12 ms·
The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
- monero-xmr 4y ago[flagged]
- salad-fan 4y ago[flagged]
- ipaddr 4y agoWhy do you think your kids are safer at public school from being molested? The stats would say you are safer at Catholic school where lines are less blurred and fewer teachers date students. But most likely to commit such an act is a parent or someone close to the child. Sending them to any school might be the safest option.
- salad-fan 4y agoWhat makes you think Catholic school kids don’t have parents or other relatives? And are you trying to argue that the Catholic Church does not have a history of child molestation? Because the evidence seems pretty overwhelming to me.
- kcplate 4y agoCommenter makes a point about Catholic schools and where their curriculum focus is, you turn that into an indictment of the church. Second commenter again focuses on schools, you again indict the church. Everybody gets it, the Catholic Church had a scandal. It was awful and destructive to many folks and the church deserves the blame and fault for the coverup. However, that scandal doesn’t seem to have anything to do with a conversation about curriculum choices at a Catholic school. Your trying to derail a conversation because of your biases.
- salad-fan 4y agoNot at all. Catholic schools are not even remotely independent of the church despite what you seem to think, and therefore share the same systemic problems.
- kcplate 4y agoNever said they were independent, I said the conversation was about curriculum and not church scandals. Additionally, although I don’t have the statistics, it would not surprise me one bit if pound for pound, Catholic schools were indeed safer school options for the students than a public schools despite the scandals in the Catholic Church.
- salad-fan 4y agoThe commenter went beyond curriculum with this part of their comment (which has since been edited to remove the word “woke”, I might add): > All of the politics and social justice, whatever you want to call is not part of the curriculum. I feel bad for people whose kids are forced into this nonsense.
- kcplate 4y agoI don’t read it thst way at all, and frankly with woke or not it seems to be a valid point in the discussion which centers around that very concept of the administrators and educators possibly placing their thumb on the scale. And I still don’t see how that is an entrance ramp to trying to shutdown the point they were making by laying some “invalid due to guilt by association”point. Just my opinion.
- salad-fan 4y agoYou not only misread what they wrote, you misread what I wrote. I wasn’t saying the original commenter was “guilty by association”, I was pushing back on their “anti-wokenes” nonsense and pointing out that their choice of schooling isn’t without serious issues of its own.
- ipaddr 4y agoI'm making the point the public system has a worse record on the subject. And any child is safer at school compared to your home. It is shocking when a priest who takes vows then breaks them and commits such acts. It is less shocking to find out a teacher is going out with a student or texting naked photos. The first is forbidden and taboo and brings great shame by society. The second is at times encouraged by popular culture when the genders are reversed (female teacher / male student) but is a crime. Your kid is more likely to have this happen outside of the Catholic system. Your feelings about the church overshadows reality be reenforces how much of a taboo a priest having any form of sexual pleasure is.
- salad-fan 4y ago> I'm making the point the public system has a worse record on the subject. Source? > The second [teacher / student relationships] is at times encouraged by popular culture when the genders are reversed (female teacher / male student) Do you have any evidence of this? I have never ever heard anyone seriously encouraging relationships between adults and minors, or between someone in a position of authority with someone they have authority over. But then I only started school in the 1970s, so perhaps these things were acceptable in an earlier era or in a country that I’m unfamiliar with. Regardless, today such things are absolutely unacceptable, and as someone who currently works in high school sports I can state from first hand experience just how seriously such matters are taken. > Your feelings about the church overshadows reality be reenforces how much of a taboo a priest having any form of sexual pleasure is. I have no “feelings” about the Catholic Church, beyond what the evidence has shown them to be. And their systematic child abuse, in many countries and for many MANY years, is a matter of public record.
