From "No Ethnic Group Owns Stuyvesant. All New Yorkers Do. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan would destroy the best high school in New York City" by Boaz Weinstein in the NYT. By the way, it's not that white people are overrepresented. The situation De Blasio feels compelled to change is one that is channeling benefits to Asian students, who are 75% at Stuyvesant students (and 62% of the specialized high schools in general).
Also in the NYT today: "De Blasio’s Plan for NYC Schools Isn’t Anti-Asian. It’s Anti-Racist. It gives a diverse group of working class kids a fairer shot, which shouldn’t be controversial," by Minh-Ha T. Pham.
[F]or school admissions to be truly unbiased, all students would need to have equal access to elementary schools and middle schools that receive equal shares of property taxes and state and federal aid and have the same cultural, educational and social resources. That kind of equality doesn’t exist, in large part because of the anti-Black racism that has been a defining feature of this country since its inception....
In other words, Asian-American critics of Mr. de Blasio’s plan are arguing to preserve a racist system in which whites, not Asians, are on top. They may gain short-term goals (a seat at a prestigious school) but they lose the long game of acquiring more seats for everyone: middle- class and working-class black, Latinos, American Indians, whites — and yes, other Asian-Americans, especially those from Southeast Asia....
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118 comments:
So, how many students will they stuff into the schoolhouse in order to meet the quotas?
That said, the reason for choice is competition, not an excuse for avoidance. The logical and practical implication of "diversity" is color judgments and to rationalize discrimination.
The mayor says he is trying to address what is undoubtedly a heartbreaking problem: the gross underrepresentation of black and Latino students at Stuyvesant and schools like it.
It is a heartbreaking problem. But the problem is one of both culture and genetics....nature and nurture. Asians dominate these schools because they have higher IQs and come from a culture that values education. Hispanics and Blacks have lower IQs and come from cultures that do not value education. Allowing unqualified students into these schools harms the schools, the students who attend them and the unqualified students who are admitted.
[F]or school admissions to be truly unbiased, all students would need to have equal access to elementary schools and middle schools that receive equal shares of property taxes and state and federal aid and have the same cultural, educational and social resources. That kind of equality doesn’t exist, in large part because of the anti-Black racism that has been a defining feature of this country since its inception...
Bull fucking shit.
1) Most Black kids go to schools with Black teachers, run by Black administrators and supervised by Black school boards.
2) Asians have been discriminated against in the US at least as much as Black people.
Other than Bloomberg, has NY ever had a worse mayor than de Blasio? The old Boss Tweed era was infested with corruption, yes, but was it anywhere near as incompetent? As stupid?
OK, I don't live in New York and don't play a New Yorker on TV. Are these guys as bad as they seem?
Instead of changing Stuyvesant, why not try this:
Set up an additional school to take the top 7% of students from the middle schools. Give it equal resources to Stuyvesant. Let the kids who get there do as well as they can with the opportunity given. I suspect it will be a significant improvement over the schools they are escaping. All without destroying Stuyvesant.
Of course, that misses the point, which is, in fact, destroying Stuyvesant.
Asian-American critics of Mr. de Blasio’s plan are arguing to preserve a racist system in which whites, not Asians, are on top
A conspiracy theory where certain classes of Asian immigrants outperform their peers. The contortions performed by Pham to reach his conclusion are evidence of rabid diversity, including: racism, sexism, political congruence, etc., justified by a religious/moral philosophy that denies individual dignity and intrinsic value of human life.
The average IQ of US blacks being 86, and Asians 105, might figure in to the differing results. Did they consider that before meddling to fix it.
Derbyshire wrote, of a community pool having trouble in an evolving neighborhood, For young blacks and Hispanics from the projects, it's a place to show off, status-challenge other young toughs, get in fights, and defy authority.
It's a cultural thing.
It seems like a single test would find the best blacks and weed out the dumbest Asians, a perfect solution.
Of course, that misses the point, which is, in fact, destroying Stuyvesant.
Yes. Boston Latin School was similar. It seems to be still surviving.
The Wiki article makes a pout of saying it was for the "Brahmins" but Teddy White, a child of Jewish immigrants, was able to go and studied in the Asian Studies library where he got interested in China in the 1930s.
Ah, the sweet rush of delight in your genitals when you realize you have the power to destroy something others hold sacred. It feels SOOOOOOO goooood.
Asian-American critics of Mr. de Blasio’s plan are arguing to preserve a racist system in which whites, not Asians, are on top.
This is one of those times when the pretense slips and you get the 'Let's remember who the real enemy is' appeal.
These schools are controlled by the State. legislature won't back Wild Bill.
And the non-Asians in the school are likely not white Christians either.
"You would think that Mayor Bill de Blasio would celebrate Stuyvesant as the crown jewel" You would think wrong. Cuz inequality.
