10 ms·

I don't know anything about this particular Lowell High School, but selective admissions at the high school level achieve excellency by filtering out "bad" stud

by mmarq 5y ago

I don't know anything about this particular Lowell High School, but selective admissions at the high school level achieve excellency by filtering out "bad" students, which are usually students from disadvantaged backgrounds. If a public school is of very high quality, selecting 10 year olds at random is not much less fair than choosing them based on their grades or extracurricular activities or an essay. Unless we assume that high grades, extracurricular activities or essay tutoring are not correlated with family wealth. If certain demographics are heavily underrepresented (and I don't know if it's the case here), either we must assume that they are less smart (and so produce less "high school material") or we must acknowledge that there is some form of discrimination. The latter being almost certainly true, lotteries and quotas don't look like the dumbest ideas.

yonran 5y ago
Did you read the article? Yes, selective admissions filter out “bad” students including the type of students who don’t care about school who hold back students who do care; the problems of the article are virtually nonexistent at Lowell. I don’t think Lowell was particularly selective (I think something like 50% of applicants get in) and there were plenty of poor students (including myself) who benefited from an academic public school that does have both wealthy and non-wealthy students who care about learning (as opposed to private and suburban schools which definitely do discriminate on the basis of wealth/income). > either we must assume that they are less smart … or we must acknowledge that there is some form of discrimination The failure of schooling starts much earlier than the admissions test, and it is wrong to infer from disparities in test results that the test itself is racist (as the ringleaders of the SF Board of Education assumed).
- mmarq 5y ago
  > Did you read the article? Yes, selective admissions filter out “bad” students including the type of students who don’t care about school who hold back students who do care What do we do about these 10 year olds? We assume they are not "high school" material and we put them in the school for dumb kids? Do these 10 year old not care about school because there is something intrinsically wrong about them and so the school system can't do anything about it? > The failure of schooling starts much earlier than the admissions test, and it is wrong to infer from disparities in test results that the test itself is racist (as the ringleaders of the SF Board of Education assumed). The admission test is not racist per se, but if it results in, say, blacks not being admitted to an institution, it exist in a framework that materially enables racism. We are talking about a high-school, which enrols 12 year olds to teach them basic trigonometry and some basic notions of history and literature (in the best case scenario) and not about Hydra hiring PhD candidates to build a death ray. When properly motivated, everybody with a 80+ IQ can succeed in high school, one may argue that you could pick them at random.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    > Do these 10 year old not care about school because there is something intrinsically wrong about them Each child, like each adult, has different motivations in life. Not all children are equally motivated for schoolwork. > The admission test is not racist per se, but if it results in, say, blacks not being admitted to an institution, it exist in a framework that materially enables racism No. You need to look at confounding variables, not just race. It could be that a large percentage of black children in this area come from poor families and must therefore work part-time jobs after school instead of studying. That’s just one example of many possibilities. “Correcting” the problem by putting these children into this special school does nothing to change their poverty: they still must work after school and can’t study. And that means they can’t keep up with the other children in this privileged school. Your solution is probably to make the schoolwork easier and force everyone to suffer the same fate. My solution is to give that family money so their high school kid doesn’t have to work to help support his family. In reality, your solution is the one that gets chosen because of the wokeness movement.
    - tolbish 5y ago
      What kind of 10 year old is in high school and works a part time job?
      - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        It’s an example for teens, not 10-year olds. If you can’t imagine an age-appropriate example for 10-year olds, allow me to suggest an alcoholic, drug addict, homeless, or abusive parent that gets in the way of a 10 year old studying and getting to school on time.
        tolbish 5y ago
        And you think the solution is to give these families cash?
        5y ago
lubujackson 5y ago
This kind of narrow thinking is what has caused schools in SF to suck for everyone. Because Lowell doesn't exist in a vacuum and the arguments that privileged people have a leg up doesn't really make a difference - it is similar logic to burning libraries because some folks can't read. So what happens when you dumb down the only decent public high school for students to aim for? The parents have three options: send your kid to school where they learn nothing (maybe get a tutor and self-learn?), send them to a private high school which costs north of $50k/year in SF (some are more like $65k... and that is IF you can get in!), or you move somewhere else. But there has been a country-wide effort to dumb down public schools combined with softer discipline (thanks to lawsuit fears), so you might simply end up at a private school anyway. Add this together and you can see how pushing equitable results by attacking merit-based options only widens class and economic divides.
- Talanes 5y ago
  >So what happens when you dumb down the only decent public high school for students to aim for? Vast swaths of the country get by without having any choices in high schools. The idea that need a selection of different schools with different levels of prestige and focuses is such an urban entitlement.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Not having better options doesn’t mean they don’t exist. For some parents, their children are their greatest investment, and they won’t accept a lesser educational environment even if superior options aren’t available in some geographies. If I need heart surgery, I’d rather be in NYC (Mount Sinai specifically) then BFE fly over country, and if I have the means I’m on the next flight. Same with education. Hard to find fault imho with those who want more than the lowest common denominator for their children.
    - Talanes 5y ago
      Good for those parents, but I don't think it's the job of society to optimize for the preferences of a small set of very involved parents. If anything we should optimize against them: bringing the gaps in school choice low enough that most parents won't prefer one over another anyway. I also think there's a value to be had in having the over-acheivers and under-acheivers together in the same social setting of school, if not in the same classes.
WalterBright 5y ago
If we do not take advantage of the more capable students because of equity, what will the future be without people who can do the sorts of things that require highly capable individuals? No iphones, electric cars, or covid vaccines, for example. Even the communists realized that when you've got smart students, take advantage and educate them as best you can. The third reich idiotically drove out their best scientists, who wound up enthusiastically working for the Allies developing the technology that defeated the reich.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  Is there any evidence at all that AP classes and high GPAs leads to success, when controlling for other variables?
  - nverno 5y ago
    GPA should be a result of mastering the material. Assuming that is roughly the case, if you ever go on to use any of the skills you were supposed to learn in school (math, computing, etc) you are asking if having learned those skills would help you perform those skills? I doubt there will ever be a way to satisfactorily control for other variables when it comes to these sorts of real-life studies (there is a reason the majority of social science isn't reproducible[1]) [1] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/21/eabd1705 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/21/eabd1705
    - staticassertion 5y ago
      So the answer is no.
      - nverno 5y ago
        I would lean more towards this is one of those truths that can be taken as self-evident. But, at the same time I would be skeptical that any published evidence would account for the infinitude of confounding factors. My guess is it is similar to IQ results - does a good job weeding out people who know nothing, but does worse differentiating between students who are satisfactory and those who are exceptional
concordDance 5y ago
> If certain demographics are heavily underrepresented (and I don't know if it's the case here), either we must assume that they are less smart (and so produce less "high school material") or we must acknowledge that there is some form of discrimination. The latter being almost certainly true Is this what the evidence suggests or what you wish to be true?
- mmarq 5y ago
  > Is this what the evidence suggests or what you wish to be true? Yes, evidence suggests that blacks and Indians and whatnot are not dumber than whites and that foreigners are not dumber than the locals.
  - concordDance 5y ago
    I would love to see this evidence if you could link it, particularly regarding people of sub saharan african origin. I've been trying to kick my racism ever since I learnt about the measured IQ (and other intelectual achievement) average differences.

