But you were talking about fights in K-12 in which kids can’t access honors courses, not college admissions. My suggestion, though perhaps not as clear as it could have been, is to use aptitude tests in K-12 as one of the screens for honors courses (only for those kids who are getting into these “fights” you spoke of).
And why would math instruction be systematically worse than English instruction at the poorly performing schools? And why would it show up differentially by race, when all the students are at the same school?
@SAY You say that the rest of the world has no problem defining merit, but that is where I disagree on some aspects of “merit”. For many jobs throughout the world, getting a job can be simply about who you know, here or abroad. Is that “merit”? I have been lucky enough to be on a few high performing work teams in my career and I have observed that the top teams have a mix of great talent, hard workers with personalities that mesh (for the most part) and bring different things to the table. The teams that I have been on with the absolute “smartest” people have not faired nearly as well (Too many leaders and not enough followers with group-think tendencies) which is why I think colleges do need some leeway to build a class. Even your example of the NBA and NFL having the most talented players is not absolute as people from both leagues have players who have been run out or never allowed in due personality failures in the locker room, bad work ethic, and not fitting the team dynamic. Every year, there are players absolutely talented enough to be in those leagues, who are watching games with you and I. I think what colleges are looking for is that right “mix”, but using race to get there is wrong. I am with you on that dynamic, but you are oversimplifying what is a complex and nuanced process to get the right “mix” of factors along with weighting them properly. You say that all other countries give a test (merit), but most are still in the shadow of USA’s ability to innovate or to find and cultivate innovation at the highest levels. Harvard is wrong to use race as a criteria in admissions, but there is still a reason people clamor to attend it (even from places that do education better).
changethegame you make some good points but work teams or the NBA and NFL do not use race as one of their criteria. Using race for that purpose is against federal law.
UBC the rest of the first world almost exclusively rely on objective measures. That is the point. What is going on in the US is illegal and will be struck down piece by piece starting this year. It doesn’t really matter what we write on this thread because the SCOTUS will be dealing with the Harvard/Asian case next month. However a careful read of the facts is devastating for Harvard since their own internal reviewers showed just how severely Harvard was discriminating against Asians in the “personality section”. There is very little doubt how the justices are going to rule on this case because the discrimination is just so blatant.
Grading or testing in humanities subjects (e.g. English, history) is not necessarily purely objective.
In some rich countries, the educational system commonly practices early tracking, but admission to the pre-university track is not necessarily exclusively on objective measures (and it occurs at the middle school or early high school age).
UBC you are just nitpicking here. The point is that only the US uses the incredibly subjective, veiled, holistic system. While no system is perfect they are not using race as a major component in admission decisions. Here in the USA using race that way is illegal which is why it will soon be struck down. Are you saying you support a race based admissions system?
Not nitpicking to say that all of your idealized examples of other countries’ educational systems are not what they actually are (and, as noted previously, the China and India university admission systems use quotas on demographic characteristics, rather than strictly just the applicants’ scores).
Actually, probably most colleges and universities in the US admit based on just the typical academic credentials (HS courses/grades/rank and test scores) except maybe at the margins, or are effectively open admission. The opaque holistic admissions (which are less opaque and holistic than many types of employment hiring and firing) occur at a relatively small number of universities. And many universities in the US, particularly public ones, explicitly do not use race or ethnicity in admissions.
Colleges and universities looking purely for academic merit do have a valid reason to consider whether an individual’s achievement or merit credentials were limited by discrimination based on race or ethnicity (as well as other situations that could also impose barriers or limits like poverty).
However, it is realistic to notice that many colleges and universities are likely to be using race or ethnicity as just a check box preference (less desirable or undesirable from the view of most outsiders), rather than doing such individual evaluation, probably because their motivations (e.g. their marketability to prospective students and donors, which may be affected by the race and ethnicity of the students, among other things that are not purely academic merit) do not necessarily align with what anyone on the outside wants.
It’s never reasonable for public colleges to violate the equal protection clause. Private colleges which accept public money have similar restrictions under the Civil Rights Act and as a practical matter, colleges don’t even verify if you’re the race/ethnicity you claim to be, much less if you suffered discrimination.
“the facts is devastating for Harvard since their own internal reviewers showed just how severely Harvard was discriminating against Asians in the “personality section”. There is very little doubt how the justices are going to rule on this case because the discrimination is just so blatant.”