- fjord788 4y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6026962/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6026962/ > It should be noted that while childhood sexual abuse by Catholic clergy has received extensive media coverage, childhood sexual abuse by teachers and others is also a serious problem. Charol Shakeshaft, who has done extensive research on the problem of sexual abuse of students by teachers, recognizes the difficulty of collecting solid data on sexual abuse; but using available studies, she estimates that “the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than one hundred times the abuse by priests.” According to Shakeshaft's research, even when abuse was reported to school officials the offenders were not reported to the police. In her study of 225 cases in New York, “none of the abusers were reported to authorities and only 1 percent lost their license to teach.” https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna21392345 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna21392345 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/sexual-abuse-by-educators-is-scrutinized/2004/03 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/sexual-abuse-by-educators-... https://childrenstreatmentcenter.com/sexual-abuse-teachers/ https://childrenstreatmentcenter.com/sexual-abuse-teachers/ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/17/child-sexual-abuse-in-schools-often-an-open-secret-says-inquiry https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/17/child-sexual...
- fjord788 4y ago> What makes you think Catholic school kids don’t have parents or other relatives? > And are you trying to argue that the Catholic Church does not have a history of child molestation? Work on your reading comprehension instead of hallucinating things no one said.
- salad-fan 4y ago[flagged]
- dang 4y ago"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 4y agoPersonal attacks will get you banned here, and religious flamewar isn't allowed either. We ban accounts that post like this, so please don't. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Edit: on closer look, you've posted so many flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments that I think we have to ban the account unless/until we get some reason to believe that you actually want to use HN as intended. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34111206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34111206.
- salad-fan 4y ago[dead]
- jkmcf 4y agoI upvoted because the focus should be on "academics and 'normal stuff'". However, academics, as in what is taught, has been politicized almost forever. C.f., Texas Board of Education dictating to publishers which parts of history/etc can be taught. https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/revisionaries/ https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/revisionar...
- moron4hire 4y agoI'd caution you that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago> “normal” stuff. Forced religious classes are normal? Seems pretty political to me.
- gilbetron 4y agoSounds like you pay a lot of money for a very specific, niche type of politics and social justice, because I guarantee it is present at a Catholic school! "Can we talk about birth control and the effect on women's opportunities?" "No."
- vjulian 4y agoInteresting this school had or has a controversial admissions policy. I also recognize that Harvard’s at the Supreme Court. I genuinely do not understand the logic behind what is essentially skin-color diversity. (https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/04/court-allows-elite-virginia-high-school-to-keep-admissions-policy-while-legal-challenge-continues/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/04/court-allows-elite-virgin...)
- bruce511 4y agoThe logic is straight-forward. Whether it is necessary, correct, or advantageous, depends largely on your circumstances and personal put look. A) historically a number of groups have been disadvantaged. B) this has lead to those groups "falling behind" advantaged groups from a wealth perspective. [side bar - wealth begets wealth, while poverty begets poverty, and while it is possible to rise up it is hard] C) since it is easier to get good grades when you have money, it's more impressive to get good, but not necessarily top, grades from a different starting point. Thus the route, not just the result, should be considered when reviewing applications. D) thus admitence with "just grade scores" tends to favor those groups with money, which would result in a largely hermogenous student body. E) education extends beyond just knowledge. The goal is to turn out adults who will function well in a society as a whole, get good jobs, add value to the community, and do on. F) in modern times it is considered poor form, or worse, to exhibit bad speech or behavior patterns. You can no longer behave like your great-grandfather, you can no longer speak like your grandfather. To do so will harm your prospects. G) thus, in order to become better human beings, its good to rub shoulders with those of different social, financial, gender, ability levels. In the safety of a school environment everyone can better be taught, and practice, the social norms of the day. H) thus a diverse student body is good for all students. Previously disadvantaged groups get a leg up. Currently advantaged groups get to interact with those dissimilar to themselves, and thus improve those interaction skills. US society likes to believe that "hard work" is the secret to financial position. But hard work itself is hard to measure, so we measure grades instead. However grades are more a function of current economic status, not work, and if anything reflect the hard work of the parents, not the students. There are various tools used to try and improve the proxy measure, things like diversity quotas and so on. Of course imperfect improvements to imperfect proxies still result in contraversy since the system is still flawed. And naturally those most disadvantaged by the rules feel the sting the most. None of this explains or excuses the behaviour of the school in with-holding these results though. The logic behind that is strange. Why would a top quality school, with a diverse student body, look to prejudice the ability of those students to get good college positions? I can see some logic in not making a public song and dance about it, but surely all students, and their parents, should be notified as soon as possible? On the up side, the fact this is "news" at all suggests this is a very uncommon practice.
