8 ms·

> A district analysis of the program found that more than 70 percent of students enrolled in the program were white and Asian, even though nearly 80 percent of

by jbm 6y ago

> A district analysis of the program found that more than 70 percent of students enrolled in the program were white and Asian, even though nearly 80 percent of all Boston public school students are Hispanic and Black. I'm having a hard time trying to understand what the acceptable outcome they want is. Proportional enrollment based on race? This possibility bothers me, since I never identified myself by race. So would I be lumped into a generic "Asian" category in their statistics based on my skin colour? Why is this the correct form of human categorization?

polishdude20 6y ago
It's not. They're embarrassed that this happened and rather than trying to fix it, they'd rather just quit the program so nobody gets ahead.
- bob33212 6y ago
  It is a common trick of managers to only measure things that make them look good. Is the number of regressions going up? Remove the isRegression checkbox from your bug tracking system.
- Zelphyr 6y ago
  Kurt Vonnegut, it seems, saw this coming 60 years ago.
  - lr1970 6y ago
    For those who never read it, here is the link to the archive.org version of the short story HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut [1]. [1] https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge... EDIT: This is the opening paragraph. It says it all: THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
    - grawprog 6y ago
      Harrison Bergeron's one of those few cases where i actually preferred the movie version to the original story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron_(film) I thought the original was a bit over the top a bit ridiculous almost. Bergeron's some kind of god being almost. The movie kept it a little more realistic and was darker i felt.
    - csb6 6y ago
      Every time people talk about the real problem of so-called "gifted" classes containing disproportionately large numbers of white students, this story gets trotted out as an ominous warning of "where this could go". This is the slippery slope fallacy; who is suggesting that we attach bags of lead weights to people who are stronger than average or play loud noises to disrupt the thinking of people smarter than average? No such measures, or anything like them, is proposed in the article. Actually, no measures are proposed at all because the school hasn't decided what to do yet (beyond temporarily suspending gifted classes). So how is this story at all relevant or illuminating to the article, beyond as an exercise in fearmongering?
      - Zelphyr 6y ago
        You can't apply a literal interpretation of the story when no such interpretation was intended by Vonnegut. Of course he never expected actual lead weights would be strapped to people by legal decree. That's not the point. How it relates to the article is the "lead weight" of removing the availability of AP classes from White and Asian students is a severely misguided attempt at making Black and Hispanic students equal, as if they weren't already. It's actually a terribly wrong message to the Black and Hispanic students. It seems to me that a better approach is try to understand the reasons why more Black and Hispanic students aren't enrolling while continuing to provide these classes to any student who qualifies, regardless of race.
AnHonestComment 6y ago
> Proportional enrollment based on race? Yes. “Antiracist” doesn’t mean “not racist”; it’s a Marxist ideology focusing on racial identities and purposeful systemic racism to “balance” the power between racial tribes. It’s extremely racist. Anti-Asian racism will become normalized as long as “antiracism” is part of the Democratic agenda. They’re literally fighting to overturn civil rights laws in CA and WA so the government can discriminate based on race again.
- sodality2 6y ago
  >They’re literally fighting to overturn civil rights laws in CA and WA so the government can discriminate based on race again. Source? From a reputable location, the only ones I'm finding are sites with headlines like: “If I wanted America to fail” Capitalism Explained George Soros Honest News How Do You Kill 11 Million People? Joe Biden in Five Minutes Lara Logan’s Warning to America Make Mine Freedom Obama Admin Caught Sending Guns to Drug Cartels Rules for Radicals SCOTUS: Government Can Force You to Buy Anything The Iron Lady The Socialist’s Camoflage Trump Admin Accomplishments Vote Fraud What is a Constitutional Moderate? and even Breitbart says Prop 209 prevents race-based affirmative action in state contracts, government jobs, and university admissions
  - bopbeepboop 6y ago
    CA prop 16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16 WA prop 1000 https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/initiative-1000-to-repeal-the-washington-civil-rights-act https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/initiat...
    - sodality2 6y ago
      That second link has a spare "d" after "publications" that broke it, by the way. Thanks for the links
      - 6y ago
Kim_Bruning 6y ago
If you take a random sample from a population, then you'd expect the sample to be representative of the population. All else being equal: if you categorize a population in some arbitrary way, and there's a particular distribution of those categories in that population; you should expect the same distribution in your sample. In this case the distribution in the population was not identical to the distribution in the sample. Clearly something isn't right.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rhino369 6y ago
  Why would you expect the sample of gifted children to be representative of the population. By almost every measure Hispanic and Black students fall behind other students. The achievement gap is very well studied. The challenge is fixing the problem, not pretending it doesn’t exit by making white and Asian students educations worse. This is like the Boston PD issuing orders to shoot more unarmed Asians since black and Hispanics are shot more disproportionately.
  - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
    In this case the skew is pretty extreme though. In combination with other indicators, a strong gender/racial skew relative to the underlying population can be a predictor that your program or organization will be in trouble soon. Indeed, it seems to be in trouble at this time: The article states: "Cassellius says interest in the program had declined over several years[...]". So there are clearly more issues. My understanding of the article is that they're going on a one year hiatus to figure out the issues and fix them.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      The populations in these urban school districts are very skewed due to middle class Black and Latino populations migrating to the suburbs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_flight. So the district comprises rich white yuppies, and lower income people of color, often recent immigrants, with little in-between. The school district addressed in Nice White Parents (great podcast) exemplifies this dynamic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-parents-serial.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-paren....
kyrieeschaton 6y ago
Diversity substantively means fewer whites and asians. The goal is a 100% diverse school system.
- loveistheanswer 6y ago
  So essentially backdoor segregation?
  - ttt0 6y ago
    Yes, in CHAZ they had separate areas for only black people, so they can isolate themselves from whites.
    - grawprog 6y ago
      How in the space of seventy years or so did equal rights go from 'Stop Segregation' to 'Everybody Should be Segregated Based On Race or Other Physical Factors'?
      - colpabar 6y ago
        If the 99% stopped dividing themselves, they'd be unified against the 1%, and the 1% does not want that.
        loveistheanswer 6y ago
        "Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity." -MLK, I've Been To The Mountaintop, last speech given the night before assasination https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemou...