Would like to find out for those Asians being accepted (at 19% right?) into Harvard also had generally lower score in “personality section”. If not, it could only prove further that Harvard knows what it is looking for its class selection.
robot Harvard’s own internal investigators proved they were discriminating. Harvard takes huge amounts of federal money and needs to comply with the law.
Using race as a discriminating factor in admissions to ensure the cohort reflects population data. Clearly unfair to students who are in races which have more high stats performing students (for whatever reasons); or
Not using race as a discriminating factor and not ensuring the cohort reflects population data. Clearly unfair to students who are in races which have fewer high stats performing students (for whatever reasons).
Both unfair. Since “fairness” is at worst, impossible, and at best, subjective…
@Postmodern I think there is a 3rd choice. Find a combination of factors for admission that work better than what is currently being employed to advance the narrative past any race based factors. I am not worried about fairness (one of the first lessons I taught my URM kids is the world is not always fair), but the college should be worried about the best mix of students that advance the goal of education (and produce ultra successful alumni). Colleges need to put in more work to figure out that right mix and be transparent about what they are doing. I would argue that what is best for the country is to do things that are right even when it is not easy (no preferences based on gender, religion, race, or sexuality) versus skewing the rules to help historically underserved groups, but there is a lot of guilt from the transgressions of the past. I have always felt that the race factor has been a scapegoat when there are other factors that are also “unfair” in the college admissions process and I hope that they are also visited in trying to do what is right.
There are other scenarios. For example, a college may consider race/ethnicity, but not with the goal of trying to match the population*. How race/ethnicity may be considered can also differ (e.g. is it a checkbox preference, or it is only considered in the context of whether racial discrimination may have created barriers against the applicant’s achievements, or some other way?).
*For example, a college’s goals with respect to their students’ racial/ethnic composition may be (selfishly) based on its marketing motivations. I.e. it wants “enough” of each race/ethnicity so that it can market itself broadly to all possible students, instead of finding that significant segments of the college-bound population are uninterested due to “too few” of their own race/ethnicity there. Racial/ethnic composition may also affect marketing to donors.
Some countries make their public K-12 good enough to give the students equal opportunities to succeed. Then they don’t need to worry about this at college admission. Then their professors don’t need to worry about barely literate students in their challenging classes.
The problem, as we can all acknowledge, is in the K-12 system. Affirmative action at the college level is just a bandaid that on balance does more harm than good (besides being fundamentally abhorrent to a society that is trying not to discriminate on the basis of race).
Unfortunately, money is not going to be the answer to fix the lower schools. I am pretty confident that those days are over. I honestly don’t know how much longer the good suburban districts will be able to extract ever higher school taxes from property owners, but I’m quite certain there’s no superman waiting in the wings with bags of money for urban and poor rural districts. (This is no big loss; money was never going to make a big difference anyway.)
@SatchelSF I have spent a lot of time talking to African American professionals/church family/friends on how to fix the issues in Black communities and believe it will take a multi-pronged attack that encompasses the social, economic, spiritual, and mental aspects of what ails my particular community. Their are templates of success within the US when it comes to successful educational experiences at the K-12 levels within African American communities, but I want to think bigger. I would also like to believe that the absolute key in all of this is that we start to fix ourselves (counting on the government or some outside force is a fallacy). So here are my keys for African Americans (group I know the best but maybe some of the suggestions work for other groups as well).
Fix our broken families (The absolute hardest bullet point to fix on the list and I have no answer for this). My elementary school was 100% black and only 3% of the students were being raised with 2 parents in the household (This data was out in my citiy’s newspaper when I was in high school). Black women have been carrying our people (our families and educational dreams) for the last 50 or so years and Black men must step up. The numbers with 2 married African American parents in the household nationally hovers around 30%) and almost 50% of African American women have never been married. This is a problem that our Churches and our families must do battle with.
Parental Change on what “education means”. Even in households that have 2 educated African American parents, I see an apathy/lack of understanding of what leads to successful educational outcomes. Most of the parents in this boat are 1st gen college graduates who were self-motivated and found a way despite obstacles and they expect their sometimes less motivated children (that grow up with way more “stuff”) to do the same. Education starts at home and we cannot expect for the government to do it all.
