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Standardized testing is not biased against underrepresented minorities. The study that UC commissioned found that performance in the tests correlated with colle
by babesh 6y ago
Standardized testing is not biased against underrepresented minorities. The study that UC commissioned found that performance in the tests correlated with college performance and was not biased.
Underrepresented minorities are as a whole not as optimized for the system. Some of that is that cottage industry of essay writers etc, SAT prep courses, etc... but some of it is objectively not being as prepared. Now some of this is also due to growing up in worse environments for academic performance but this is a real difference in performance.
I have interviewed Stanford students. There is a step difference between the Asian/white students and the underrepresented minority students in their performance. The underrepresented minorities were still smart but the Asian/white students behaved like they were a year or two ahead in school.
- babesh 6y agoThe best white/Asian kids seemed to be much more experienced with actual computers and computing. Classes taught in schools cannot compensate for this. It’s the difference between learning about programming in school and actual on the job programming or better yet hacking with strong friends for a year. It’s a huge difference in confidence, comfort, and dexterity. It isn’t necessarily a difference in raw ability.
- babesh 6y agoOne good step is mentorship, outreach, and internship programs for socioeconomically disadvantaged kids starting from elementary school. The tech giants should just embrace this.
- babesh 6y agoAn example: I interviewed an underrepresented minority student from Stanford. He was bright but obviously only understood computing from what was taught in class. So he didn’t do that well in the interview. If it were up to me, I would still have brought him in as an intern. However, the company did not move forward. Under their criteria, they wouldn’t move forward because the student would not have been able to contribute. The company should have changed the criteria to look for raw ability instead of realized ability and to look to nurture the next generation rather than feeding its hiring pool directly.
- throw14082020 6y agoHow did you test for computing skills 'outside' of the class though (you mention it was obvious, I don't see how this can be)? Or is it just your gut-feeling that he wasn't any good at extracurricular computing?
- babesh 6y agoYou could say that standardized testing is somewhat biased against poverty rather than minorities directly. Poverty won’t let you afford extra summer tutoring, SAT prep, etc...
- babesh 6y agoOr the extra opportunities to explore your interests.
- dillondoyle 6y agoOr a quality education k-12 to begin with
- babesh 6y agoYes
- saagarjha 6y agoYou know you can just type a long comment, right? There’s no need to make a thread where 80% of the comments are just you replying to yourself.
- hardwaregeek 6y agoOh lol I did not see that all of the responses were from the same person.
- babesh 6y agoHacker News doesn’t let you edit a comment after a period of time.