Althouse: "If you truly believe that the demographics of Hunter represent the distribution of intelligence in this city..."

August 6, 2010

"If you truly believe that the demographics of Hunter represent the distribution of intelligence in this city..."

"... then you must believe that the Upper West Side, Bayside and Flushing are intrinsically more intelligent than the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Washington Heights. And I refuse to accept that."

84 comments:

Fred4Pres said...: Intelligence is two fold, part genetics and part environment (you need a nurturing environment to realize your potential). So it is not surprising there would be some differences between different areas of the city. Because of environment. That said, there may be a flaw with the Hunter test.

If they are so smart at Hunter, why can't they fix it?; 8/6/10, 8:43 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Can't have the best schools be for the best students. That sends the wrong message.; 8/6/10, 8:47 AM
Anonymous said...: "Our diversity is our greatest strength!"

At least that's what I've been told about a million times in various corporate presentations, meetings and strategy sessions.

The faculty at Hunter cooked up this drama. They handpicked a student to deliver the diversity credo.

So, Ann, you've cited your history as a high school valedictorian. I assume test grades paved your way into law school. Your law school grades got you a job at a white shoe law firm.

All of this history of defeating other people in tests... completely bogus.

When you applied to law school, you should have been required to write a weepy statement about the difficult circumstances of your birth, and your struggle to escape the hood.

After all, diversity is our greatest strength.

Kagan's brother was in on this farce. If I was in the Senate, I would have voted against Kagan for Supreme Court justice solely on the basis of her meathead background.

Remember Meathead? Decades later, I find myself siding with Archie Bunker and generally agreeing that Meathead was... well... a meathead.

The Meatheads seem to have conquered our courts, legislatures and professions. Government by meatheads, for meatheads and by meatheads.; 8/6/10, 8:50 AM
Clyde said...: I don't think it's about intrinsic intelligence, but rather about how the various subcultures value education. For the students of an academically elite school to be 47% Asian in a school system that is 70% black and Hispanic, that speaks volumes. It's obvious that the Asian kids' parents were pushing them much harder in grades 1-6, so they were more likely to be able to pass a rigorous test for seventh grade placement into an elite school. The solution to the conundrum is not to "dumb down" the test so that less-skilled children can pass it, but for parents in underachieving communities to place a greater emphasis on their children's education and push them harder to achieve.; 8/6/10, 8:58 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: 4) "I don't think it's about intrinsic intelligence, but rather about how the various subcultures value education."

Over time, that will affect intrinsic intelligence.; 8/6/10, 9:07 AM
Fred4Pres said...: Clyde is correct about culture.

Plus every liberal knows you are only a moron if you like Sarah Palin.; 8/6/10, 9:07 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: No doubt these race-obsessed New Yorkers would also defend, say, the equal intelligence of New Yorkers and Arkansans.

Isn't it weird how nobody cares about Asians when it comes to diversity?

"We're not diverse!"
"Almost half the student body is Asian."
"Oh, yeah, Asians...hmmm... well, they don't count."
"Yeah, everybody knows Asians are smart."
"Exactly. It's like 'Oh, a lot of Asians in the gifted school--big surprise there.' Ha."
"Yeah, and the real focus here needs to be on combating racism."
"Yeah, breaking down people's stereotypes."; 8/6/10, 9:07 AM
Scott said...: Hunter College and its associated high school are part of the City University of New York system.

In other words, this is a public high school. There is a place for elite schools, but NYC public schools like this are obliged to aggressively recruit within the city's many different ethnic groups, so that the student body is reflective of the city's ethnic makeup. To do othewise is to stick a thumb in the eye of the whole notion of public education.; 8/6/10, 9:10 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Do the sports teams at New York high schools properly represent the wonderful diversity of the population?; 8/6/10, 9:14 AM
Anonymous said...: In other words, this is a public high school. There is a place for elite schools, but NYC public schools like this are obliged to aggressively recruit within the city's many different ethnic groups, so that the student body is reflective of the city's ethnic makeup.

Why "aggressively recruit?" If blacks want to be at Hunter, why isn't it their responsibility to be very serious students and to struggle and compete for entrance?

The reason white and Asian kids do better is precisely because their parents demand that they, you know, perform and compete.

Why are we supposed to be pleading with black kids to study and go to school? If black kids are unmotivated, they don't deserve to be at Hunter.

