke bourgeoisie. Most complaints I hear are about him not being radical enough.

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

#235

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…

> Yes, NYC's specialized public schools have become heavily disproportionately filled by its Asian and Asian-American population. Have they? The admission criteria is based on scores. The school is disproportionately filled with over-achievers who happen to be Asian. > 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 sc…

My supposition is that the mayor's reaction isn't because of the presence of Asian persons.

As a reflection of the American culture, the idea that the system is proposed to be dismantled because of Asian presence is also not supported.

I'm just here to argue that.

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

#236

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.

So they are robbing 4000 Black and Latino kids of the opportunity to participate in a program specifically tailored for overachievers like them?

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

#237
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

This is the paper I had in mind: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584156221...

> Students of color are underrepresented in gifted programs relative to White students, but the reasons for this underrepresentation are poorly understood. We investigate the predictors of gifted assignment using nationally representative, longitudinal data on elementary students. We document that even among students with high standardized test scores, Black students are less likely to be assigned to gifted services in both math and reading, a pattern that persists when controlling for other background factors, such as health and socioeconomic status, and characteristics of classrooms and schools. We then investigate the role of teacher discretion, leveraging research from political science suggesting that clients of government services from traditionally underrepresented groups benefit from diversity in the providers of those services, including teachers. Even after conditioning on test scores and other factors, Black students indeed are referred to gifted programs, particularly in reading, at significantly lower rates when taught by non-Black teachers, a concerning result given the relatively low incidence of assignment to own-race teachers among Black students.

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

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So they are robbing 4000 Black and Latino kids of the opportunity to participate in a program specifically tailored for overachievers like them?

What is an overachiever? How much should a person achieve?

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

#239
The segregated G&T model has been shown to make education worse for both students tracked into G&T and those not compared doing same classroom, student-adapted assignments universally—aside from the problems in identification that provide lots of opportunity for subtle and not-so-subtle social factors other than merit to play a role, so if this is executed well, it's good. And there outline I've seen in other articles (not bothering to try to bypass the Times paywall) looks good:

* Eliminate the high stakes test for four-year olds that controls the entrance gate to accelerated programs.

* Expand accelerated programs to all 800 schools instead of 80.

* Train all kindergarten (initially) teachers in student-specific accelerated teaching.

* Hire additional experienced teachers in areas where acclerated programs will be new.

* Screen all students at third-grade for additional subject-area-specific accelerated programs, still to be delivered in mixed classrooms.

Obviously, the details of execution beyond high-level bullet points matter a lot, but this sounds quite good. And even if the plan was excellent, starting a controversial thing on the way out without institutional and leadership continuity of vision to carry it through is very much not ideal.

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

#240

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…

> And in NYC, Asians are the poorest demographic by a large margin.

False. Asians are the second highest income demographic, second only to whites: https://wherewelive.cityofnewyork.us/wp-content/uploads/2019...

So you can still make a case that the tests for G&T measure the wealth available for test preparation.

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