"The mayor says he is trying to address what is undoubtedly a heartbreaking problem: the gross underrepresentation of black and Latino students at Stuyvesant and schools like it." What underrepresentation? Stuyvesant seems to be the one institution that "represents" groups exactly according to their abilities.
And why heartbreaking? Only for people who cannot bear very much reality.
They must enforce equal outcomes for all (which only had one ending, everyone has a worse outcome).
This is the counter to equal opportunity for all (which results in some having fantastic outcomes while others not so much).
Sad.
You could actually do more to help Black and Hispanic students in the upper third to half of their schools by repealing the law that mandates attendance. The lower performing students would drop out voluntarily and immediately improve the learning environment of those that remain. The hard truth is this- once a student falls behind grade level at age 8, they have plateaued- after that point you are just babysitting them.
The goal, as always, is to force the exceptional to the mean. Nothing more. It is SOP for all Socialists and Communists.
And why heartbreaking?
It's heartbreaking because not only are the demographics unpleasant, but the real world results/implications are tragic....and there is very little that can be done to "fix" the problem.
Mr. de Blasio would send the top 7 percent of students at every middle school to the specialized high schools, but at 80 middle schools — or one out of every six — not even 7 percent of seventh graders passed the state math exam."
Race preferences exist to prevent school administrators from facing accountability for facts like that bolded above.
A heartbreaking (I hate that word) problem: too many Asians.
This City Journal article is probably a lot better than anything from the NYT: "The Plot Against Merit"
Dumbing down course content “to be fair” in 5 .... 4 ..... 3 ......
Leave Stuyvesant intact, to serve high achieving yellow, black, brown, white colorful clumps of cells... I mean, students, persons, then learn and reproduce its climate, whole climate, somewhere else, everywhere else. Get the teachers involved. Get the staff involved. Get the parents involved. Get the community involved. Get the students involved.
The fight to eliminate common sense continues.
and there is very little that can be done to "fix" the problem.
Don't identify as black. Identify as American. Some Americans get in, some don't.
That kind of equality doesn’t exist, in large part because of the anti-Black racism that has been a defining feature of this country since its inception....
There is essentially no pro-Asian racism in this country's institutions, yet Asians are significantly outperforming whites. So...
1) What factors are causing Asians to outperform whites?
2) What evidence do you have that those same factors do not account for the difference in outcomes between whites and blacks or Latinos?
Until you can answer those two questions, why should I listen to you on how to improve educational outcomes for minority students?
So too many Jews, Chinese, and Koreans. Not enough American blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Thai, Cambodians, and Vietnamese.
The Irish, Germans, and Italians just shrug.
Don't identify as black. Identify as American.
Yes. Under our constitution, there are no American half-breeds, no prejudicial diversity (e.g. color judgments), but rather individuals judged by the content of their character. The diversity concept is reserved to progressive constitutions (e.g. South Africa).
glenn said...
Dumbing down course content “to be fair” in 5 .... 4 ..... 3 ......
Nope, it has already counted down to zero and been launched -
How Identity Politics Is Harming the Sciences
"Universities and other institutions are watering down requirements in order to attract more women and minorities."
"The American Astronomical Society has recommended that Ph.D. programs in astronomy eliminate the requirement that applicants take the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) in physics, since it has a disparate impact on females and URMs and allegedly does not predict future research output."
Note: URMs are POCs.
I remember when there was Jewish privilege and its aftermath. Now, we have white privilege, even when it is actually yellow?, orange? privilege. That said, what are the yellow, orange, whatever colorful clumps of cells doing right? Is it nature, nurture, or both?
Here's an example of de Blasio's priorities and their impact.
investigation-in-new-york-city-school-where-a-teenager-was-killed-students-educators-say-lax-discipline-led-to-bullying-chaos-and-death
investigation-in-new-york-city-school-where-a-teenager-was-killed-students-educators-say-lax-discipline-led-to-bullying-chaos-and-death
A tale of Broward County. It's no wonder they are no longer calling to disarm law-abiding citizens and deny people's civil rights. Their narrative runs thin and the ball of yarns is unwinding.
Harvard has a policy of discrimination against asians too.
"a perfect solution."
They seem to be performing the first step of a final solution -
"In April 1933, German law restricted the number of Jewish students at German schools and universities."
At a certain hour of the morning, when exiting the subway at Chambers Street, I see and am surrounded by swarms of students flowing toward Stuyvesant High School, (located where Chambers Street meets West Street). On mornings when I ride in, I have to navigate through said swarms on my bike as they march across the crosswalk I am turning into.
Most of them are Asians.
Harvard has a policy of discrimination against asians too.
All first and second tier colleges and universities do. They discriminate against Asians, Whites and men and in favor of Blacks, Hispanics and women.
"Asians have been discriminated against in the US at least as much as Black people."
No, they haven't. They've never been bought and sold (for generations) as slaves, or subjected to lynchings.