by mmarq 5y ago

yonran 5y ago

Did you read the article? Yes, selective admissions filter out “bad” students including the type of students who don’t care about school who hold back students who do care; the problems of the article are virtually nonexistent at Lowell. I don’t think Lowell was particularly selective (I think something like 50% of applicants get in) and there were plenty of poor students (including myself) who benefited from an academic public school that does have both wealthy and non-wealthy students who care about learning (as opposed to private and suburban schools which definitely do discriminate on the basis of wealth/income). > either we must assume that they are less smart … or we must acknowledge that there is some form of discrimination The failure of schooling starts much earlier than the admissions test, and it is wrong to infer from disparities in test results that the test itself is racist (as the ringleaders of the SF Board of Education assumed).

mmarq 5y ago
> Did you read the article? Yes, selective admissions filter out “bad” students including the type of students who don’t care about school who hold back students who do care What do we do about these 10 year olds? We assume they are not "high school" material and we put them in the school for dumb kids? Do these 10 year old not care about school because there is something intrinsically wrong about them and so the school system can't do anything about it? > The failure of schooling starts much earlier than the admissions test, and it is wrong to infer from disparities in test results that the test itself is racist (as the ringleaders of the SF Board of Education assumed). The admission test is not racist per se, but if it results in, say, blacks not being admitted to an institution, it exist in a framework that materially enables racism. We are talking about a high-school, which enrols 12 year olds to teach them basic trigonometry and some basic notions of history and literature (in the best case scenario) and not about Hydra hiring PhD candidates to build a death ray. When properly motivated, everybody with a 80+ IQ can succeed in high school, one may argue that you could pick them at random.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  > Do these 10 year old not care about school because there is something intrinsically wrong about them Each child, like each adult, has different motivations in life. Not all children are equally motivated for schoolwork. > The admission test is not racist per se, but if it results in, say, blacks not being admitted to an institution, it exist in a framework that materially enables racism No. You need to look at confounding variables, not just race. It could be that a large percentage of black children in this area come from poor families and must therefore work part-time jobs after school instead of studying. That’s just one example of many possibilities. “Correcting” the problem by putting these children into this special school does nothing to change their poverty: they still must work after school and can’t study. And that means they can’t keep up with the other children in this privileged school. Your solution is probably to make the schoolwork easier and force everyone to suffer the same fate. My solution is to give that family money so their high school kid doesn’t have to work to help support his family. In reality, your solution is the one that gets chosen because of the wokeness movement.
  - tolbish 5y ago
    What kind of 10 year old is in high school and works a part time job?
    - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      It’s an example for teens, not 10-year olds. If you can’t imagine an age-appropriate example for 10-year olds, allow me to suggest an alcoholic, drug addict, homeless, or abusive parent that gets in the way of a 10 year old studying and getting to school on time.
      - tolbish 5y ago
        And you think the solution is to give these families cash?
        5y ago

