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The context for the use of "racially segregated" is probably within the current anti-racist movement (see, for example, Kendi's work). This movement has moved a

The context for the use of "racially segregated" is probably within the current anti-racist movement (see, for example, Kendi's work). This movement has moved away from labeling racist a policy that was implemented with racist intent (like segregated schools during Jim Crow) towards labeling racist a policy that has unequal outcomes based on race, regardless of policymakers' intent. If you start from that perspective, it naturally follows to label G&T education as segregated if we observe that one group being overrepresented in it and another group being underrepresented. Of note here, it's the assumption that the distribution of gifted and talented eligibility attributes is uniformly distributed among different groups of students and that somehow the system is not picking up eligibility signals for specific students. There is some emerging evidence that this is the case for Black students, as the identification gap between Black and White students closes when the G&T assessor is Black (I think that Grissom has a recent paper on this). If we reject the uniform distribution assumption, we end up assuming that the G&T eligibility traits are unevenly distributed among students, which I believe is one of the longest lasting beliefs of racist thought in education.

mc32 5y ago
Among humans it's likely evenly distributed, but... the blame for unevenness should fall more on the parents who rear their kids to fail rather than on the system who fails to find those rough diamonds. The parents should suffer most of the culpability. They are the ones steering their kids to poor outcomes via parenting styles.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  Parents do not exist in a vacuum. If we accept racism did (or does) exist, it presumably would affect the parents of said victims which would lead to the poor outcomes for the kids. Said disparity would grow as the kids would be then denied said opportunity on the basis of their parents' failure. The kids' kids would then suffer the same, and so forth. In other words, how would you "punish" (if that's even necessary) the parents without punishing the kids?
  - mc32 5y ago
    It's not about punishment but blame. Educate the parents. Have classes that guide them on child rearing. When parents neglect their children nutritionally or behaviorally, the state intervenes. Have programs all through K-12 that inculcate this idea. Work to turn that ship around. Have them break out of a bleak culture. They are the PARENTS, it's their responsibility to rear their kids, not the state's responsibility. They made the decision to have kids.
Zababa 5y ago
I'll preface this by saying that I don't live in the USA, so some of these things are a bit alien to me. I'm sorry if the way I word things here is not the best, the goal here is not to attack or even label something as good or bad, but only understanding. > This movement has moved away from labeling racist a policy that was implemented with racist intent (like segregated schools during Jim Crow) towards labeling racist a policy that has unequal outcomes based on race, regardless of policymakers' intent. > If you start from that perspective, it naturally follows to label G&T education as segregated if we observe that one group being overrepresented in it and another group being underrepresented. > If we reject the uniform distribution assumption, we end up assuming that the G&T eligibility traits are unevenly distributed among students, which I believe is one of the longest lasting beliefs of racist thought in education. Would that reasoning hold when applied to spaces where black people tend to be more successful than whites? Sports being a big one here. Would you call sports racist? Would you argue that the equivalent of G&T eligibility traits for sports are evenly distributed among students, regardless of their race? I can see how racist people would push the idea that these traits are unevenly distributed, but when I put things in another context, all of that doesn't make any sense. We don't have a problem accepting as a society that some people are really ahead of the pack when it comes to sports, but when it comes to intelligence (whatever that means, you could probably separate it in academic and work success but most of these are not as clear cut as "who was the fastest to run 100 meters?") we have a hard time talking about it. I guess my question behind this is: what is the aim of the current anti-racist movement? Is it equality in a "colorblind" way, as in the ultimate goal is that race is never a factor in the success and failures that people achieve? Or is it a movement trying to replace negative discrimination with positive discrimination? Is it a movement that's interested in scientific truth, whatever the outcomes may be? Or it is a movement that would hide inconvenient truths if this would help the "cause"?
- bitwize 5y ago
  The thing about racism is, a system can be racist without being explicitly so. Even without Jim Crow laws and segregation, even assuming everyone is perfectly colorblind, the historical context where there were slavery and Jim Crow laws for hundreds of years means that whites wield considerably greater social capital than blacks, and that means they have a significant social advantage. The amelioration for this is equity, or as you call it "positive discrimination". That means -- yes, holding whites back so that blacks have an opportunity to step forward. Blacks need greater advantages in order to achieve social parity with whites. It is also exceedingly shameful that one of the easiest ways to repair the damage caused to blacks' pool of social capital -- slave reparations -- was never considered by the U.S. government.