In China tens of millions of its citizens have been murdered or otherwise done to death either by or because of actions taken by its government since the Communist takeover. Did this happen because of or in spite of higher average IQs among Asians?
Bluntly put: if Asians are so smart why do the Chinese kill so many of their own when they're in charge of things?
"Other than Bloomberg, has NY ever had a worse mayor than de Blasio? The old Boss Tweed era was infested with corruption, yes, but was it anywhere near as incompetent? As stupid?"
Actually,Bloomberg wasn't a bad mayor at all.
No, they haven't. They've never been bought and sold (for generations) as slaves, or subjected to lynchings.
Out here in the west they were subject to lynchings. Chinese laborers were treated worse than slaves by there employers, because slaves are at least valuable property. Do you know why Chinatowns exist? Because Asians weren't allowed to live within city limits. We couldn't break up Asian families because we didn't allow Asian women to emigrate. US immigration law has forbidden the immigration of Asians several times, no such limitation has ever been placed on Blacks.
Once again defying natural selection. Leftists destroying America.
It's good to be old.
Actually,Bloomberg wasn't a bad mayor at all.
Unless you want snowplows and preparations for big Nor-easters.
He was Mayor of the World and concerned with bigger things than his constituents.
Like Jerry Brown.
I'll repeat here, my life's experience of working with black women. They scrimped every way they could to put their kids through Catholic school. Each and every black mother did. No exception.
Bluntly put: if Asians are so smart why do the Chinese kill so many of their own when they're in charge of things?
There's a Goldilocks theory, that IQ is one thing and competitive cooperation is another, and the best mix is what whites mostly have. A sort of white supremacy theory, without ill will towards others.
Parent of a bright young girl 3 years from high school in NYC, here. Brooklyn Tech, Stuyvesant and Bronx Science plus one in Queens and another in Staten Island are the 5 crown jewels of NYC high schools. I would not want my daughter in any of them. Amazing curriculum, brilliant students but become intensely competitve in a way that, to me, isn't learning. Achievement is the competition, learning is the means of achievement. Quite a few folks I know feel the same way. The Asian predominance at this point may reflect more than just average IQ, although that is mere speculation.
There are other outstanding public high schools all over the city, like the Bard schools and NEST+M for example. I hear from kids who go there and other parents the focus in these schools is more on learning than achievement. In general these are smaller schools, newer and without the big name, but still damn hard to get into. Same test as the big 5, which are enormous (Tech has > 3000 kids). There are also still competitve but not 1st tier schools and specialty schools in many and varied flavors. The key to all of these is curricular freedom: they don't have to use the Dept of Ed one, which all the "regular" schools do.
Someone upthread mentioned this already but the state controls this, not the mayor. This is just more deBlasio hot air. Best thing about deBlasio is that he talks and talks and talks. That's all. City runs itself thanks to smart cookie career people in the various agencies, most of them from Bloomberg. The agencies deBlasio has staffed at the high level have rejected his people multiple times. City govt is shockingly functional and nonideoligical. If shit goes wrong in a city people die. It has to work. They don't let the ploticians do too much.
Rush has gotten pretty tiresome to listen to. The humor is gone.
I'll repeat here, my life's experience of working with black women. They scrimped every way they could to put their kids through Catholic school. Each and every black mother did. No exception.
Let me suggest that the key word here is "working".
No, they haven't. They've never been bought and sold (for generations) as slaves, or subjected to lynchings.
Apparently, Robert never knew about the railroad builders in the west during the 1800's. The things you mention all happened to the Chinese during this time. Just because they "technically" weren't called slaves, it doesn't mean they weren't. History 101.
"In nearly one quarter of the city’s public middle schools, zero seventh graders scored at the advanced level on the annual New York State Mathematics Exam in 2017. at 80 middle schools — or one out of every six — not even 7 percent of seventh graders passed the state math exam."
So, what we're doing is; trying to Drastically increase the number of Blacks that fail to graduate High School? Sounds Racist
Anecdotal, of course:
In my part of Silicon valley, most Doctors and pharmacists are Asian.
That being said, in the family, neighborhood and friends circle, three of the white twenty something girls are doctors, two raised by single parent mothers.
Also have a well know porn actress, couple of ex-cons and some gangsters along with regular folks like me to balance things out.
An ebbing tide lowers all ships.
If you let kids in even though they can't hack it academically, regardless of why, then either they will fail or, more likely, the academics will be watered down, and then it won't be a prestigious school any longer. Its a lose-lose proposition.
"Apparently, Robert never knew about the railroad builders in the west during the 1800's. The things you mention all happened to the Chinese during this time. Just because they "technically" weren't called slaves, it doesn't mean they weren't. History 101."
Yes, I was aware of it. I never said the Chinese (or other Asians) didn't experience racism; I disputed that they experienced it "at least" as much as blacks people in this country.
They've never been bought and sold (for generations) as slaves, or subjected to lynchings.
Somebody already refuted this. The South Vietnamese had worse. 500,000 drowned in the South China Sea trying to escape.
I know some of them. I used to interview applicants for UCI medical school.
One girl remembered her father lifting her from her bed in the middle of the night and taking her to a canoe which they paddled out of sight of land to meet a smuggler. They spent two years in a refugee camp in the Philippines before getting to Orange County. She had an MS in molecular biology and was working as a lab tech when she applied to medical school. I hope she got in.
I disputed that they experienced it "at least" as much as blacks people in this country.
Cookie, you can go back 400 years and find worse but you can go to Libya today and find it.
Since 1865, Asians have been treated as badly as blacks. They just don't have that victim culture, which I think is really since 1965 with Johnson.
Bluntly put: if Asians are so smart why do the Chinese kill so many of their own when they're in charge of things?
Because of Western Values and their lack thereof.
If you get off the G train at the Fulton Street Station you will see the kids from Brooklyn Tech going to school. This is the other school where you need to pass an exam to get in. There are not a lot of white kids despite what Comrade DeBlasio says.
The majority of the kids going to the top school these days are Asian. Chinese, Korean and from India. They make up a substantial portion of the school as they do in Stuyvesant. This is typical anti Asian prejudice from a Democrat ultra liberal. Just what they are suing Harvard about these days.
The Democratic coalition is fracturing. The Asian vote will become increasingly important. The Chinese population in places like Bay Ridge, Flushing, Midwood and Fordam Road they are becoming dominant. Eventually they will throw up a politician who will be elected mayor. Anybody who wants to be anything in NYC should not get on the wrong side of that.
JAORE asserts: An ebbing tide lowers all ships.
That's for sure, JAORE! Our real focus should be on the fact that NO ONE in the US is getting a good education, at least in our public schools, and I suspect our private schools are academically weaker than they once were.
I disputed that they experienced it "at least" as much as blacks people in this country.
That's true in a certain respect. You can't experience the racism of a country if you are barred from entering it. (Chinese Exclusion Act)
Bluntly put: if Asians are so smart why do the Chinese kill so many of their own when they're in charge of things?
Huh? What has one thing got to do with the other?
I don't feel sorry for any Asians who suffer this discrimination but still vote Democrat.
AustinRoth said...
"The goal, as always, is to force the exceptional to the mean. Nothing more. It is SOP for all Socialists and Communists."
It's actually subtler than that, and worse. The intention is to create a New Class of people who know that the Party has given them success and power they could never have achieved on their merits. They will then show complete, unquestioning loyalty to the Party, while envying, hating and oppressing those they know to be their betters.
Go peglegs - '54 NYC Football Champs.
They do the same thing here in California to get around prop 209. The top X percent from every school is guaranteed a spot at an UC school. Although not necessarily the top ones.
“An ebbing tide lowers all ships.”
But it strands the yachts first.
Bluntly put: if Asians are so smart why do the Chinese kill so many of their own when they're in charge of things?
Huh? What has one thing got to do with the other?
Precisely my point.
This is exactly the sort of argument that drove me to sit in so many San Francisco School Board meetings. The fights were over admissions to various academically preferable schools, made so because they had all these Asian kids in them. The proponents of "social justice" admissions rules, and many of the board, were openly hostile to the Asian parents at those things. It was often vicious.
The truth is that schools are made by their students, not facilities or teachers. The failure to acknowledge the fundamental necessity of a high-performing student body as the only important factor in making an elite school is not puzzling. Its inherent in the question. This cannot be admitted because it destroys the justification of the critics. Its a deliberate, and vile, lie by omission.
Still not sure of your point, Roughcoat. Are you saying there is a correlation between intelligence and humane behavior? There are plenty of smart, evil, ruthless folk and there are some incredibly stupid but very kind ones. If I had to choose which group to live among, it would be the latter. [no personal assessment, please. ;-)]
Stuyvesant and the other academic high school in New York have been under the gun for the past 50 years (as City Journal noted almost 20 years ago -- https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-gotham%E2%80%99s-elite-high-schools-escaped-leveller%E2%80%99s-ax-12276.html), with the main change over that time being those trying to kill off the schools' test requirement for acceptance were griping 40-50 years ago that there were too many Jewish students, as opposed to there being too many Asian students.
The thing is, it wasn't as though Asian students weren't taking the exams in the 1970s. They just weren't passing it as much, because the generation of 40 years ago would do great on the math portions of the test, but fall back on the English grammar sections, because you had a lot of first-generation students whose in-famliy English language skills were weak. Two generations later, with a larger native-born Asian population, you're seeing the big increase in admissions due to the higher test scores, because the language problem has been overcome (and its the family structure which helps overcome it, because it prepares students to take tests like that.