lubujackson 5y ago

This kind of narrow thinking is what has caused schools in SF to suck for everyone. Because Lowell doesn't exist in a vacuum and the arguments that privileged people have a leg up doesn't really make a difference - it is similar logic to burning libraries because some folks can't read. So what happens when you dumb down the only decent public high school for students to aim for? The parents have three options: send your kid to school where they learn nothing (maybe get a tutor and self-learn?), send them to a private high school which costs north of $50k/year in SF (some are more like $65k... and that is IF you can get in!), or you move somewhere else. But there has been a country-wide effort to dumb down public schools combined with softer discipline (thanks to lawsuit fears), so you might simply end up at a private school anyway. Add this together and you can see how pushing equitable results by attacking merit-based options only widens class and economic divides.

Talanes 5y ago
>So what happens when you dumb down the only decent public high school for students to aim for? Vast swaths of the country get by without having any choices in high schools. The idea that need a selection of different schools with different levels of prestige and focuses is such an urban entitlement.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Not having better options doesn’t mean they don’t exist. For some parents, their children are their greatest investment, and they won’t accept a lesser educational environment even if superior options aren’t available in some geographies. If I need heart surgery, I’d rather be in NYC (Mount Sinai specifically) then BFE fly over country, and if I have the means I’m on the next flight. Same with education. Hard to find fault imho with those who want more than the lowest common denominator for their children.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    Good for those parents, but I don't think it's the job of society to optimize for the preferences of a small set of very involved parents. If anything we should optimize against them: bringing the gaps in school choice low enough that most parents won't prefer one over another anyway. I also think there's a value to be had in having the over-acheivers and under-acheivers together in the same social setting of school, if not in the same classes.

WalterBright 5y ago

If we do not take advantage of the more capable students because of equity, what will the future be without people who can do the sorts of things that require highly capable individuals? No iphones, electric cars, or covid vaccines, for example. Even the communists realized that when you've got smart students, take advantage and educate them as best you can. The third reich idiotically drove out their best scientists, who wound up enthusiastically working for the Allies developing the technology that defeated the reich.

staticassertion 5y ago
Is there any evidence at all that AP classes and high GPAs leads to success, when controlling for other variables?
- nverno 5y ago
  GPA should be a result of mastering the material. Assuming that is roughly the case, if you ever go on to use any of the skills you were supposed to learn in school (math, computing, etc) you are asking if having learned those skills would help you perform those skills? I doubt there will ever be a way to satisfactorily control for other variables when it comes to these sorts of real-life studies (there is a reason the majority of social science isn't reproducible[1]) [1] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/21/eabd1705 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/21/eabd1705
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    So the answer is no.
    - nverno 5y ago
      I would lean more towards this is one of those truths that can be taken as self-evident. But, at the same time I would be skeptical that any published evidence would account for the infinitude of confounding factors. My guess is it is similar to IQ results - does a good job weeding out people who know nothing, but does worse differentiating between students who are satisfactory and those who are exceptional

concordDance 5y ago

> If certain demographics are heavily underrepresented (and I don't know if it's the case here), either we must assume that they are less smart (and so produce less "high school material") or we must acknowledge that there is some form of discrimination. The latter being almost certainly true Is this what the evidence suggests or what you wish to be true?

mmarq 5y ago
> Is this what the evidence suggests or what you wish to be true? Yes, evidence suggests that blacks and Indians and whatnot are not dumber than whites and that foreigners are not dumber than the locals.
- concordDance 5y ago
  I would love to see this evidence if you could link it, particularly regarding people of sub saharan african origin. I've been trying to kick my racism ever since I learnt about the measured IQ (and other intelectual achievement) average differences.