Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 624 posts

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#411

Post by donatj »

rayiner wrote: post #311

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…

I was with you right up to

> But it’s a few thousand dollars if that (as low as under $1,000) which is reachable to all but destitute families.

Selling my blue collar parents on $1,000 to slightly improve my chances of getting into a slightly better school so I could spend even more money? That’s absolutely not happening. I’d have gotten a pat on the back and told there’s no shame in community college.

I think you misjudge how people see that value proposition. There are certainly blue collar parents who see value in a prestigious education, but most maybe rightfully don’t.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#412

Post by giantg2 »

alistairSH wrote: post #409
giantg2 wrote: post #395

It seems ridiculous that we are denying opportunities to people who have worked hard and done well on the objective measures. Especially when it comes to public schools, the opportunities should be equal. Set objective criteria for acceptance, advanced placement, etc. Then stick to it. We shouldn't be holding opportunities away from someone because if their heritage, or someone else's heritage. We have a STEM academy…

Set objective criteria for acceptance, advanced placement, etc. Then stick to it. We shouldn't be holding opportunities away from someone because if their heritage, or someone else's heritage. The new criteria were objective, just different. They dropped the admissions test, which was a sort of SAT-lite exam, instead relying more on previous academic achievement. The impact of this was brining women to near parity in…

"Among other things, standardized testing requirements were eliminated, and subjective admission criteria were added in an effort to deny slots to Asian-Americans and boost enrollment among blacks and Hispanics."

Emphasis mine. They added subjective criteria. That's the problem. Removing standardized tests and relying on GPA or something would be fine.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#413

Post by rhino369 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #391
rhino369 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate, these tests are supposed to test aptitude to predict ability to learn--not test what you already know. They are more akin to an IQ test than a bar exam or medical board exams that test your knowledge. If just you want to test their ability to perform in school, why aren't grades the better metric? It is very likely that increased preparation of the test reduces the tests ability to predict a…

> If just you want to test their ability to perform in school, why aren't grades the better metric? Because grades are not independently assessed by a third party? No matter what the theory behind it, the SAT is really, really close to an independent test of learned material. And many people would surely argue that having your prerequisites down pat and being fully ready for subsequent learning is at least a major pa…

It's really not meant to be an independent test of learned material. It's meant to be an aptitude test.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#414

Post by alistairSH »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #357
rayiner wrote: post #311

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…

- Your family bothered enough to think about sending you there, rather than spending time keeping up with the Joneses for the latest model of garden sprinkler

- Your family quietly put down one thousand(!) dollars towards additional education instead of complaining about the schooling endlessly over $15 bottomless mimosas on Saturday

You really think economically disadvantaged families are sitting around sipping mimosas and worrying about garden sprinklers? Wow.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#415

Post by rayiner »

ipnon wrote: post #100

It's discrimination any way you slice it. You can't lower the bar for one person without raising it for another so long as the class sizes remain the same. If elite universities are about providing education (a valid point of critical contention), then systematically barring Asians from entry is the same class of injustice litigated in Brown v. Board of Education. It's not enough to say you can learn calculus just as…

Note that most Americans of all races, including Black people, oppose the practice of race conscious admissions: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ....

People of all races also overwhelmingly oppose consideration of race in hiring: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/05/08/america....

In California, Prop 16 failed in every single majority Hispanic county. It’s a minority of mostly white progressives pushing this stuff.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#416

Post by SyzygistSix »

mc32 wrote: post #344
Miner49er wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

What’s more important to get a kid, a new iPhone or some education? Americans mostly don’t do after school reinforcement education because it’s not in our culture —unlike Asian cultures where buxibans are pretty much the rule. People will putt around in very old cars which need replacement in order to afford being able to send their kids to after school classes. We’d rather get new sneakers, iPhones or whatever else…

That is certainly a factor but I'm not sure it is all we need to know.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#417

Post by sokoloff »

rhino369 wrote: post #413
zozbot234 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If just you want to test their ability to perform in school, why aren't grades the better metric? Because grades are not independently assessed by a third party? No matter what the theory behind it, the SAT is really, really close to an independent test of learned material. And many people would surely argue that having your prerequisites down pat and being fully ready for subsequent learning is at least a major pa…

It's really not meant to be an independent test of learned material. It's meant to be an aptitude test.

At the point where you’re entering college, how well you’ve mastered and can apply the basic math that SAT tests basically is your mathematical aptitude in the “suitability or fitness” or “likely to succeed at college math/engineering/science/logic” sense of the word.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#418

Post by quadrifoliate »

ransom1538 wrote: post #367
quadrifoliate wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> We have google now. I don't need to know the capital of Ukraine - I can just google it.

That's not the point. The point is to be able to retain that memory so you can form a unified view of the world and not have to resort to Google all the time. Did you think encyclopedias, dictionaries, and world maps didn't exist before Google?

> I still haven't been asked to solve a differential equation at work.

The skills you used in figuring out which method to apply and the accuracy in not making mistakes during integration, etc. will help you every day.

> 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 ...and, it is this sort of reductive thinking that's causing the US to fall behind in STEM. I will leave it to the reader to figure out how Boyle's Law literally applies to rocket science.

> 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.

Again, a false dichotomy. You can have plenty of fun in 3rd grade summer without needing every second of it needing to be some kind of Elysian playground.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#419

Post by zozbot234 »

SyzygistSix wrote: post #290
uejfiweun wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Criminal justice reform has always been an interest of enlightened conservatives and libertarians, not liberals. We all know that Biden talked about "super predators" and pushed tough-on-crime policies which are clearly failing today. The BLM protests have really forced the policymakers' hand, but these protests came from the grassroots not from the liberal elite.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#420

Post by DebtDeflation »

ejb999 wrote: post #276
lazide wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grade inflation has made GPA pointless at most schools.

that, and then the highschools where they have 30 or 40 'valedictorians' in one graduating class. Now the term 'valedictorian' has also become meaningless as well. When everyone is a valedictorian, nobody is.

>the highschools where they have 30 or 40 'valedictorians' in one graduating class.

What? The definition of a valedictorian is literally "the student (singular) with the highest academic standing in the graduating class" just as the salutatorian is defined as the student (again, singular) with the second highest standing.

Post reply on HN