threatofrain 5y ago
Why would structural racism within NY's G&T programs include Asians as the largest plurality?
isolli 5y ago
Similarly, I consider that the vaccine passport in NYC is racist (in effect if not in intent). By not recognizing infection-acquired immunity, it disproportionately forces Black people to take a vaccine that they do not need. This is because Black people have suffered higher rates of infection (partly due to the fact that they were more likely to work in person during the pandemic). Moreover, for historical reasons (see [0], [1]), Black people have lower rates of vaccine uptake, so the vaccine passport mechanically excludes a higher proportion of them from public spaces. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#African_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_...
padastra 5y ago
There's some conclusions that I disagree with here assuming the same starting facts. Also, I think calling things "racist" or "segregated" usually ends critical thinking because they have the same emotional label as the initial definition (systematic differences in treatment due to skin color) even as the definitions have expanded (systematic differences in outcomes, independent of cause). Let's presume that intelligence is heritable. Given the difference between humans and other species I do not see how this can be argued. Let's also presume that intelligence varies between humans. If there is no variation across a population, then it cannot be selected for, unless you argue a stepwise change that's completely uniform, for which I don't see any other evolutionary proxy. Let's NOT presume that intelligence varies between races. My question to you is this: Can the children of a group of humans selected for intelligence (e.g. completed enough education despite a cultural revolution, had enough finances, etc. -- Asians; escaped systematic genocide, etc. -- Jews) be, on average and not uniformly and with lots of overlap, smarter than the children of a group of humans not selected for intelligence (e.g. sold by other Africans into slavery, so presumably disadvantaged in the original African society, lower-educational-barrier illegal immigration as with many Central and South Americans)? Note for the purposes of this question that reproduction within each group (Asian immigrants : Asian immigrants; Jews : Jews; African-Americans : African-Americans; Hispanics : Hispanics) is much larger than reproduction between groups, preventing admixing over time.
nobody9999 5y ago
>Of note here, it's the assumption that the distribution of gifted and talented eligibility attributes is uniformly distributed among different groups of students and that somehow the system is not picking up eligibility signals for specific students. There is some emerging evidence that this is the case for Black students, as the identification gap between Black and White students closes when the G&T assessor is Black (I think that Grissom has a recent paper on this). Absolutely. I don't have any reference right now, but numerous studies have shown that schools in poor, minority neighborhoods are significantly worse than other schools. What can make a big difference is having higher levels of expectation for student performance and backing that up with tools to increase it. But it's pretty clear that many teachers and school administrators in those poorly performing schools don't have those high expectations, nor do they make the effort to encourage those who would benefit from G/T programs and get them into those programs. When the people who are charged with educating you don't make the effort, then why should the students? The solution is to make the bad schools better, not destroy the programs that could benefit those students just as much as those from other schools.
ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
> There is some emerging evidence that this is the case for Black students, as the identification gap between Black and White students closes when the G&T assessor is Black Could you provide details on this? My impression had been that for magnet high schools the only admissions evaluation was made on the basis of test scores, but you make it sound like admissions are more subjective, with an "assessor".
- pacbard 5y ago
  This is the paper I had in mind: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2332858415622175 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584156221... > Students of color are underrepresented in gifted programs relative to White students, but the reasons for this underrepresentation are poorly understood. We investigate the predictors of gifted assignment using nationally representative, longitudinal data on elementary students. We document that even among students with high standardized test scores, Black students are less likely to be assigned to gifted services in both math and reading, a pattern that persists when controlling for other background factors, such as health and socioeconomic status, and characteristics of classrooms and schools. We then investigate the role of teacher discretion, leveraging research from political science suggesting that clients of government services from traditionally underrepresented groups benefit from diversity in the providers of those services, including teachers. Even after conditioning on test scores and other factors, Black students indeed are referred to gifted programs, particularly in reading, at significantly lower rates when taught by non-Black teachers, a concerning result given the relatively low incidence of assignment to own-race teachers among Black students.

