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> gifted programs for any student, regardless of wealth. Right "any student" - so please explain to me what causes the huge disproportionate racial gap in thes

> gifted programs for any student, regardless of wealth. Right "any student" - so please explain to me what causes the huge disproportionate racial gap in these schools? There's really two arguments here: - Biological - Non biological If anyone thinks its the first one, I'm not having this discussion with you. If you think it's the second one, are taxes going to gifted schools actually...helping society?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
colpabar 5y ago
Do you really expect anyone to engage with you in good faith when you state you'll only accept certain answers?
- aaomidi 5y ago
  Show me what I missed then. What could be an explanation of why there is a huge difference in racial demographics when it comes to these schools that don't fall into one of those two categories?
  - colpabar 5y ago
    Idk, but there's lot to read. Here's an article I just found https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-black-white-test-score-gap-why-it-persists-and-what-can-be-done/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-black-white-test-scor... > Traditional explanations for the black-white test score gap have not stood up well to the test of time. During the 1960s, most liberals blamed the gap on some combination of black poverty, racial segregation, and inadequate funding of black schools. Since then, the number of affluent black families has grown dramatically, but their children’s test scores still lag far behind those of white children from equally affluent families. School desegregation may have played some role in reducing the black-white test score gap in the South, but school desegregation also seems to have costs for blacks, and when we compare initially similar students in today’s schools, those who attend desegregated schools learn only slightly more than those in segregated schools. Automatically blaming any discrepancy on outcomes between different racial groups on racism isn't helping anyone. It also doesn't really feel like you're looking to discuss or learn anything here, rather just to scold people for being racist. This is a tough question that doesn't have a solid answer yet.
    - aaomidi 5y ago
      > rather just to scold people for being racist Where did I scold people, or call people racist? I said I'm not interested in the discussion if you think there is a _biological reason_ behind it.
      - colpabar 5y ago
        Well, I'd guess that most people here are not interested in a discussion that involves working backwards from an already chosen solution rather than figuring out what the solution is without any ideas being forbidden from the start. (myself included) Good luck!
  - montblanc 5y ago
    What could explain the huge difference in racial demographics when it comes to the NBA ? Will we start preventing black kids from playing basketball at an early age so whites can catch up? I mean if there is no such thing as differences between peoples, surely the NBA is racist for not accepting barely any Whites huh?
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      Height is well-defined, easily measurable, observable, and highly correlated to the ability to put a ball in a basket that is high off the ground. It is not at all comparable to IQ, which is neither well-understood nor well-defined. Measure height in 10 different ways on 10 different days, and you'll get the same value. Measure IQ 10 different ways on 10 different days and you'll get 10 different values. Do I have the same IQ at 3am after I haven't eaten all day, as I do at noon on a full stomach and a good night's sleep? I guarantee you my score will be different in both scenarios, so does that mean I have two IQs? Sleepy IQ vs. Alert IQ? When measuring IQ, is sleepiness vs. alertness controlled for? Is hunger? Somehow I took a test in 3rd grade that changed the trajectory of my life. What if I didn't eat that morning? No one checked, and the only one to feed me was my mother. What if she didn't feed me? Would my IQ have dropped 10 points on that test and caused my entire life to change? Very possibly, I was on the threshold. I'm quite sure that some people in the room taking the test with me didn't eat that day, maybe not since lunch time the day before, since the test was at 8am. Would it surprise you to know that of the people in my class who were hungry while taking that test that day, most of them were children of color? How do you think the IQ results turn out when a majority of children of color are hungry while taking it, and the majority of white kids are well-fed. At my school it meant that a majority of "gifted" students were white. Actually, come to think of it, all of them were. Not a single minority, despite minorities being represented at a proportionate rate at my school. What's scary to me is that the unstated opinion in some of my social circles is that this situation is the result of whites simply having a higher IQ. As your post seems to imply here. Edit: To the dead comment below me: > IQ is very well defined - it's the grade you get in an IQ test That's called a tautology, so what you're saying is that the tests are not measuring anything except themselves. The rest I will leave dead because it's subjective, so no need to resurrect it, but the way you defined IQ here is a verifiable logical flaw in your argument.
dsjegkl 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
selestify 5y ago
> If you think it's the second one, are taxes going to gifted schools actually...helping society? Of course those taxes are helping society. There are gifted students living in poor school districts who wouldn't be getting the resources that let them excel if it weren't for the tax dollars funding those resources for them.
jaywalk 5y ago
Does giving more tax money to underperforming schools help society? I'll answer that question myself: no, it does not. Detroit Public Schools receives more funding per student than the average school district in Michigan, yet it is one of the worst performing school districts in the nation. You cannot simply throw money at bad schools to make them better, so why punish gifted students by removing their ability to learn at a level that's more appropriate for them?
aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
“Non-biological” can mean cultural, not just economical.
- aaomidi 5y ago
  Definitely. But this is where C.R.T comes in and asks "why do we think certain demographics don't value education culturally?"
  - aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
    Sorry, I’m not familiar with C.R.T. What is their proposal?
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    Why do we think it's our business exactly? If some cultural groups don't value education, isn't that their prerogative? Why do we think we need to get involved in the interest of representation?
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    Uh, could that be because it just takes time (often measured in generations) for historically-ingrained attitudes to shift in a socially-beneficial direction? What a silly question. Mind you, the C. R. T. folks are the ones who keep telling us that having a "good education", "getting the right answer" and "being on time" are uniquely oppressive "White values" and that Blacks are just different.
andrepd 5y ago
Which schools in particular? Please link me some data, I don't know what you are discussing.
Enginerrrd 5y ago
One answer: If you have a selection process that compares a minority group against the general population for any metric which produces a well-defined ranking, and then selects for the top X% of performers on that metric, then you will end up with a selected group that has a lower proportion of the minority group. To put this in clearer language: If I have a bunch of 100-sided dice: 90 blue dice in one bucket, and 10 red dice in another, and I roll them all and select the top 10 numbers rolled, I'll have a greater proportion than 90% of blue dice, because there are more total dice rolls in that group.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
  This doesn’t sound right. Can you prove this?
  - pandaman 5y ago
    I guess he is alluding to effects of rounding up/down in small samples but those cannot be biased in one direction. Nor are they certain to happen. If I toss 9 quarters and a nickel and count the fraction of tails that rolled on the nickel then it will be equal to 1/10 of all the tails only if all coins roll tails or all roll heads i.e. in 2 outcomes out of 1024. In half of the other cases nickel tails will be overrepresented and in in the other half - underrepresented. It's because you cannot roll a fraction of a tail.
  - Enginerrrd 5y ago
    I just ran some monte carlo simulations. Turns out I was totally wrong, at least for a uniform distribution. I now suspect it's probably true for any distribution, but I can't prove it yet. It just seems really odd to me: It seems like because you get 9x the number of dice rolls for one group you would end up with a final distribution that favors the majority group, but that is obviously not the case. I need to wrap my brain around that one.
FFRefresh 5y ago
To follow-up from your first question: What do you think explains the unequal distribution of outcomes WITHIN races in terms of school performance?
Papirola 5y ago
I would like to apply this line of thought to the NBA. There is lack of diversity there as well.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