Other minority groups without the same family structure, or who have been pandered to by pop culture gate-keepers into denigrating the idea of standard education as not being something true to their culture, had the same chances to move forward since the first challenges to the academic high schools arose, but haven't. And those whose political ideas have helped hold them back think the answer in 2018 is to either eliminate the test or simply throw out some of the Asian student who do get high enough scores for entry, because they'd rather pander to people they see as their voting block than admit their policies haven't worked and they're part of the reason Stuyvesant and the other schools don't have higher percentages of other minority students.
"But it strands the yachts first."
Yachts have rather shallow drafts, most of them.
It will strand the important ships first, which are often enormous.
The container ships, bulk cargo, tankers. Those which sustain the people.
A good analogy.
"The mayor says he is trying to address what is undoubtedly a heartbreaking problem: the gross underrepresentation of black and Latino students at Stuyvesant and schools like it."
This simply reflects family values and choices. Non-black and non-Latino families have made better choices. Encourage black and Latino families to do likewise, and success will be theirs. The mayor's approach is as always the leftist approach, the approach that brings ruin.
The school's quality is only one factor in a student's intellectual progress.
The students who earned their way by merit into Stuyvesant spend their time reading intelligent books, playing classical music, visiting museums, watching educational television, participating in adult conversations and so forth.
In contrast, most young people waste practically all their time intellectually. They don't read even their school textbooks. They just skim their textbooks or do not read them at all. They spend their time on junk music, junk activities and junk discussion.
Their intellectual laziness will not improve significantly after they are enrolled in Stuyvesant merely because of their ethnicity. They still will not read to learn, and they still will waste their time on mental junk.
For the same reason, the overwhelming majority of Caucasian kids likewise do not belong in Stuyvesant.
There were Chinese (and some Indian) populations all over the world that were brought over as coolies - that is, indentured laborers with limited rights. They were not slaves though they were often badly treated, underfed, subject to corporal punishment, often swindled, and etc.
But if they survived they had a known date of liberation; and they came from a relatively free condition in China, even if the circumstances of life in those villages was so bad that going abroad to known hardship and an uncertain future seemed an attractive option.
Malaya say, in the late 19th-20th century. My grandfather was a plantation manager in Malaya, from 1913, as his first East Asian job, supervising coolies.
“You would think that Mayor Bill de Blasio would celebrate Stuyvesant as the crown jewel of the city’s school system. “
I beg to differ but the Bronx HS of Science has always been the premier school in New York.
“Bronx Science is ranked among the top 50 high schools in the country as well as among the top few in New York State. Eight former students have received the Nobel Prize in science, more than any other secondary school in the world.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronx_High_School_of_Science
Full disclosure: I graduated from Bronx Science in 1960.
City College of New York City was once free to any New Yorker who could pass the entrance exam. It was an elite undergraduate college on a par with the Ivies. Then the State absorbed it into the SUNY system (for financial reasons), and turned it into an open admissions diploma mill, a fake college.
If China becomes world hegemon, it will have done so on merit, with the Mandate of Heaven.
They need a raccoon.
Minnie Ha Ha is probably one of those Asians who is bad at math.
"Scholar of Asian-American Studies" -- Called it!
The arguments against selection (or tracking)in schools, over the last 30-odd years I have been paying attention, completely ignored Asians. Even as the bulk of the high-performing populations that these reformers wanted to kick out of the high-performing schools were Asians.
Their rhetoric was anti-white, but their intended victims were not. It was truly bizarre to hear this sort of thing from people who had, right in front of them, opposing them, a sea of Asian faces. It was like watching a demonstration of insanity, a inability to operate in or process the real world.
When I attended Bronx Science it was 90% Jewish. One of the students in my class who wasn't Jewish was Stokely Carmichael. He was the class clown. I was quite surprised to learn of his subsequent political activity.
Re: Robert Cook:
"Asians have been discriminated against in the US at least as much as Black people."
No, they haven't. They've never been bought and sold (for generations) as slaves, or subjected to lynchings.
I have to agree. I am not sympathetic to most high-profile claims of structural racism, but the easiest thought experiment is this: suppose you are a posh Californian. And you see
a) A scruffy Latino man lurking in your garden
b) A scruffy Black man lurking in your garden
What happens?
If you're an honest Californian, you know the likelihood is you offer the Latino man a job, and call the police on the Black man. That's a real disadvantage for Blacks across the board. It's not really a matter of White being privileged over racial minorities. It's that Blacks really are disadvantaged vis-a-vis everyone else.
That said, though, Asians doing well on tests isn't an artifact of a racist system. And the evidence marshaled against the standardised test -- at least in this argument -- is unpersuasive. For example, there is a reference to the supposed "stereotype threat" phenomenon. But stereotype threat has been undermined by the replication crisis, i.e. it's not clear whether that's a real phenomenon. It's compelling as a kind of "just-so" story, but is it real? Who knows? Not a sound basis for making policy. And as far as test prep goes, the racial gaps on test prep don't really work the way the average person thinks they do. Blacks use test prep more than Whites (although not, perhaps, more than Asians). Third, the make-believe sympathy for poor Asians is disgusting. Poor Asians actually perform fine on standardised exams. In fact, in California, the whole reason college administrators were desperate to preserve race-based admissions was because they new that giving an advantage to poor applicants would make the admissions pool even more lopsidedly Asian, when the point was to get Blacks and Hispanics, not poor Asians.
