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

newyorker.com

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

#51

Post by imbokodo »

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 going to church, executing them for voter registration drives etc. - a few decades after that if an attempt is made to push blacks at Stuyvesant above the 1 in 45 mark, in a city where 1 in 4 are black - then, only then do we hear about the need for meritocracy and so on. From the mouth of a man who got a "small loan of a million dollars" from his father, with his son-in-law who, according to Daniel Golden, bought his way into Harvard.

When am I going to see the articles about legacy admissions to the top colleges? I won't hold my breath.

Luxury for the idle class at the top, the rat race (with some national oppression of Africans, Lakota etc. thrown in) for everyone else. No thanks, I'll keep my sickle sharpened for a higher target.

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

#52

Post by mrchicity »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #33
dilap wrote: post #11

Here's another, more critical take on the plan: https://quillette.com/2018/06/27/bill-de-blasios-plan-to-pur... I think it's terrible. It's robbing poor kids of a rare opportunity to get a first-rate education, to make elites feel better about themselves. If you insist that the racial demographics of the schools match those of the city, a much better way to do it is to keep the admissions test, but simply take the to…

the supreme court declared racial quotas illegal.

Yes, instead we have holistic approaches which schools refuse to document for proprietary competitive reasons, and that holistic process has the same outcome as a racial quota. Very odd case.

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

#53

Post by cardplayer »

More than 50% of the global population lives in Asia and less than 5% live in North America.

It makes complete sense that wealthy-to-middle class Asians would displace white students to a lesser degree and other communities of color to a higher degree in closely located Western countries with strong schools and favorable immigration policies.

By 2050, would it be so strange that the majority of applicants and students of elite western schools would be Asian?

Other communities will be forced to attend less prestigious institutions until Asian schools hold stronger apppeal with the wealthier citizens in their countries.

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

#54

Post by Fomite »

manfredo wrote: post #37
Fomite wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The suggestion is that educational outcomes are already favoring people by race, just with a veneer laid over it, and we're revisiting the question as to whether or not that's working.

I may be reading too much into your use of the word "favoring", but I think it's not safe to assume that any disparate outcome is the effect of favoring certain races. Certainly, educational outcomes differ by race but there are non-discriminatory factors that can play a large role, such as time dedicated towards academics [1]. In other words, I think it's worth asking whether it's the education system that's favorin…

I agree - all I'm saying is that claiming the old system doesn't favor people by race (in the way you're meaning, where it tilts the scales in particular direction) isn't trivially demonstrable.

Higher Ed has been struggling with this for awhile. It's not clear that a major emphasis on test scores isn't just putting a quantitative spackle on a biased system, and then declaring the job done.

Especially in a system with such a complicated background as public schooling.

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

#55

Post by iosDrone »

icelancer wrote: post #35
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…

>> Test scores are race-blind and fair. Kind of. There is a fair criticism to be made about tests being unintentionally culturally slanted towards the people that make them, often white Americans. Of course, in this case, your point is correct, since the people that are overindexing on the tests are Asian-Americans.

Can you provide some examples of cultural bias? People almost never provide examples.

I thought that was always a bullshit excuse, especially considering that these test scores closely track IQ scores.

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

#56

Post by desu_ »

tylerhou wrote: post #7
guard0g wrote: post #2

First Stuy, then UofC goes test-optional, and now CMU eliminating demonstrated interest in their application process...the race to mediocrity.

Why does CMU admit more mediocre candidates if they eliminate demonstrated interest? Visiting campus doesn't really say anything about how talented/hard working a candidate is -- all it does is signal that they have enough money and time to visit.

You are right that visiting the campus is a weak signal.

However, the decision came with a plethora of other decisions, some probably fair, some more reminiscent of the Asians-have-bad-personalities trick à la Harvard.

We're eliminating demonstrated interest as a consideration in our admission paradigm. We'll no longer encourage supplementary submission of materials, including resumes, research abstracts, writing samples, multimedia demonstrations of talents, and maker portfolios.

https://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/eliminating-demon...

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

#57

Post by iosDrone »

mrchicity wrote: post #48
Fomite wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Test scores are race-blind and fair." This is not axiomatically true.

Why are they unfair? I've heard the old saw about the 1980s SATs asking some analogy with a regatta:yacht, but what bias has been uncovered lately? And why is this bias mostly helping Asians, a minority group, who more likely to be learning English as a second language?

I was under the impression that the test-makers have scrupulously avoided culturally-biased questions for decades, and yet left-leaning people casually continue tossing it around as part of their war on merit.

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

#58

Post by antoncohen »

San Francisco went through a similar thing. The best public high schools in SF (namely Lowell) per predominantly Chinese-American. The NAACP sued the school district (NAACP v. San Francisco Unified School District), resulting in race-based admissions in 1983 to reduce the number of Chinese-Americans at the best schools

Then in 1994 Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District happened, and race-based admissions got thrown out.

If you look at the racial demographics of public high schools in San Francisco it is pretty interesting. Of the 10 major schools only two of them have over 10% white students. Those are the only two that only admit students that meet special requirements. One is Lowell (academically the best) with 15.2% white, the other is SOTA (an arts school that requires auditions) with 41.3% white. Lowell is 56.7% Asian, while SOTA is 19.0% Asian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_High_School_(San_Franci...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Asawa_San_Francisco_Schoo...

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

#59

Post by guard0g »

Around the country, there's a concerted effort to eliminate magnet schools for much the same rationale. Wealthy NY folks send their kids to private schools like Dalton, Trinity, Packer, etc... Why not make a system that seeks economic parity rather racial parity, and eliminate the moats around private schools?

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

#60

Post by cardplayer »

dilap wrote: post #11

Here's another, more critical take on the plan: https://quillette.com/2018/06/27/bill-de-blasios-plan-to-pur... I think it's terrible. It's robbing poor kids of a rare opportunity to get a first-rate education, to make elites feel better about themselves. If you insist that the racial demographics of the schools match those of the city, a much better way to do it is to keep the admissions test, but simply take the to…

More than 50% of the global population lives in Asia and less than 5% live in North America.

By 2050, would it be so strange if the majority of applicants and students of elite western schools would be Asian?

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