Hunter is the "elite" school of the public school system. There are plenty of other schools for kids who aren't committed students.

To do othewise is to stick a thumb in the eye of the whole notion of public education.

I don't get the logic of this at all.

You're mistaking your vision of the schools as a laboratory for social engineering for "the whole notion of public education."; 8/6/10, 9:18 AM
Balfegor said...: There is a place for elite schools, but NYC public schools like this are obliged to aggressively recruit within the city's many different ethnic groups, so that the student body is reflective of the city's ethnic makeup.

Two questions, I suppose. The first is why?

And the second is "what does 'aggressively recruit' mean?" If it means make sure that people in non-Asian neighbourhoods know they can apply to this school, sure -- that's only fair. But what if Asians still dominate on the entrance exams? Are you going to start capping the number of Asian-Americans the school can admit? Are you going to try to skew the entrance exam process to artificially disadvantage Asians? Note that it's unlikely the entrance exams are being written up by Asian-Americans, so it's not like Asians are reaping some huge "regatta" style benefit from the exam being written from an Asian cultural perspective. I cannot say I am okay with reworking the exam specifically to reduce the numbers of Asians. But of course, that's probably what they'll have to do. That, or slip it in sideways by using subjective interviews to knock points off the Asian applicants.; 8/6/10, 9:21 AM
Anonymous said...: The more I look at that "aggressively recruit" nonsense, the more corrupt it looks.

Blacks are lousy students because they are uncommitted. Their communities don't support education.

So, we should pamper them and plead with them.

For those who understand human nature, the opposite outcome from the desired outcome will result from "aggressively recruiting."

Blacks, aware that the are being "aggressively recruited" will assume that whatever they want, including admittance to Hunter, will simply be given to them.

This is yet another disincentive to work hard and compete.; 8/6/10, 9:24 AM
Scott said...: @shoutingthomas (and thank you for being polite):

A lot of parents in disadvantaged neighborhoods just aren't aware of schools like the high school at Hunter College. It's not on the radar. If Hunter went out to high schools in the Bronx or Brooklyn and did a little consciousness raising among school counselors, maybe a presentation or two, they might get some candidates who would succeed and flourish there. And the school would benefit from the diversity. It's a win-win.

As for your last comment, I don't get it. You would have to be quite cynical to characterize public education as mere "social engineering." It's one of our country's oldest traditions. And if tax dollars are being used for some elite high school, then as a taxpayer I want to make sure that everyone who can access it is aware that it's available to them.; 8/6/10, 9:29 AM
former law student said...: Testing hasn't been about intrinsic intelligence ever since Kaplan found he could train people to improve their test scores.

When I took the GRE, I was part of an experiment the College Board was running to find out if training worked. They sent me materials to improve my performance on the math part, basically to make me able to quickly rule out the wrong answers rather than work the problems all the way through. My GRE math score shot up to 780, a hundred points higher than on the SAT.

Did the kids of Bed-Stuy receive the same sort of test cram classes as the middle-class kids with their helicopter parents did?; 8/6/10, 9:36 AM
Anonymous said...: "...To do othewise is to stick a thumb in the eye of the whole notion of public education."

Public Education is pretty good at plucking out it' own eyes and plugging its' ears. It's only its' mouth that still functions.; 8/6/10, 9:42 AM
Anonymous said...: A lot of parents in disadvantaged neighborhoods just aren't aware of schools like the high school at Hunter College. It's not on the radar.

I grew up in just such a "disadvantage neighborhood" in small town Illinois.

I am the first member of my extended family to graduate from a four year college. Prior to my generation, everybody in my family (male and female) worked at menial dirty jobs.

My community took it upon itself to change this. Nobody thought that somebody else from outside ought to come in an encourage us.

I don't think things can change for blacks in any other way. It's just the reality of human nature. If you keep telling blacks that you're going to plead and "aggressively recruit" them, blacks are going to take the opportunity for granted as their due.

They will work less and fail more.

That's the reality of the way all humans work.; 8/6/10, 9:43 AM
GMay said...: "ever since Kaplan found he could train people to improve their test scores."

I took a Kaplan 'Life, Health, and Variable Annuity' state licensing course and found that thy teach sort of like some military technical schools and public schools. They teach to the test instead of teaching the material.