Re: buwaya puti:
Their rhetoric was anti-white, but their intended victims were not. It was truly bizarre to hear this sort of thing from people who had, right in front of them, opposing them, a sea of Asian faces. It was like watching a demonstration of insanity, a inability to operate in or process the real world.
I can never find it, but there was an article in the NY Times or perhaps the Washington Post denouncing the overwhelmingly White Silicon Valley workforce as an artifact of racism. When, in fact, Asians are massively over-represented in Silicon Valley and Whites are somewhat underrepresented. Just not as underrepresented as Blacks and Hispanics.
The existence of Asians is really inconvenient fact for people who want to argue that the US is dominated by White Privilege -- hence the kinds of contortions you see in this NYT opinion piece. And the evident frustration that, despite having become solidly Democratic, Asian Americans have not yet bought into the rhetoric about Affirmative Action and racism.
San Francisco schools are (still) chock full of poor Asians.
These are the FOB's, "Fresh off the Boat" people's kids, those who live a family to a room and staff the Asian markets and laundries and Chinese restaurants, before they get rich and move to the suburbs. That was the model anyway, I believe that SF rents have gotten so bad lately that this is changing. FOB's are beginning to have to start elsewhere.
It was those kids that qualified for the bulk of the districts free lunch benefit that filled the K-12 schools that tested the best in the SFUSD. The privileged, elite schools of the district which the activists wanted to reform for the sake of "social justice", were full of poor children. The activists wanted, for the sake of poor black children, to destroy the schools of poor Asian children.
The mayor says he is trying to address what is undoubtedly a heartbreaking problem: the gross underrepresentation of black and Latino students at Stuyvesant and schools like it.
This is neither heartbreaking, nor a problem unless it can be shown that the difference has been created by racism. That's not the case here, though Phony Pham tries to claim that any merit-based system is racist, which is utter bullshit, and reveals Pham's own dim view of minorities.
Simply put, there is no right to proportional racial representation at schools or other public institutions or in employment nor should there be. The test is the test and it doesn't discriminate against you on account of your race - it discriminates you on account of your ability to do well on the test - a race-neutral factor that ensures that only the best and brightest are admitted. If that is 75% Asian, then so be it.
To decide that "underrepresentation of black and Latino students" is a problem, one must first believe that there are too many Asians or whites or some other ethnic group admitted. It's a zero-sum game at that point. Pham claims the mayor's plan isn't anti-Asian, but the entire premise of the initiative is that there are too many folks from races A and B and not enough from races C and D - regardless of the intelligence of the individuals involved. There is simply no way to square the belief that there are too many Asians with a belief that the proposal isn't anti-Asian. The mayor is explicitly trying to change the racial makeup of the school, which shows the initiative is based on invidious discrimination against the races that are "overrepresented."
What the mayor and folks like Pham ought to be doing if they believe that blacks and Latino students are not doing as well as other races on these tests is to first take a look at what Asians ARE doing that increases their chances of success on the test. If they do, they would likely discover that most of these Asian kids getting into Stuyvesant likely come from two-parent households that place an inordinate emphasis on education. They might next discover that is not the case with many black and Latino children. My guess is that they already know that and simply don't want to acknowledge it because it is complicated and difficult to resolve. Plus, they might find that some of the other policies they favor are, in fact, contributing towards the problem. It's easier just to race-bait.
Char Char Binks said...
Minnie Ha Ha is probably one of those Asians who is bad at math.
Excuse me, the proper mispronunciation is "Min Hotty".
"Scholar of Asian-American Studies" -- Called it!
"Scholar" is all you need to know because They don't say "scholar of physics" or "scholar of chemistry", etc.
"Media" is another revealing word, which she also is. (Psst - I think "media" means "propaganda")
"So too many Jews, Chinese, and Koreans. Not enough American blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Thai, Cambodians, and Vietnamese.
The Irish, Germans, and Italians just shrug."
Don't forget the South Asians who are eating our lunch.
"[F]or school admissions to be truly unbiased, all students would need to have equal access to elementary schools...."
Not a problem. Make one large National Youth Sector. State of Illinois is about the right size, and centrally located. Take the kids from their parents at age 5 and send them to the Sector. All children get the same curriculum, same lessons delivered over CCTV, and are awarded the same grades. After clearing Grad School with a Ph.D. at age 26, random assignment to a job.
After clearing Grad School with a Ph.D. at age 26, random assignment to a job.
I can hardly wait, Comrade.
Even if the test is graded on a curve, so that more students could do the work than are admitted, and nobody is saying so, abolishing the reliance on the test, and substituting political considerations, would tend to destroy the school.
All that de Blasio would do is destroy the better public schools. he's not interested in improving the education of children.
"Most of them are Asians."
Yes, let's lump them together as one group as always. And of course, they get a Vietnamese to write about destroying American racism. I bet the Vietnamese are under represented in the Stuyvesant Asian population.
Robert Cook, if they had been black, would have said, "most of them were Africans"?
All of them were Americans. Most were born in the United States. All Asians are not the same, nor do they have the same culture. They are not genetically given to greater intelligence. When in Tokyo, I see the guy grabbing the garbage. In America he would be at Harvard wouldn't he? No, he would be collecting garbage or the equivalent in America, too.
You want inequality? I'll show you inequality.
During fiscal 2012, New York City's school district, the largest in the country with nearly a million students, spent more money on each one of them than any other large public school system in the country.
I don't believe any NYC elementary school is underfunded.
There is a history against bigotry and racism in which the blind, standardized test played a heroic role. Any individual of any race or gender could compete without fear of their race, religion, or country of origin failing a soft skills metric.
For God's sake can't we stop talking all the time about RACES? Haven't we learned where it leads when the first thing you notice about a person is his/her race (or gender for that matter)? Why should I (a White person) care if the average Chinese person is smarter than I am, or the average Latino/a person is more talented than I am, or the average Black person is a better basketball player or has better rhythm than me? We are destroying ourselves as a country by putting RACE in the driver's seat -- and we are in the process of making it worse by putting Sex and Gender identity and God knows what all else there, too.
There is a history against bigotry and racism in which the blind, standardized test played a heroic role. Any individual of any race or gender could compete without fear of their race, religion, or country of origin failing a soft skills metric.
This is true, Henry, but of course we know the goal is NOT equal opportunity. That has been available for many decades now. The goal is equal results and leads to contorted theory and rationalization and still fails to achieve its desired results.
Balfegor points out: The existence of Asians is really inconvenient fact for people who want to argue that the US is dominated by White Privilege -- hence the kinds of contortions you see in this NYT opinion piece. And the evident frustration that, despite having become solidly Democratic, Asian Americans have not yet bought into the rhetoric about Affirmative Action and racism.
Seattle has a lot of Asians, too. When I went to the U. of WA 1/4 of the students were Asian and that was some time ago. A recent female Vietnamese immigrant was my Calculus study partner and she helped me immensely. In fact, our prof was a Vietnamese man educated at the Sorbonne.
The mayor says he is trying to address what is undoubtedly a heartbreaking problem: the gross underrepresentation of black and Latino students at Stuyvesant and schools like it.
Well, there's two possibilities here:
1: The Public Schools are cheating black and hispanic students. So, go to war against the Teacher's Unions, since they're the ones in charge now
2: Black and Hispanic kids just aren't as bright
I prefer 1. But de Blasio apparently believes 2, since he hasn't gone to war with the teachers over the horrible job they're doing with the students
The mayor has a more pressing problem: businesses in Manhattan that refuse access to bathroom facilities until and upon purchase. Like the Starbucks case, it's not a case of diversity (i.e. racism), but since his hands are idle, he should take the opportunity to investigate.
and God knows what all else there, too
Life deemed worthy, unworthy, and profitable. Although, diversity and political congruence are competitive.
The NYC school district spends about $20K/year per student, but that is misleading. Teachers are capturing that, as the unions are extremely powerful here. Almost every elementary school in Manhattan is good to excellent. In Brooklyn and elsewhere, it depends on the neighborhood.
Good neighborhoods have good schools. Neighborhoods that are not gentrified (there remain a few) or relatively early in the gentrification process, typically have bad schools. Every district has a Gifted and Talented program, so even in a rougher area you can get your kid into a good program if the kid is bright.
The charter school movement, which Bloomberg supported, offers schools that try a different approach than neighborhood schools. Some are merit based for entry, some make continued attendance dependent on performance. All hire non-union teachers and are free to create curricula outside the DOE standard. deBlasio is very pro-union. He's been fighting charter schools hard since he took office. He uses dirty tricks like not renewing their leases, because many of them lease space in empty or underused city owned schools. Arguably the most successful charter schools in NYC is Success Academy, headed by Eva Moskowitz. She is deBlasio's nemesis, and Cuomo was entertainingly allying with her to needle deBlasio. She even tried a run for mayor.
