People find the truth that standardized testing and school placement is mostly expressive of IQ uncomfortable. IQ is mostly genetic. When this doesn't evenly distribute across people groups people find it problematic. Again, this truth is uncomfortable. North east Asians in the US at or below the poverty line score better on average on the SAT than African-Americans from households with incomes above 100k. If there w…
IQ is neither fixed for a given person over their lifetime nor is it objectively measurable across different populations.
> But it’s a few thousand dollars if that (as low as under $1,000) which is reachable to all but destitute families. I live in Arlington, so not Fairfax, but in a neighborhood that borders Fairfax (and not really that far away from TJ either). The median household income for our census tract was about a 3rd of the county's average, ~$40k vs ~$120k when I looked into it a few years back. Which is also indicative of th…
I got the impression that he meant $1,000 total, not recurring. Surely most people can scrape together $1,000 over years, if it’s made a priority.
A potential disconnect is the timeframes, I would guess they went to school there decades ago? I have limited direct experience with the tutoring market here, having moved to the area as an adult without kids, but do have a family member and a colleague who did it for some extra cash and the costs I was hearing then (~4-5 years ago) were more like thousands. If I think about folks with kids on my block - again, limited to my direct experience (although within a fairly dense and lower income neighborhood), people are working as movers, maids, day laborers, random car fixing and odd jobs, etc. I wouldn't doubt that the next step up of folks like construction workers or mechanics employed full-time could cover a cheaper tutor, but these costs are simply not negligible. It's not a cheap place to live in to begin with.
> So, an individual Asian student needs to score much higher to have a chance at Harvard, compared to students of other ethnicities. That's very blatantly racial discrimination. > This amounts to, "sorry, we have enough people of your color, so we're gonna make it harder for you to get in." That's wrong. Period. "The law of unintended consequences" ... what are they going to do if the target demographic (in this case…
> "The law of unintended consequences" ... what are they going to do if the target demographic (in this case Asians) start their own merit-based and academic-based colleges and universities? You're asking what people would do if those who couldn't get into university address the issue by building a new university, thereby increasing supply? "Celebrate," I'd assume.
One of the reasons why MIT has the reputation it has, is because MIT admitted lots of smart Jewish students who couldn't get into Harvard... because they were Jewish. (Keeping the Jews out was once largely the point behind Harvard's selective admissions process.)
If, today, Harvard is keeping Asians out, it means more smart, eager Asian students to be recruited by other universities, which just might rise in status for admitting those students.
I attended TJ, back when it was about 30% Asian. I’ve always felt like the school should do more to get more underrepresented minorities. I’ve found the recent efforts very off-putting however. It’s based on a modern strain of social justice ideology that adopts some very ugly assumptions about Asians. I’m reminded of Alison Collins in San Francisco, who called Asians “house n—-ers” and said they use “white supremaci…
> And they act like the cost makes it unattainable for anyone else. But it’s a few thousand dollars if that (as low as under $1,000) which is reachable to all but destitute families This strikes me as extremely out of touch. I would think this cost is unattainable for a large chunk of American families. If it were true, and the cost was so clearly worth it, then why isn't every kid in America doing test prep?
"Do these Asian students have an unfair advantage because their affluent parents can afford to pay for expensive test prep, as Mayor de Blasio has suggested? At Stuyvesant, as critics of the de Blasio plan have pointed out, 46 percent of students qualify for free or subsidized lunches, a common measure of very modest financial circumstances. Many of the Asian families whose children go to Stuyvesant and the other specialized schools are poor. Many of them are immigrants, or the first people in their families to be born in the United States. Many of them live in households where English isn't spoken. They are not children of privilege gaming the system, but newcomers working to realize the American dream.
...
But in addition to pushing their children, China- and Korean-born parents, according to the "tiger mom" theory, sacrifice their own immediate needs to provide their kids with the resources they need to succeed."
Nobody believes this, unless that's a particularly tortured way of describing the model minority[1] phenomenon. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_minority
"White adjacent" is a real term used non-ironically by (at least some) progressives to describe Asians and some Middle Eastern groups.