It's a really awesome way to get great test scores on multiple choice tests. Actually learning and retaining the material? Not so much.; 8/6/10, 9:46 AM
rhhardin said...: The ability to believe things quickly is natural; the ability to believe particular narratives quickly is cultural.; 8/6/10, 9:47 AM
Anonymous said...: Of course there is a culture of fear at the school. Leftists always end up purging "for the greater good," don't they?

Ed researchers should be looking instead at why the Hispanic and Black numbers have fallen in recent years and Asian numbers have gone up. But they won't. They will just have interviews trump test scores and all will be well.; 8/6/10, 10:25 AM
former law student said...: Excelling on standardized tests was the key to success in China from the 600s on, so the importance of preparation for standardized tests is embedded in Chinese culture.

Unfortunately, American heroes like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln lived in an era before standardized tests became important in the US, so we'll never know if they merited their positions or not.; 8/6/10, 10:32 AM
Trooper York said...: They should keep failing kids and throwing out the tests until they get the desired colors of Benneton school photo.

You know like they are doing with fire department.; 8/6/10, 10:34 AM
Trooper York said...: If Mort were awake he would say that those Asian kids were racist for studying so hard.; 8/6/10, 10:35 AM
kathleen said...: "I refuse to accept that."

that's the crux of it right there, isn't it? a liberal refuses to accept reality. nothing short of utopia will do. Anything short of perfection is literally unacceptable.; 8/6/10, 10:39 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Yet to be mentioned is that students who are put into schools above what their achievements merit have a significantly higher failure and dropout rate.

Although something tells me that if the admissions process were changed, the grading structure and/or required courses would also be changed. Because it wouldn't be appropriate for the grade distribution to not be reflective of society.; 8/6/10, 10:44 AM
GMay said...: fls said: "Excelling on standardized tests was the key to success in China from the 600s on, so the importance of preparation for standardized tests is embedded in Chinese culture.

Unfortunately, American heroes like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln lived in an era before standardized tests became important in the US, so we'll never know if they merited their positions or not."

Well considering that China has been a hotbed of genocide, massive political purges last century, and currently has a 10 figure peasant class...forgive me if I don't cheer at their model of so-called "success".

Looking at the writings of Jefferson and Lincoln, their underlying philosophies, and the tangible successes of Lincoln and Washington, I'm not really sure whether your lack of clarity on their merit is based on ignorance or bias.; 8/6/10, 10:50 AM
The Dude said...: Bell curve, anyone?; 8/6/10, 10:52 AM
Unknown said...: The key to their rationale is that all the sections named voted overwhelmingly for The Zero. So they're all equally stupid.

Except for the parents of the Asian kids. Who probably didn't.

shoutingthomas said...

...

The Meatheads seem to have conquered our courts, legislatures and professions. Government by meatheads, for meatheads and by meatheads.

That was the plan back then. And it worked.; 8/6/10, 10:52 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Equality of outcomes is what this kid wants. So he could follow the same path as President Obama, start as a community organizer and end up in the White House. But he would never get what he wants which is equality of outcomes.; 8/6/10, 10:57 AM
Trooper York said...: The problem with the public schools is that the public school teachers suck. They need to blow up the whole system. Go to vouchers were the concerned minority parents can shop for a school that fits there needs be it public, private, parochial or other.

Or my solution which is to replace the teachers with computers, robots and electrodes on the children brain stem.; 8/6/10, 11:34 AM
prairie wind said...: Isn't it weird how nobody cares about Asians when it comes to diversity?

You're only diverse if someone is surprised to find you there.; 8/6/10, 11:41 AM
William said...: They're gearing up to screw the Asians. If they up the enrollment of blacks and hispanics, it's the Asian kids who will suffer. I knew several Asians who graduated from Hunter HS and the other elite NY high schools. Their parents were immigrants and some were from very poor families. They worked extremelly hard, and they deserve their success......My guess is that among the whites at these schools there are not that many working class Catholics or poor whites of any background. My further guess is that it would never occur to the faculty or students at Hunter that this indicates a lamentable lack of diversity......Can't we have a few schools where the only metric for acceptance and success is brains and hard work. If the libs so desire, create a few schools where the bright and diverse can study. But, at least, leave a few schools to mire in their meritocracy.; 8/6/10, 11:43 AM
Kirby Olson said...: Liberals often shove Darwin's "survival of the fittest," into the faces of conservatives.