Investing our dollars in opportunities. My wife and I are solidly middle class and some may say upper-mid Class (80 percentile for household income in the US). Video games, $200 shoes, and fancy clothes are nice, but almost all of our disposable income for the last 15 years has gone to furthering the education of our kids to get a wider view of the world (Taking Spanish with a tutor as little kids, many sports to learn teamwork and working with groups, museums, some international travel for them, etc). I get that some families have incomes that make food and shelter an issue, but I still see $800 cell phones, video games and expensive clothes in some family members homes whose household income is under $20,000, while never going to the MLK museum 3 miles away (Even with free attendance on Mondays).
Compete without excuses (No bonus points for being Black). We have to stop making excuses due to perceived and even actual biases against African Americans. We have to stop using the collective terror of our ancestors as a crutch. We should never forget what has happened (stories of some horrors are still been passed down in my family), but we can honor our ancestors by showing that those struggles were not in vain. I know that seeing my own family’s history/struggle has been a motivating factor in all that I will ever accomplish.
Read. The biggest stereotype in my mind deals with the SAT/ACT and the collective low scores that African Americans as a race received. From my grandfather’s 8th grade education, to my father’s 950 on the SAT, to myself (1260), to my children (poking around 1500), the SAT/ACT are just tests that can be deciphered, but African Americans almost have a collective fear about it and blame a culture bias in the tests instead of trying to figure out ways to overcome it. For my family at least, reading for pleasure and reading a lot has been the number one thing I have identified as a beginning point to solving the standardized testing issue amongst African Americans (Reading comprehension). We must then invest our time and money in preparing for these tests, which I almost never see/hear about in African American communities.
Put in work. When I look at the biggest difference between the most successful minority group educationally (Asian Americans) and African Americans, the thing that I have been most impressed with is an absolute ability to work for what they want. My kids may never be the smartest, but if their are 2 lessons I hope they have received from our household is to treat people how you want to be treated no matter someone’s “caste” in life, and to put in work. African Americans as a people need to “put in work” and pass that on to our children.
@ChangeTheGame
You bring up so many good points and offer insights in so many areas it’s impossible to address them all. I suspect you find inspiration more in Frederick Douglass’ writings than those of W.E.B. DuBois.
On the general point about education, particularly for African American kids but really applicable to all kids, I don’t think that Thomas Sowell’s answer 40 years ago now has been bettered. This whole Firing Line interview should be required viewing for anyone interested in these questions, but for just the education issue, see from 38:50 on here (note the “maternalistic” limousine liberal asking the questions - sadly nothing has changed in 40 years): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y021WAdUlW8
For those who don’t know Sowell’s work or life history, a quick wiki read is worthwhile. I particularly like the parts about how Sowell grew up in real segregation in 1930s North Carolina (mother was a maid, father died before birth), and after moving to then segregated Harlem in NYC was identified as brilliant through testing (first by Stuyvesant High School, and later - following a stint in the Marine Corps after dropping out of high school - by Harvard): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell
Social engineering simply isn’t the job of college admissions and is far beyond their ability anyway. The colleges have all they can handle already trying to educate the students such that they can obtain decent jobs and pay off their college loans. The legality of elite college admissions has been questionable for many years and is about to be tested by the first of many cases at the SCOTUS and it’s a near certainty that the current system will be ruled illegal. Racial discrimination even if the people have “good intentions” is just as illegal as people doing it for “bad intentions”. At any rate this is all going to be decided very soon and the the general public will be shocked to see the massive amount of illegal racial discrimination that is currently occurring at the elite universities in the name of diversity and affirmative action. The actual admissions data is currently guarded by the elite schools like state secrets and one of the great services of these law suits will be the full revelation of this data. College admissions should be fully transparent and the data should be openly available for review for any college recieving federal or state money. It is truly a scandal that the colleges have been allowed such an egregious legal double standard for so long. There is absolutely no legal defense for Asians being forced to have SAT scores 250-300 points higher than other racial groups.
College itself is social engineering, so therefore admission to college (and which college) is part of that social engineering. State universities exist because the states want a better educated population that will generate more economic activity, growing both the state economy and tax revenues. Private universities have their own (often selfish) social engineering motivations, in terms of wanting students and graduates who will succeed and bring glory to themselves, as well as helping to market themselves to another generation of students and donors. The most selective of them need not worry about weak students failing to graduate (since their applicant pools are filled with strong students), so they have the luxury of selecting many of their students (who meet the baseline academic criteria) based on non-academic characteristics that they believe will help them in their (selfish) goals.
UBC racial discrimination is illegal. That is the point. We will get the first of many rulings very soon. It seems very likely AA will be deemed illegal and that the court will enforce transparency.