Success Academy sets up schools in tough areas. Easy to get in, tough to stay in. You have to do your work and follow the rules. It has extraordinary success in creating high performing schools filled with free-lunch minority kids. Parents put their kids on waiting lists the minute they hear one is opening. It's a trip to talk to folks who proclaim their desire to help the disadvantaged, and ask them about how they feel about Success Academy. Some people can maintain very high levels of cognitive dissonance. Very, very high. deBlasio and Moskowitz were duking it out in the media, with Moskowitz getting the better of the cognitive side of things by pointing out the waiting lists, the test scores, the super high percentage of free-lunch kids: she's saying look, people, I'm helping poor kids get a great education! The killer point, the argument ender, the only thing that a progressive needs to say to end any conversation about the merits of Success Academyof vs. the Teacher's Union: yeah, well, they get those great test scores because they kick all the terrible students out. And that's why the regular public schools suck. Gotcha! Unreal.
This right here remains the heart of the issue, as far as I can tell.
Also: It is unseemly to play the game of more-victimized-than-thou, but if you want to talk about the legacy of slavery which ended many generations ago, maybe consider that there are still living American citizens, born in this country, who had to grow up in concentration camps locked behind barbed wire because of their ethnicity, after having their homes stolen from them. That's a little more pressing than injustices borne by your great-great-great-great grandfather.
Two aspects of Democratic policy interests threaten to be in conflict: relaxing of restrictions on immigration which will result in more US residents from China and India (perhaps Asia more generally); affirmative action designed to help blacks and Latinos. I have seen Chinese students enter my university classes.
Despite the fact that the those students did all of their previous education in China, and the fact that my course(s) deal with US policies and institutions (for example understanding the three branches of government and the electoral cycle), the Chinese students routinely outperform American born students.
The Chinese students (generalizing, I know) never miss a class, never neglect to turn in a homework, ask questions during office hours or during lecture.
The Chinese students observe the attendance and effort levels of the American born students, and I think are somewhat puzzled by the lack of effort. This makes them less sympathetic to affirmative action.
The Chinese students do not feel any guilt about the status of blacks or Latinos. This makes them less sympathetic to affirmative action.
So I predict that as the left is more successful in relaxing immigration restrictions (which they do focussing only on immigration from Mexico and Central America), they will end up (inadvertently) increasing Asian population and this will undermine political support for affirmative action.
Words and phrases that have disappeared from our public schools:
Rigor
Discipline
Personal responsibility
Self motivation
Courtesy
Civility
Historical perspective
Trust
Self determination
Talk about any of the items above at a school board meeting today and you'll be laughed out of the room.
I think an exam school would be a dream for a woman or minority. Everyone, including you, knows you're not an AA admit.
Why do Asians have to put up with so much discrimination? This must stop.
"more seats for everyone..."
Ugh. What a baldfaced ugly lie. Neither De Blasio nor Pham has any interest in "more seats for everyone." They want more seats for unprepared black and hispanic students, and nothing else. To what end? So that those students can have the diplomas, the indicators of academic success, without having to prepare to succeed. Matriculating more unprepared students, regardless of the phony, dishonest method chosen, will quickly result in the lowering of standards, because you cannot have large numbers of black and hispanic students failing at the elite schools. So the answer is to make them no longer elite, but pretend that they continue to be elite. And anyone who now questions the value of the diploma from Stuyvesant? Racist.
I think an exam school would be a dream for a woman or minority. Everyone, including you, knows you're not an AA admit.
Their answer is make discussing their AA status unacceptable.
I think an exam school would be a dream for a... person, any person. Well, perhaps not a "person" before some viable age.
Anyone can learn, study, and prepare for an exam. In fact, an exam is a color-blind, sex-blind equalizer. There is an ulterior motive, perhaps well-intentioned, to obfuscate the underlying causes of failing an examination.
Besides the Nobel Prize winners, a great many of the movers and shakers in NY are graduates of these schools. I suppose they're reliably liberal, but my guess is that they're also committed to the meritocracy which has worked for them and also, of course, for the residents of NY and those other people whose lives have been enhanced by Nobel Prize winners.. I don't think this idea is going anywhere.......The white people are probably Jews and haute Wasps. The ethnic Catholics are surely underrepresented. I'm ethnic Catholic. I'm not heart broken about my lack of representation.......How about you leave things as they are for the present schools and build a new elite high school using the diversity model. Then see how things work out there. Why screw with some institutions that have worked so well for their students and the people of the city.
The new Stuyvesant High School sits in a park overlooking the NY Harbor. It has a really fabulous campus and setting. Bronx HS of Science is in the Bronx. In the eighties, anyway, the kids there used to have special hours so they wouldn't become an oppressed minority enroute to school or on the subway.
"Their answer is make discussing their AA status unacceptable."
How sad they must be to lack the power to control the thoughts inside minds--even their own minds!
"After clearing Grad School with a Ph.D. at age 26, random assignment to a job."
Stalin would have had you shot. The Soviets weren't THAT crazy.
So why is this school still named after a one-legged Dutchman ?
He uses dirty tricks like not renewing their leases, because many of them lease space in empty or underused city owned schools. >
Tucson Unified has been desperately trying to sell off an used school so a charter school cannot buy it.
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