But then they also support redistribution of income, and Affirmative Action, and getting rid of marks of distinction like the Valedictorian, as well as supporting ideas like Gay Marriage that don't even make procreative sense.

Conservatives on the other hand often don't believe that Darwin tells us the whole picture, and yet they want survival of the fittest to be the main rule.; 8/6/10, 11:50 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Trooper - I think it is more the humongous big city school districts that suck not necessarily the teachers. IMO, you don't need great teachers, you need involved parents.
Some kids will fail no matter what and I say big deal -cause we can't save everybody.

I agree with you on vouchers and school choice. These big city school districts are too big not to fail. So I agree with you - blow them the fuck up.; 8/6/10, 11:55 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: Perhaps not everyone wants to go to Hunter. Perhaps there are other elite schools that are more popular among black and Hispanic communities. Perhaps Hunter's test is silly. So what?

The system as a whole should be a reflection of the wider society. That doesn't mean that every individual school must attract a student body that is that reflection in miniature. Why not a system of schools with diverse emphases and diverse admissions requirements? A school that focuses on science, another on Latin, another on athletics, another on fine arts, another on trades, and so on? Some that focus on tests, some on grades, some on portfolios, etc? How about some choice? Why does everything have to be this bland, infinite, sameness?

Aside from the obvious that that is the inherent problem in everything involving the government.; 8/6/10, 12:01 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Go to vouchers were the concerned minority parents can shop for a school that fits there needs be it public, private, parochial or other.

Yes. Then you could find the school that fit your kid.; 8/6/10, 12:02 PM
Trooper York said...: I would go one step further. Even if it is a school run by Al Sharpton or some radical Muslim cleric or Bill Ayers or Reverand Wright. The parents should be able to send the kids to kind of school that has the same values. Regardless of what those values might be.

Let Darwin sort them out.; 8/6/10, 12:07 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I agree with you, Trooper. I may think your school is crazy, but if that's where people want to send their voucher money (and enjoy the success or failure that it enables), that's their business. It could turn out that I'm wrong, and the school I thought was so terrible turns out very successful students.; 8/6/10, 12:09 PM
Trooper York said...: I also think it would normalize some of the extreme behavior because they will have to turn out students that compete in the marketplace or the school will fail.

But I only want to get the money so the parochial schools can get back on their feet. There would be one on every other block in poor neighborhoods if vouchers passed.

As it is now, about 85% of the enrollment in the Catholic schools in NYC is minority students who do very well at the fraction of the cost of the bloated public school system.; 8/6/10, 12:13 PM
chuckR said...: It's never bad to be humble and appreciative of opportunities afforded you, but the young speechgiver went too far. Nobody deserves to be born in the US, whose citizenship, along with that of a small group of other countries, confers great advantages in life. Nobody deserves to go to Hunter or any other elite public or private school. Yet every year they do.
I was reminded of what I think is the most powerful scene in Saving Private Ryan. As the Captain who led the retrieval of Private Ryan lay dying, surrounded by death and destruction, he said to Ryan - "Earn this." It was an imperative, not a suggestion. So no, Mr. Hudson, you don't deserve the advantages Hunter will grant you. You have a half century and more to earn it.; 8/6/10, 12:16 PM
Trooper York said...: Plus Hunter is a pussy school.

Brooklyn Tech is much better.; 8/6/10, 12:17 PM
Trooper York said...: Believe it or not Boys and Girls High is pretty good too!

But the principle there carries on the polices of Frank Mickens who ran a tight ship. No bullshit. No excuses. You are there to learn or you get out.

My dad was attended Boys and Girls in the Forties and he would be proud of what they are doing today.

Of course it is run much like a charter school as are all the successful schools in the system. It is the dumping ground district holding pens like John Jay that are unsalvageable.; 8/6/10, 12:21 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/6/10, 12:28 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Trooper:
Here is a pic of one of my nieces. She teaches in a charter school.

http://www.harlemvillageacademies.org/pages/openhouse/; 8/6/10, 12:36 PM
former law student said...: Of course it is run much like a charter school as are all the successful schools in the system.

I have known a few bright people to have come out of Bronx Science, for example. Chicago's equivalent was Lane Tech.

Lew Alcindor went to Catholic hs (Power Memorial Academy) but then the place closed down.; 8/6/10, 1:07 PM
Lisa said...: I think the test prep is a problem in many places not just Hunter; 8/6/10, 1:38 PM
Salamandyr said...: I'm not sure why test prep is a problem. If anything it shows an ambition and drive that is as useful as pure intelligence at determining future success.; 8/6/10, 1:52 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: One of my nephews busted his balls with test prep on SAT's and he just graduated summa cum laude with a degree with a dual major in biology & physics. So I agree with Salamandyr - it can indicate the student is motivated and hungry and an achiever.; 8/6/10, 2:02 PM
lucid said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/6/10, 2:07 PM
Phil 314 said...: Several comments:

-Boy am I glad our small city only had one high school

-If the entry exam is teacher developed and teacher reviewed then clearly there is bias, not necessarily racial bias, but bias.

-I have no doubt if "affirmative action" were applied that some of the otherwise turned down black and hispanic students would do better than if they "stayed" at their local high schools. But the solution is not to necessarily change the test but to change the local high schools.

-I have a dream that children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

OK I was wrong; I'll go for the color of their skin option.; 8/6/10, 2:09 PM
lucid said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/6/10, 2:11 PM
Balfegor said...: I'm not sure why test prep is a problem. If anything it shows an ambition and drive that is as useful as pure intelligence at determining future success.

Well, a parental ambition and drive. Which is pretty useful, I'm sure, in determining future success, but we're not talking about the individual student as an individual. Now we're considering him as a part of his family.; 8/6/10, 2:13 PM
lucid said...: This is how you do affirmative-action-thinking:

First of all, just outright deny reality in the name of affirmative action. It doesn't matter what the reality is--just pretend that reality is different.

Create racial privleges, especially when somebody else wants the job you want or the school admission you want.

Especially create racial privelges when the other person has studied harder for more years, or has worked harder to qualify himself or herself for what you would like to have.

Create an affirmative-action industry with good salaries and benefits so that there is a vested financial interest in making accusations of racism.

Create racial exceptions, especially when you are a congresswoman accused of a serious crime.

Remember, it doesn't matter what people really think and know--it only matters what you can force them to say.

Make people say what you want them to say, even if they don't believe it.

If people don't say what you want them to say, then call them racists. That will make them run and hide.

Doing all this may destroy the basis for real blindness to skin color and destroy the basis for viable community.

But all that matters is hanging on to racial privleges.

This is affirmative-action-thinking; 8/6/10, 2:13 PM
traditionalguy said...: Affirmative Fantasy meets reality non faked tests. Only strong will power is necessary to deny such truth. Neitzsche rules again. We need a Brutal Czar of Fantasy making up faked test results. Kagan went there. How will she act when called upon to rule on fantasy Constitutional theories?; 8/6/10, 2:31 PM
former law student said...: Whenever I think of Affirmative Action, I think of one place I worked staffed entirely with white scientists. Then they started hiring ethnically Asian scientists, and in the course of time, a Chinese scientist became a manager.

And every new hire the new manager picked was ethnically Chinese. Why? Because he knew they worked and worked hard. What good was diversity?

After I left, the company was taken over by a private equity investment firm, and appears to have gone out of business.; 8/6/10, 2:33 PM
Big Mike said...: “If you truly believe that the demographics of Hunter represent the distribution of intelligence in this city,” he said, “then you must believe that the Upper West Side, Bayside and Flushing are intrinsically more intelligent than the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Washington Heights. And I refuse to accept that.”

I think that Hunter failed to prepare your Mr. Hudson for critical reasoning, or at least to apply critical reasoning to his own conclusions.

First, we pretty famously live in a knowledge economy, where intelligence is correlated with financial success. So a priori I would expect to see adults of above-normal intelligence living in better neighborhoods as opposed to living in run-down tenements in poor neighboorhoods.

Second, there is certainly a genetic component to intelligence, and I would expect to see the children of intelligent adults also exhibit intelligence.

So, conclusion, I would not expect to find intelligence in 8th graders uniformly distributed across New York City. I would expect to see the attendees of Hunter skewed towards the better neighborhoods.

Finally, it's fair to ask whether Hunter's admission test measures intelligence, or preparedness to achieve success in the advanced, high-pressure environment high school. One of my sons went to a science and math magnet high school, and I assure you that the less well-prepared children brought in to achieve ethnic balance really, really struggled. The faculty, administration, and school board got to pat themselves on the back, at the expense of the kids they were "helping."; 8/6/10, 2:43 PM
mariner said...: Scott:

You would have to be quite cynical to characterize public education as mere "social engineering." It's one of our country's oldest traditions.

Public education IS mere social engineering.

It is NOT one of our oldest traditions -- it was one tool of the "progressive movement" of the early 20th Century.

I guess I'm just cynical.; 8/6/10, 3:26 PM
Lucien said...: The quote from the student's speach seems to include at least two false premises: 1)that the school's admissions objectives are based only on intelligence; and 2)that there is a reason to presume a random distribution of "intrinsic" intelligence across a variety of neighborhoods, some of which may be much more desirable than others.

Why not allow that admission might be based on accomplishment rather than intelligence; and that families with the ability and resources to live in the more desirable neighborhoods might be more likely to produce accomplished students?; 8/6/10, 3:29 PM
Mortimer Brezny said...: Everyone knows the smartest kids attend Stuyvesant.; 8/6/10, 3:37 PM
J Lee said...: Way back in the 1970s, if you were in junior high school in New York you were given a book with a listing of all the high schools including the specialized schools you could attend out of your own school district. Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech were considered the 'academic' high schools; Hunter was a peg lower, while other schools specialized in everything from agriculture to maritime work/studies.

Anyway, when Jimmy Carter won election and took office in 1977 with a big Democratic majority in Congress, one of the first things the newly-created Department of Education wanted to do was to eliminate the specialized schools in New York that required academic testing, on the grounds that the tests were biased against minorities. The problem for the new DOE was that the head of the United Federation of Teachers, Albert Shanker, was a Stuyvesant grad, and had just steered the UFT through the Ocean Hill-Brownsville battle eight years earlier. There was no way he was letting the academic high school program get trashed -- especially at his former high school -- and faced with the threat of major opposition from one of the strongest public employee unions, the Carterites backed down.

That was the last time an effort was made to eliminate the program completely, but the skirmishes have been going on periodically since then to water down the standards in the name of diversity (or when it comes to the above-demo number of Asians in those schools, 'proper diversity'). And it would be at the very least, interesting to see where the current White House would come down on this, since both David Axlerod and Eric Holder are Stuyvesant grads, and benefited from the academic HS program.; 8/6/10, 4:28 PM
Anonymous said...: The demographics of Hunter represent children of parents who value education very highly. It reflects students who come from the upper middle class. It relects whites and asians who are, on average, more intelligent than other minorities.

I would love to see pictures of the faculty at Hunter in a collage. I imagine the white guilty is glaring.; 8/6/10, 4:39 PM
David said...: It's hard to exaggerate how complex and screwed up the thinking of academic political elites is about race, merit, entitlement and diversity. It all flows from a few sources, however.

Failure to confront the shameful underperformance of African Americans as a group in academics from primary school through graduate education.

Unwillingness to urge the radical changes in public education necessary to fix its own horrid record of educating black children.

Lack of recognition that affirmative action insulates failing institutions like public schools from accountability.

Total unwillingness to acknowledge that--no matter what anyone else does--only black parents and children themselves have a high degree of leverage on their own educational bootstraps.; 8/6/10, 5:10 PM
David said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/6/10, 5:11 PM
PJ said...: “If you truly believe that the demographics of Hunter represent the distribution of intelligence in this city,” he said, “then you must believe that the Upper West Side, Bayside and Flushing are intrinsically more intelligent than the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Washington Heights. And I refuse to accept that.”

Wait . . . is this guy claiming that people who live on the Upper West Side of New York aren't intrinsically more intelligent than the rest of us?; 8/6/10, 5:39 PM
former law student said...: It relects whites and asians who are, on average, more intelligent than other minorities.

Because they do better on standardized tests, they are more intelligent? Isn't that a bit circular?

Everybody should read The Tyranny of Testing by Banesh Hoffmann, creator of the term iquination (the ability to do well on IQ tests). There you'll see that 50 years ago, disadvantaged youth enrolled in a special NYC public school program raised their IQs an average of 13 points.; 8/6/10, 6:01 PM
fivewheels said...: I always find the inherent racism of schemes to get around tests to be pretty in-your-face insulting. This is an actual zero-sum game -- to raise the number of black and hispanic students, they have to eject Asian kids (and that's where the skimming will come from, not white kids). And if your plan is to use interviews to do it? You're saying that once you get to know the kids, you'll finally be able to correctly determine that those goddamn Asians just don't deserve to be there.