mc32 5y ago

Among humans it's likely evenly distributed, but... the blame for unevenness should fall more on the parents who rear their kids to fail rather than on the system who fails to find those rough diamonds. The parents should suffer most of the culpability. They are the ones steering their kids to poor outcomes via parenting styles.

endisneigh 5y ago
Parents do not exist in a vacuum. If we accept racism did (or does) exist, it presumably would affect the parents of said victims which would lead to the poor outcomes for the kids. Said disparity would grow as the kids would be then denied said opportunity on the basis of their parents' failure. The kids' kids would then suffer the same, and so forth. In other words, how would you "punish" (if that's even necessary) the parents without punishing the kids?
- mc32 5y ago
  It's not about punishment but blame. Educate the parents. Have classes that guide them on child rearing. When parents neglect their children nutritionally or behaviorally, the state intervenes. Have programs all through K-12 that inculcate this idea. Work to turn that ship around. Have them break out of a bleak culture. They are the PARENTS, it's their responsibility to rear their kids, not the state's responsibility. They made the decision to have kids.

Zababa 5y ago

I'll preface this by saying that I don't live in the USA, so some of these things are a bit alien to me. I'm sorry if the way I word things here is not the best, the goal here is not to attack or even label something as good or bad, but only understanding. > This movement has moved away from labeling racist a policy that was implemented with racist intent (like segregated schools during Jim Crow) towards labeling racist a policy that has unequal outcomes based on race, regardless of policymakers' intent. > If you start from that perspective, it naturally follows to label G&T education as segregated if we observe that one group being overrepresented in it and another group being underrepresented. > If we reject the uniform distribution assumption, we end up assuming that the G&T eligibility traits are unevenly distributed among students, which I believe is one of the longest lasting beliefs of racist thought in education. Would that reasoning hold when applied to spaces where black people tend to be more successful than whites? Sports being a big one here. Would you call sports racist? Would you argue that the equivalent of G&T eligibility traits for sports are evenly distributed among students, regardless of their race? I can see how racist people would push the idea that these traits are unevenly distributed, but when I put things in another context, all of that doesn't make any sense. We don't have a problem accepting as a society that some people are really ahead of the pack when it comes to sports, but when it comes to intelligence (whatever that means, you could probably separate it in academic and work success but most of these are not as clear cut as "who was the fastest to run 100 meters?") we have a hard time talking about it. I guess my question behind this is: what is the aim of the current anti-racist movement? Is it equality in a "colorblind" way, as in the ultimate goal is that race is never a factor in the success and failures that people achieve? Or is it a movement trying to replace negative discrimination with positive discrimination? Is it a movement that's interested in scientific truth, whatever the outcomes may be? Or it is a movement that would hide inconvenient truths if this would help the "cause"?

bitwize 5y ago
The thing about racism is, a system can be racist without being explicitly so. Even without Jim Crow laws and segregation, even assuming everyone is perfectly colorblind, the historical context where there were slavery and Jim Crow laws for hundreds of years means that whites wield considerably greater social capital than blacks, and that means they have a significant social advantage. The amelioration for this is equity, or as you call it "positive discrimination". That means -- yes, holding whites back so that blacks have an opportunity to step forward. Blacks need greater advantages in order to achieve social parity with whites. It is also exceedingly shameful that one of the easiest ways to repair the damage caused to blacks' pool of social capital -- slave reparations -- was never considered by the U.S. government.

threatofrain 5y ago

Why would structural racism within NY's G&T programs include Asians as the largest plurality?

isolli 5y ago

Similarly, I consider that the vaccine passport in NYC is racist (in effect if not in intent). By not recognizing infection-acquired immunity, it disproportionately forces Black people to take a vaccine that they do not need. This is because Black people have suffered higher rates of infection (partly due to the fact that they were more likely to work in person during the pandemic). Moreover, for historical reasons (see [0], [1]), Black people have lower rates of vaccine uptake, so the vaccine passport mechanically excludes a higher proportion of them from public spaces. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#African_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_...

padastra 5y ago

There's some conclusions that I disagree with here assuming the same starting facts. Also, I think calling things "racist" or "segregated" usually ends critical thinking because they have the same emotional label as the initial definition (systematic differences in treatment due to skin color) even as the definitions have expanded (systematic differences in outcomes, independent of cause). Let's presume that intelligence is heritable. Given the difference between humans and other species I do not see how this can be argued. Let's also presume that intelligence varies between humans. If there is no variation across a population, then it cannot be selected for, unless you argue a stepwise change that's completely uniform, for which I don't see any other evolutionary proxy. Let's NOT presume that intelligence varies between races. My question to you is this: Can the children of a group of humans selected for intelligence (e.g. completed enough education despite a cultural revolution, had enough finances, etc. -- Asians; escaped systematic genocide, etc. -- Jews) be, on average and not uniformly and with lots of overlap, smarter than the children of a group of humans not selected for intelligence (e.g. sold by other Africans into slavery, so presumably disadvantaged in the original African society, lower-educational-barrier illegal immigration as with many Central and South Americans)? Note for the purposes of this question that reproduction within each group (Asian immigrants : Asian immigrants; Jews : Jews; African-Americans : African-Americans; Hispanics : Hispanics) is much larger than reproduction between groups, preventing admixing over time.

nobody9999 5y ago

>Of note here, it's the assumption that the distribution of gifted and talented eligibility attributes is uniformly distributed among different groups of students and that somehow the system is not picking up eligibility signals for specific students. There is some emerging evidence that this is the case for Black students, as the identification gap between Black and White students closes when the G&T assessor is Black (I think that Grissom has a recent paper on this). Absolutely. I don't have any reference right now, but numerous studies have shown that schools in poor, minority neighborhoods are significantly worse than other schools. What can make a big difference is having higher levels of expectation for student performance and backing that up with tools to increase it. But it's pretty clear that many teachers and school administrators in those poorly performing schools don't have those high expectations, nor do they make the effort to encourage those who would benefit from G/T programs and get them into those programs. When the people who are charged with educating you don't make the effort, then why should the students? The solution is to make the bad schools better, not destroy the programs that could benefit those students just as much as those from other schools.

ravel-bar-foo 5y ago

> There is some emerging evidence that this is the case for Black students, as the identification gap between Black and White students closes when the G&T assessor is Black Could you provide details on this? My impression had been that for magnet high schools the only admissions evaluation was made on the basis of test scores, but you make it sound like admissions are more subjective, with an "assessor".

pacbard 5y ago
This is the paper I had in mind: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2332858415622175 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584156221... > Students of color are underrepresented in gifted programs relative to White students, but the reasons for this underrepresentation are poorly understood. We investigate the predictors of gifted assignment using nationally representative, longitudinal data on elementary students. We document that even among students with high standardized test scores, Black students are less likely to be assigned to gifted services in both math and reading, a pattern that persists when controlling for other background factors, such as health and socioeconomic status, and characteristics of classrooms and schools. We then investigate the role of teacher discretion, leveraging research from political science suggesting that clients of government services from traditionally underrepresented groups benefit from diversity in the providers of those services, including teachers. Even after conditioning on test scores and other factors, Black students indeed are referred to gifted programs, particularly in reading, at significantly lower rates when taught by non-Black teachers, a concerning result given the relatively low incidence of assignment to own-race teachers among Black students.