by jbm 6y ago

polishdude20 6y ago

It's not. They're embarrassed that this happened and rather than trying to fix it, they'd rather just quit the program so nobody gets ahead.

bob33212 6y ago
It is a common trick of managers to only measure things that make them look good. Is the number of regressions going up? Remove the isRegression checkbox from your bug tracking system.
Zelphyr 6y ago
Kurt Vonnegut, it seems, saw this coming 60 years ago.
- lr1970 6y ago
  For those who never read it, here is the link to the archive.org version of the short story HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut [1]. [1] https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge... EDIT: This is the opening paragraph. It says it all: THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
  - grawprog 6y ago
    Harrison Bergeron's one of those few cases where i actually preferred the movie version to the original story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron_(film) I thought the original was a bit over the top a bit ridiculous almost. Bergeron's some kind of god being almost. The movie kept it a little more realistic and was darker i felt.
  - csb6 6y ago
    Every time people talk about the real problem of so-called "gifted" classes containing disproportionately large numbers of white students, this story gets trotted out as an ominous warning of "where this could go". This is the slippery slope fallacy; who is suggesting that we attach bags of lead weights to people who are stronger than average or play loud noises to disrupt the thinking of people smarter than average? No such measures, or anything like them, is proposed in the article. Actually, no measures are proposed at all because the school hasn't decided what to do yet (beyond temporarily suspending gifted classes). So how is this story at all relevant or illuminating to the article, beyond as an exercise in fearmongering?
    - Zelphyr 6y ago
      You can't apply a literal interpretation of the story when no such interpretation was intended by Vonnegut. Of course he never expected actual lead weights would be strapped to people by legal decree. That's not the point. How it relates to the article is the "lead weight" of removing the availability of AP classes from White and Asian students is a severely misguided attempt at making Black and Hispanic students equal, as if they weren't already. It's actually a terribly wrong message to the Black and Hispanic students. It seems to me that a better approach is try to understand the reasons why more Black and Hispanic students aren't enrolling while continuing to provide these classes to any student who qualifies, regardless of race.