You're saying that black kids will inherently be superior in interviews to Asian kids. Otherwise it won't increase their enrollment. And if that's what you're saying, F you.; 8/6/10, 6:08 PM
former law student said...: a priori I would expect to see adults of above-normal intelligence living in better neighborhoods as opposed to living in run-down tenements in poor neighboorhoods.

Just as true as it was in the 20s, when Carl Campbell Brigham's study of the Army Mental Tests administered to WW I recruits proved that Jews -- largely living in tenements at that time -- were far less intelligent than were Nordic types such as lived on the UWS.

I.e., not particularly true.; 8/6/10, 6:09 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Homeschooling or enrichment fun: Know of an elite school hundreds of miles away from you? Want to know what they're working on to implement it into your own program? Hit up the school's website, and you will very often find course descriptions, syllabi, reading lists, and assignments.; 8/6/10, 6:24 PM
Foobarista said...: The main "gifted" HS in San Francisco, Lowell, already goes the quota route, because it would be 90%+ Asian if it went purely by admissions scores.

As for Hunter, one wonders if many of the better-testing non-immigrant black and Hispanic kids go to private schools in NYC. Part of the reason Asians dominate "gifted" public HS programs is many Asians are relatively poorer first-gen immigrants _and_ drive their kids hard.; 8/6/10, 6:46 PM
Lisa said...: Salymander,

Test prep is a problem because we aren't talking about a kid working through a book. We are talking about very expensive test prep classes where kids are drilled on how to beat the test. Most people can't afford to throw a couple of grand at this. It inherently favors the wealthy (not necessarily white).; 8/6/10, 7:44 PM
Big Mike said...: @FLS, so the experience of Jewish immigrants in the 1920's is directly equivalent to the New York City today?

You're going to have to learn how to live in the 21st century, my man.; 8/6/10, 8:42 PM
Cedarford said...: "exhelodrvr1 said...
Do the sports teams at New York high schools properly represent the wonderful diversity of the population?"

Bwaaah! Perhaps the answer NYC's liberals and Progressive Jews would give is that Asians and Jews are deprived and lack access to basketballs.
And regular whites lack access to 200 dollar sneakers, good pavements - so their lack of running and breakdancing skills - which have to be inherently as equal as blacks skills - are a function of sneaker deprivation and pavementless environments.

Want to strike a blow for equality? Hand the Asians at computer lab a basketball each, kick them out to spend the next 6 hours playing hoops.; 8/6/10, 9:27 PM
lucid said...: @FLS:

Truly, you are willing to beleieve and say almost anything

Lefty liberalism really is the belief system of the intellectually disabled and the chronically lazy.; 8/6/10, 10:39 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: But what if it's true?; 8/6/10, 11:01 PM
Revenant said...: Just as true as it was in the 20s, when Carl Campbell Brigham's study of the Army Mental Tests

Because if one set of intelligence tests was faulty, that proves that intelligence can't be tested.

It is sheer coincidence that IQ correlates to personal success.; 8/6/10, 11:37 PM
former law student said...: It is sheer coincidence that IQ correlates to personal success.

Sometimes it does. Like a Minnesotan, what helps most is to be a little above average. Read Whatever Happened to the Quiz Kids? a look in 1982 at how extremely high IQ kids selected for a 40s-50s radio show turned out as adults. The ones most likely to get into highly selective schools based on the results of a standardized test have nice comfortable lives, but do not tend to set the world on fire.

Gerard Darrow IQ 144 (Top S-B ratio IQ) Lived on welfare, died young.

Joan Bishop - IQ 157. Taught herself to read at 3. Set out to become an opera star, but at last report, was a New York housewife.

Claude Brenner - IQ 149 - a "terribly retentive memory" As of 1982, a moderately successful energy consultant.

Margaret Merrick - Was off-the-charts in reading (12th-grade +) in the eighth grade. Got Ph. D. Now (1982) a consultant.

Richard Williams - IQ 165 at 4.5, 200 at 8.5, didn't speak until 2.5, learned to read at 3.5. His father taught him algebra when he was 7. Became a career diplomat.