colpabar 5y ago

Do you really expect anyone to engage with you in good faith when you state you'll only accept certain answers?

aaomidi 5y ago
Show me what I missed then. What could be an explanation of why there is a huge difference in racial demographics when it comes to these schools that don't fall into one of those two categories?
- colpabar 5y ago
  Idk, but there's lot to read. Here's an article I just found https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-black-white-test-score-gap-why-it-persists-and-what-can-be-done/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-black-white-test-scor... > Traditional explanations for the black-white test score gap have not stood up well to the test of time. During the 1960s, most liberals blamed the gap on some combination of black poverty, racial segregation, and inadequate funding of black schools. Since then, the number of affluent black families has grown dramatically, but their children’s test scores still lag far behind those of white children from equally affluent families. School desegregation may have played some role in reducing the black-white test score gap in the South, but school desegregation also seems to have costs for blacks, and when we compare initially similar students in today’s schools, those who attend desegregated schools learn only slightly more than those in segregated schools. Automatically blaming any discrepancy on outcomes between different racial groups on racism isn't helping anyone. It also doesn't really feel like you're looking to discuss or learn anything here, rather just to scold people for being racist. This is a tough question that doesn't have a solid answer yet.
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    > rather just to scold people for being racist Where did I scold people, or call people racist? I said I'm not interested in the discussion if you think there is a _biological reason_ behind it.
    - colpabar 5y ago
      Well, I'd guess that most people here are not interested in a discussion that involves working backwards from an already chosen solution rather than figuring out what the solution is without any ideas being forbidden from the start. (myself included) Good luck!
- montblanc 5y ago
  What could explain the huge difference in racial demographics when it comes to the NBA ? Will we start preventing black kids from playing basketball at an early age so whites can catch up? I mean if there is no such thing as differences between peoples, surely the NBA is racist for not accepting barely any Whites huh?
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    Height is well-defined, easily measurable, observable, and highly correlated to the ability to put a ball in a basket that is high off the ground. It is not at all comparable to IQ, which is neither well-understood nor well-defined. Measure height in 10 different ways on 10 different days, and you'll get the same value. Measure IQ 10 different ways on 10 different days and you'll get 10 different values. Do I have the same IQ at 3am after I haven't eaten all day, as I do at noon on a full stomach and a good night's sleep? I guarantee you my score will be different in both scenarios, so does that mean I have two IQs? Sleepy IQ vs. Alert IQ? When measuring IQ, is sleepiness vs. alertness controlled for? Is hunger? Somehow I took a test in 3rd grade that changed the trajectory of my life. What if I didn't eat that morning? No one checked, and the only one to feed me was my mother. What if she didn't feed me? Would my IQ have dropped 10 points on that test and caused my entire life to change? Very possibly, I was on the threshold. I'm quite sure that some people in the room taking the test with me didn't eat that day, maybe not since lunch time the day before, since the test was at 8am. Would it surprise you to know that of the people in my class who were hungry while taking that test that day, most of them were children of color? How do you think the IQ results turn out when a majority of children of color are hungry while taking it, and the majority of white kids are well-fed. At my school it meant that a majority of "gifted" students were white. Actually, come to think of it, all of them were. Not a single minority, despite minorities being represented at a proportionate rate at my school. What's scary to me is that the unstated opinion in some of my social circles is that this situation is the result of whites simply having a higher IQ. As your post seems to imply here. Edit: To the dead comment below me: > IQ is very well defined - it's the grade you get in an IQ test That's called a tautology, so what you're saying is that the tests are not measuring anything except themselves. The rest I will leave dead because it's subjective, so no need to resurrect it, but the way you defined IQ here is a verifiable logical flaw in your argument.