AnHonestComment 6y ago

> Proportional enrollment based on race? Yes. “Antiracist” doesn’t mean “not racist”; it’s a Marxist ideology focusing on racial identities and purposeful systemic racism to “balance” the power between racial tribes. It’s extremely racist. Anti-Asian racism will become normalized as long as “antiracism” is part of the Democratic agenda. They’re literally fighting to overturn civil rights laws in CA and WA so the government can discriminate based on race again.

sodality2 6y ago
>They’re literally fighting to overturn civil rights laws in CA and WA so the government can discriminate based on race again. Source? From a reputable location, the only ones I'm finding are sites with headlines like: “If I wanted America to fail” Capitalism Explained George Soros Honest News How Do You Kill 11 Million People? Joe Biden in Five Minutes Lara Logan’s Warning to America Make Mine Freedom Obama Admin Caught Sending Guns to Drug Cartels Rules for Radicals SCOTUS: Government Can Force You to Buy Anything The Iron Lady The Socialist’s Camoflage Trump Admin Accomplishments Vote Fraud What is a Constitutional Moderate? and even Breitbart says Prop 209 prevents race-based affirmative action in state contracts, government jobs, and university admissions
- bopbeepboop 6y ago
  CA prop 16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16 WA prop 1000 https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/initiative-1000-to-repeal-the-washington-civil-rights-act https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/initiat...
  - sodality2 6y ago
    That second link has a spare "d" after "publications" that broke it, by the way. Thanks for the links
    - 6y ago

Kim_Bruning 6y ago

If you take a random sample from a population, then you'd expect the sample to be representative of the population. All else being equal: if you categorize a population in some arbitrary way, and there's a particular distribution of those categories in that population; you should expect the same distribution in your sample. In this case the distribution in the population was not identical to the distribution in the sample. Clearly something isn't right.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rhino369 6y ago
Why would you expect the sample of gifted children to be representative of the population. By almost every measure Hispanic and Black students fall behind other students. The achievement gap is very well studied. The challenge is fixing the problem, not pretending it doesn’t exit by making white and Asian students educations worse. This is like the Boston PD issuing orders to shoot more unarmed Asians since black and Hispanics are shot more disproportionately.
- Kim_Bruning 6y ago
  In this case the skew is pretty extreme though. In combination with other indicators, a strong gender/racial skew relative to the underlying population can be a predictor that your program or organization will be in trouble soon. Indeed, it seems to be in trouble at this time: The article states: "Cassellius says interest in the program had declined over several years[...]". So there are clearly more issues. My understanding of the article is that they're going on a one year hiatus to figure out the issues and fix them.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    The populations in these urban school districts are very skewed due to middle class Black and Latino populations migrating to the suburbs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_flight. So the district comprises rich white yuppies, and lower income people of color, often recent immigrants, with little in-between. The school district addressed in Nice White Parents (great podcast) exemplifies this dynamic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-parents-serial.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-paren....

kyrieeschaton 6y ago

Diversity substantively means fewer whites and asians. The goal is a 100% diverse school system.

loveistheanswer 6y ago
So essentially backdoor segregation?
- ttt0 6y ago
  Yes, in CHAZ they had separate areas for only black people, so they can isolate themselves from whites.
  - grawprog 6y ago
    How in the space of seventy years or so did equal rights go from 'Stop Segregation' to 'Everybody Should be Segregated Based On Race or Other Physical Factors'?
    - colpabar 6y ago
      If the 99% stopped dividing themselves, they'd be unified against the 1%, and the 1% does not want that.
      - loveistheanswer 6y ago
        "Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity." -MLK, I've Been To The Mountaintop, last speech given the night before assasination https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemou...