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

#101

Post by otoburb » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 4:38 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…

>>[...] but they should encourage the underrepresented ethnicities to do better, [...]

This policy change is exactly that - an attempt to encourage poorly performing students to do better, where a large majority of poorly performing students also happen to be underrepresented ethnicities. The NYC Department of Education has and continues to try many actions to increase educational outcomes for their students overall -- de Blasio is trying to accelerate the process before he's out of office.

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

#102

Post by ytpete » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 4:41 AM UTC

confiscate wrote: post #91

squiggleblaz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where is the right place to change pipeline demographics? The problem is that certain groups are intergenerationally poor. One mechanism that is available to us to fix that is education. So this isn't the end of the pipeline, it's just the start of the next pipe. Where do you propose we intervene? Should we give a cushy job to the parents of every disadvantaged minority person as soon as they're born? Maybe we sh…

You intervene when the student is still learning the material, before the test. You do not intervene after the test. At that point the learning process for that material is already over. The student has already "missed out" on the learning opportunity. You would just be giving a good grade to someone who doesn't know the material. Yes we need to help folks who are intergenerationally poor. But, you do that by helping…

> You are not helping them by lowering the bar for them.

But you are helping underperforming students by placing them into top schools, comingled with better students - lots of research shows that. So lowering the bar for admission really does help.

I think the open question is how that balances against the cost of having fewer slots available at those top schools for the very best students.

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

#103

Post by otoburb » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 4:43 AM UTC

iosDrone wrote: post #50

ericdykstra wrote: post #20

The entire doctrine of Disparate Impact, and Affirmative Action which is borne from it, is one of the most illiberal policies in America. I really hope a constitutionalist Supreme Court can reverse this madness. On Affirmative Action in specific, here's a great interview from Sowell about the unintended consequences that arise from the awful policy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvnTByzTmA

It will be ruled unconstitutional within two years. The way to stop discrimination based on race is to stop discriminating based on race.

de Blasio already thought about this. The criteria has nothing to do with race, and is clearly about academic performance. The intended outcome and policy itself is driven internally by diversity, but the actual criteria doesn't (and probably cannot) mention race in any way, shape or form.

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

#104

Post by justinpombrio » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 4:44 AM UTC

zeth___ wrote: post #72

justinpombrio wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>It's hard to educate yourself well if your family is poor, I hear. Have a look at the incomes of immigrants to the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U... The top 20: Ethnic Group Income in US Home country GDP PPP Ratio Indian American $110026 $7,174.00 15.3367716754948 Taiwanese American $90221 $49,827.00 1.81068496999619 Filipino American $88745 $8,229.00 10.7844209502977 Australian Ame…

What's the second number there, e.g. $7,174.00, and where did you get it?

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

#105

Post by mrchicity » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 4:46 AM UTC

imbokodo wrote: post #51

There is a class if people who do not work, whose parents did not work, who themselves have parents who do not work. The type seen in the documentary "Born Rich". They get into the best universities as legacies. You never hear talk of this idle class ensconced in inherited privilege and luxury. However, a few decades after Americans were lynching those of African descent, blowing up their little girls while they're g…

Some rich heir being a shoe in at Harvard where he skips half his classes and takes a spot from someone with academic interests bothers me too. It's not fair.

But I'm a bit less skeeved out by a school administrator judging someone as an individual, even if it's for a crappy reason like dad being a donor, than having them admit or deny someone just based on the color of their skin.

Just as I would rather work for a boss who hired his buddy from the country club, but harbored no prejudice, than one who refused to hire blacks, Jews, Asians, etc. who met the job requirements.

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

#106

Post by jacobolus » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 5:03 AM UTC

dilap wrote: post #99

otoburb wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking and ability grouping have documented negative impacts on weak students. Placing a student in a remedial class becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, increasing the likelihood that his academic performance will fall further behind, and lowering the odds that he will complete high school. These students learn better in classrooms shared with higher-performing students. However, those higher-performing students ge…

The results of policies like these is that people with money will take their kids out of public schools. Smart kids w/o money will get screwed. Not everyone is going to have equal interests and abilities. Bright kids deserve an educational environment where they can be challenged and develop their full potential.

> Bright kids deserve an educational environment where they can be challenged and develop their full potential.

All kids in public schools deserve that.

It just takes more resources than we as a society are willing to spend, especially when it comes to schools serving mostly poor brown kids in poor neighborhoods.

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

#107

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 5:06 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #34

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 educatio…

[deleted]

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

#108

Post by otoburb » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 5:20 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #106

dilap wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results of policies like these is that people with money will take their kids out of public schools. Smart kids w/o money will get screwed. Not everyone is going to have equal interests and abilities. Bright kids deserve an educational environment where they can be challenged and develop their full potential.

> Bright kids deserve an educational environment where they can be challenged and develop their full potential. All kids in public schools deserve that. It just takes more resources than we as a society are willing to spend, especially when it comes to schools serving mostly poor brown kids in poor neighborhoods.

>All kids in public schools deserve that.

Teachers and students find it easier to teach and learn in an environment where most of the children score higher on standardized tests and are also generally more compliant. All kids in public schools deserve an environment where they can develop their full potential, but "the system" seems to have a harder time fulfilling that purpose for students who don't score well on tests or who aren't as compliant.

>It just takes more resources than we as a society are willing to spend, especially when it comes to schools serving mostly poor brown kids in poor neighborhoods.

Evidently, NYC spends the most per student than any other city or state in the country[1]. Also, schools that serve mostly poor students in poor neighborhoods are more likely to be eligible to receive additional funds via Title I, although to your point some people believe that the extra $500-$600 per student for Title I schools (i.e. schools where free or reduced-lunch criteria exceeds 40%) is still insufficient to counteract the effects of poverty on student achievement[2].

[1] https://nypost.com/2017/06/14/ny-spends-more-money-per-stude...

[2] https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-federal-spending-on-d...

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

#109

Post by confiscate » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 5:25 AM UTC

ytpete wrote: post #102

confiscate wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You intervene when the student is still learning the material, before the test. You do not intervene after the test. At that point the learning process for that material is already over. The student has already "missed out" on the learning opportunity. You would just be giving a good grade to someone who doesn't know the material. Yes we need to help folks who are intergenerationally poor. But, you do that by helping…

> You are not helping them by lowering the bar for them. But you are helping underperforming students by placing them into top schools, comingled with better students - lots of research shows that. So lowering the bar for admission really does help. I think the open question is how that balances against the cost of having fewer slots available at those top schools for the very best students.

I don't know what research you are pointing to.

But I am pretty sure that if, say, a student can't pass a multiplication test, but you give that student an A+ anyways, and then let that student into a "top calculus class", that's going to hurt the student more than it helps.

Ya sure the student gets to mingle with better students. But what you would usually get is, the student would end up being someone who mentions a lot of buzz words like "fractal integrals" just to fit in, but have zero idea what is going on, or what is being taught in class.

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

#110

Post by dilap » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 5:28 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #106

dilap wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results of policies like these is that people with money will take their kids out of public schools. Smart kids w/o money will get screwed. Not everyone is going to have equal interests and abilities. Bright kids deserve an educational environment where they can be challenged and develop their full potential.

> Bright kids deserve an educational environment where they can be challenged and develop their full potential. All kids in public schools deserve that. It just takes more resources than we as a society are willing to spend, especially when it comes to schools serving mostly poor brown kids in poor neighborhoods.

100% agree. I just don't think the way to do that is by lowering standards, or by assuming that all kids are going to have the same abilities and interests.