dsjegkl 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

selestify 5y ago

> If you think it's the second one, are taxes going to gifted schools actually...helping society? Of course those taxes are helping society. There are gifted students living in poor school districts who wouldn't be getting the resources that let them excel if it weren't for the tax dollars funding those resources for them.

jaywalk 5y ago

Does giving more tax money to underperforming schools help society? I'll answer that question myself: no, it does not. Detroit Public Schools receives more funding per student than the average school district in Michigan, yet it is one of the worst performing school districts in the nation. You cannot simply throw money at bad schools to make them better, so why punish gifted students by removing their ability to learn at a level that's more appropriate for them?

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago

“Non-biological” can mean cultural, not just economical.

aaomidi 5y ago
Definitely. But this is where C.R.T comes in and asks "why do we think certain demographics don't value education culturally?"
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
  Sorry, I’m not familiar with C.R.T. What is their proposal?
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  Why do we think it's our business exactly? If some cultural groups don't value education, isn't that their prerogative? Why do we think we need to get involved in the interest of representation?
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Uh, could that be because it just takes time (often measured in generations) for historically-ingrained attitudes to shift in a socially-beneficial direction? What a silly question. Mind you, the C. R. T. folks are the ones who keep telling us that having a "good education", "getting the right answer" and "being on time" are uniquely oppressive "White values" and that Blacks are just different.

andrepd 5y ago

Which schools in particular? Please link me some data, I don't know what you are discussing.

Enginerrrd 5y ago

One answer: If you have a selection process that compares a minority group against the general population for any metric which produces a well-defined ranking, and then selects for the top X% of performers on that metric, then you will end up with a selected group that has a lower proportion of the minority group. To put this in clearer language: If I have a bunch of 100-sided dice: 90 blue dice in one bucket, and 10 red dice in another, and I roll them all and select the top 10 numbers rolled, I'll have a greater proportion than 90% of blue dice, because there are more total dice rolls in that group.

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
This doesn’t sound right. Can you prove this?
- pandaman 5y ago
  I guess he is alluding to effects of rounding up/down in small samples but those cannot be biased in one direction. Nor are they certain to happen. If I toss 9 quarters and a nickel and count the fraction of tails that rolled on the nickel then it will be equal to 1/10 of all the tails only if all coins roll tails or all roll heads i.e. in 2 outcomes out of 1024. In half of the other cases nickel tails will be overrepresented and in in the other half - underrepresented. It's because you cannot roll a fraction of a tail.
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  I just ran some monte carlo simulations. Turns out I was totally wrong, at least for a uniform distribution. I now suspect it's probably true for any distribution, but I can't prove it yet. It just seems really odd to me: It seems like because you get 9x the number of dice rolls for one group you would end up with a final distribution that favors the majority group, but that is obviously not the case. I need to wrap my brain around that one.

FFRefresh 5y ago

To follow-up from your first question: What do you think explains the unequal distribution of outcomes WITHIN races in terms of school performance?

Papirola 5y ago

I would like to apply this line of thought to the NBA. There is lack of diversity there as well.