- rayiner 4y agoAs a TJ C/O 2002 graduate, this is pretty wild to hear. The national merit scholar announcements were a big deal when I was there. There was a school wide announcement and the list of what everyone got was distributed by the school. Actually, it looks like the Washington Post used to publish the lists at least as late as 2014. I don’t see anything from WaPo after that though.
- UncleMeat 4y agoI graduated around the same time and never once cared about this crap. TJ didn’t have a valedictorian because it created unnecessary competition and pressure. If the decision to remove the valedictorian was made today you’d see breathless complaining from Asra in the Washington Times about how this was sending the school down the toilet. In what way is it critical to loudly publish awards handed out to students based on a test they took in 9th grade?
- rayiner 4y agoThere was always a WASP cultural undercurrent that discouraged openly acknowledging the competition. But I think even those folks agreed that test scores were the proper way to identify the smart kids. The school certainly didn’t shy away from promoting the number of merit scholars and semi finalists it had. Downplaying that is a significant change of course.
- UncleMeat 4y agoDid you throw a fit about there not being a valedictorian your year? This story has fuck all to do with testing or test scores. The same test was administered. The same rankings were applied.
- RestlessMind 4y ago> and never once cared about this crap By any chance, are you privileged enough that you never have to care about such "crap"? Because believe me, what you call "crap" might be a big ladder for someone less privileged to climb out of their actual crappy situations. Such "crap" labels often help getting admission to a good college, or embellishing your resume if you want and need a good job.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- throwawaysleep 4y agoThis has reached the point of actively disadvantaging kids who are capable…
- HN_is_for_gemes 4y ago
- remarkEon 4y agoIsn't that the point?
- UncleMeat 4y agoActively disadvantaging? Because they didn’t publicly publish the list of merit scholar winners or send emails to parents but instead sent emails to students and handed out letters in homeroom? The same exact kids were awarded the scholarship. Absolutely nothing about the PSAT or the award changed.
- imgabe 4y ago"Equal outcomes for every student" I'm genuinely curious what this is supposed to mean. Every student gets into the same university? They all get the same job at the exact same salary upon graduation? What is the real-world consequence of this policy supposed to be? If your outcome as a student is guaranteed to be equal to every other student's outcome, what is the incentive to work harder? Outcomes being equal doesn't necessarily mean they're good. The students could all fail and get minimum wage jobs. That would also be an equal outcome. Even if we assume the school goes to the extreme of assigning students the same grades and recognition regardless of performance, maybe some virtuous students don't care about the recognition and spend extra time studying math because they simply love math. They will end up being better at math than students who don't - an unequal outcome. How is the policy supposed to address this?
- BurningFrog 4y agoEqual outcomes for everyone means you have no way to influence your own outcome. The logical reaction is to put in zero effort.
- DAVer98 4y ago[flagged]
- zapataband1 4y agogreat, the red-scare boomers have invaded HN. The USSR hasn't existed for half a century you can put your pearls away
- logicchains 4y ago"By 2030, you'll own nothing, and be happy about it"
- NERD_ALERT 4y agoWhat exactly do you think communism means?
- 4y ago
- raincom 4y agoAll schools, all companies should just say upfront that they want “equality of outcomes”; that way, students and prospective job applicants don’t need to waste time putting efforts to acquire any skills or even efforts to learn anything. Since the outcome is decided by tick marks, it is rational for people to not learn.