Harve Bennet (Fischman) - IQ 176 - Began speaking in sentences at 10 months. Learned to read after starting school. became a highly successful television producer.

Vanessa Brown = IQ 169 - Started as a highly promising young actress, ended up a housewife, jounalist, and author. (Died of cancer at 71 in 1999.)

Joel Kupperman - IQ 200+ a philosophy professor at Un of Connecticut.

Lonny Lunde - IQ 200 - ("I'm very test-oriented.") Musical prodigy. Began playing shortly after his 4th birthday. Plays piano at an upscale bar.

Patrick Conlon - IQ 143 on one test, higher on another - Spoke in full sentences at a year, and knew 100 nursery rhymes. At two, he could recite poems that he had heard once. Pat's mother was a prodigy, admitted to the University of Illinois at 14.
Pat is an amateur actor, working a New York office job.

Naomi Cooks - School wouldn't release her IQ. Board of Education - "You have an amazing child." - Began to talk at 19 months. Read billboards at 2. At 8, she was reading at high school level. Working on Ph. D. Co-owner of a boutique, "Think Big".

Harvey Dytch - IQ 136 - Computer programmer.

Exceptions to mediocrity were Bobby Ray Inman and Alan Kay.; 8/7/10, 12:09 AM
former law student said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/7/10, 12:09 AM
former law student said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/7/10, 12:10 AM
former law student said...: Sorry, Exploder kept asking me if I wanted to navigate away from the (comment) page.; 8/7/10, 12:13 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: IQ is funny. It gives you more choices. It doesn't make them for you.

A really, really, low IQ person is not going to be super successful. I think we can agree on that. They don't get to make the choices a more intelligent person can.

That's why there is a correlation between IQ and wealth. It's not that smarter people can't be poor, it's that dumber people have a hard time becoming rich.

People get all weird about IQ. I don't think it's that big a deal. A lot of people are smarter than me. A disproportionate number of those people are from particular ethnic groups. I don't really care.

That being said, there's a lot of evidence for IQ rising over time, much too quickly for the cause to be genetic. That makes me wonder if all we are testing is the ability to conceptualize an IQ test.

There's also different kinds of IQ scores, generally divided into verbal and non-verbal. Sometimes they match up, other times not so much.; 8/7/10, 2:42 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: My comment on FLS' list is that a lot of smart people think that there are more important things in life than money.; 8/7/10, 3:10 AM
somefeller said...: Exceptions to mediocrity were Bobby Ray Inman and Alan Kay.

Excuse me, but that list included Harve Bennett, who came up with and produced the greatest of the Star Trek movies, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That isn't mediocrity!; 8/7/10, 9:29 AM
Anonymous said...: fls to Revenant: "It is sheer coincidence that IQ correlates to personal success."

Sometimes it does.

I believe the concept of "correlates" includes "not 100% of the time".

Sometimes I think that 90% of the apparently eternal arguments in the world are based on one side's inability to understand simple statistical concepts.; 8/7/10, 12:04 PM
Methadras said...: Why is this even a topic of discussion? Don't you idiot people know that race trumps merit and when you have a bunch of race obsessed leftards harping about the injustice of how undiverse their high-school is and in that pursuit they will glom onto the disbelief that places like the Bronx or Bed-Sty actually produce racially superior people in the face of actual intelligence distribution?

This is bizarro world you live in now.; 8/8/10, 10:38 AM
Anonymous said...: IQ doesn't measure test taking ability, it measures problem solving skills. Problem solving skills that are highly relevant to a knowledge economy.

What's interesting about IQ is that what the test is asking can be very different, like number problems, word problems, or shape problems, and a higher IQ person will be able to figure out the correct answer to whatever they are asking. This points to a general intelligence of the brain that is able get the right answer.

What I don't get is why people like former law student think like they do. Why is the military so heavily invested in IQ, why are the schools so invested in standardized tests if all they are testing is ability to get a good score on a standardized test? The only way you get into an ivy league school is by having a high score on a standardized test (SAT or comparable, something that correlates highly with IQ). Yet the elite jobs in America will only look for people with an Ivy league education.

Is this some sort of illusion that the people with the most at stake in getting the correct people hired, enlisted, and enrolled follows anyway?; 8/8/10, 12:03 PM