As stupid as the term seems the idea that they don't have the same problems that other minority communities currently have and enjoy the same degree of accomplishment and privilege (as much as I hate to use that word) as white people isn't entirely invalid.
You have to understand, this is the last dying throes of a liberal fire that has been raging for hundreds of years. Liberalism has achieved great things in the west, including expanding the rights of women, minorities, and LGBT individuals. We are all better off for its achievements. However, the low hanging fruit is taken, and now the same activists that once fought for noble goals are reduced to taking ever more di…
You make it seem like the US no longer has an issue when there's an entire class of people who are not being educated, has high crime, and ending in mass incarceration. I can accept that some people have an issue with current liberal ideas because they think they don't work. If so, what is going to work? Or is the current state inevitable in order to have the high-functioning economy that the US has? Certainly more H…
> there's an entire class of people who are not being educated, has high crime, and ending in mass incarceration.
I attended TJ, back when it was about 30% Asian. I’ve always felt like the school should do more to get more underrepresented minorities. I’ve found the recent efforts very off-putting however. It’s based on a modern strain of social justice ideology that adopts some very ugly assumptions about Asians. I’m reminded of Alison Collins in San Francisco, who called Asians “house n—-ers” and said they use “white supremaci…
> It consisted of going to some Indian dude’s house for an hour every Saturday for a summer. If that’s a game changer what does that say about American K-8 math education? Ironically, this is scouting round a theory I have long espoused – the failure of American K-8 math education has nothing to do with teaching , and everything to do with culture . Sure, going to some Indian dude's house every Saturday for a summer…
I always wondered if these parents raising test ninjas are doing their kids favors. We have google now. I don't need to know the capital of Ukraine - I can just google it. STEM is great to study, but most of the academics in it after 8th grade are not particularity useful. I still haven't been asked to solve a differential equation at work. I have never been asked what school I went to during an interview (i wished they cared).
Build a raseberry pi robot with a friend, start a club with friends, figure out how to build a fort in a tree, sell lemonade, build a website with friends, find out what you like to do You will have decades of sitting, staring at broken SPA apps - smelling someone cook fish in a microwave. You will never get that 3rd grade summer back.
If you're saying that we should allow individuals and companies to create their own identity policies free from government oversight, then we should allow individuals and companies to discriminate any way they want. Don't want to hire blacks, gays or Jews? Allowed. To be honest, there is a legitimate argument that this type of discrimination would be better handled through the free market. But I doubt the people who…
Is creating a purely merit-based institution really an identity policy though? I see it as an identity-blind policy, unless you define identity to include merit.
The fallacy of meritocracy. You stand on the shoulders of your parents.
If you come from a family of crackheads on the bad side of the rail tracks you already lost the race long before 8th grade.
I was curious about how the Indians handle this, too, so I read Republic of Caste by Anand Teltumbde. It's a long, rambling, but detailed description of how the reservation system was playing out in India. Broadly, he argues that any initial positive effect has been displaced by caste becoming even more of a wedge issue (each caste feeling disadvantaged unfairly and hyper-vigilant for others' corruption) and castes s…
Now it is a competition among castes to show that they are the most backward, since they would be considered for reservations then.
and this makes sense as well, I think while in practice the affirmative action in India seems ideal it is far too idealistic and one dimensional. Like just doing it on the basis of race would be in US.
Should an Asian kid coming from a family with financial difficulties be subjected to the same bias as others.
Also, I read a weird thing that in India even religions that don't have a caste system, have castes. It is interesting that Christians, Muslims can have one. It seems like that's one way to reap the benefits of the system.
>Ultimately, I can't justify the idea of rejecting students based on race, but when I look at those demographics I just don't see much to get worked up about. Really? I find it very easy. Racial discrimination is wrong. Period. You're pointing to a social discrepancy and saying "eh, maybe racial discrimination is okay because it might make the demographics more equal." I urge you to fully consider what this entails.…
> I am not of Asian descent, and I believe that a child should not be studying their childhood away. Most likely, by raising the bar for college entry in desirable schools, you only make them study more.
I would if I valued my children going to Harvard as highly as Asian parents. But I don't think that I do.