- bcrosby95 4y agoIt seems paradoxical to require students to study college level material late into the night to keep up, but also aim to have equal outcomes.
- baconEggRoll 4y agoI thought when people talked about this kind of thing, they were being ridiculously hyperbolic.
- avs733 4y agoThey are. This article is literally hyperbolic about parents being slow to get emails that their kid is special
- RestlessMind 4y agoThose slow notifications actually affected college admissions process for the kids. Read the last paragraph: "On Monday, December 12, after getting caught, Kosatka sent an email to the parents of Commended Students, notifying them of the “important recognition” and saying, “We are deeply sorry” for not sharing the news earlier. He claimed school officials would contact college admissions offices to correct the record."
- renewiltord 4y agoHaha yes, exceptional! Governments have made scholarships and admissions a zero sum game. Ideally, all these public schools do this and those kids get fucked. Then my kids will have a better chance at all of this stuff. You bet you'll see me voting for woke people in the public school district.
- julianeon 4y agoI'll tell you what my takeaway is: It is incredibly stupid for the National Merit program to leave the decision to notify students up to the schools. In such a situation it is entirely 100% certain that a situation like the one at Thomas Jefferson High School will eventually happen. In fact it's probably happened multiple times already, due to incompetence, which is why it should scrapped. From the article: > On September 16 of this year, National Merit sent a letter to Bonitatibus listing 240 students recognized as Commended Students or Semi-Finalists. The letter included these words in bold type: “Please present the letters of commendation as soon as possible since it is the students’ only notification.” You know what's better than a system where the schools need to be monitored to make sure they tell their students? A system where you don't have to scrutinize what the schools do, because you told the parents and the kids directly. It's 2022. You have the information of the students who took the tests, obviously. This is a solvable problem. It can, and should, be fixed.
- crystalmeph 4y agoI would bet that there has literally never been a school that failed to notify the recipients before now. It is not just an honor for the student, but the school itself. Yes, now, the National Merit organization will probably come up with a direct notification procedure, but it was not a failure on their part to assume that schools would act in their own self-interest.
- eppp 4y agoI would guess that the number of people that act directly against their own self interest on a regular basis is a very high percentage of the population.
- matthewdgreen 4y agoExcept that the article says the school did notify the students. Overall I'm just confused by it.
- RestlessMind 4y ago
- hungryhungryhun 4y ago[flagged]
- crystalmeph 4y agoIs the article wrong on the facts? That is the only thing that matters. Many Hacker News readers are in the same demographic that would be in contention for National Merit honors, so it seems pretty “on brand” for HN.
- jcranmer 4y agoThis line in particular made me do a double-take: > with most TJ students in a protected class of “gifted” students, most of them racial minorities, many with disabilities, and most coming from immigrant families whose parents speak English as a second language. That is, at best, incredibly misleading, if not outright wrong. The "racial minority" here is Asian, which makes up ~70% of the school population (whereas the school district as a whole is 30% Asian; the population of blacks and Latino are collectively ~4%, whereas the school district is 30%). This aren't disadvantaged poor families--at least some of the Asians come from families specifically moving to the high-cost-of-living area to try to place their kids at TJ, and I suspect a household income of $200k would put you in the bottom socioeconomic half at TJ. Note that none of the students are in ESL classes, and only ~2% are on reduced-price lunches, whereas the school district as a whole skews more like 20% and I think 30% for the latter. So, in short, the student body at TJ largely isn't comprised of poor people who need every leg up they can get; it's comprised largely of people at the top of the socioeconomic ladder who are already walking on water. (Disclosure: I did in fact attend this school.)
- fatjokes 4y agoUm what. Last I checked Asians were definitely a racial minority in America. Saying they're not minorities because they're a majority of TJ is like saying Blacks aren't minorities because they're a majority in Harlem. It denies their lived experiences outside a very specific bubble.
- johnnyo 4y agoThe opening paragraphs seem to imply that the awards were withheld based on race. When you get into the meat of the article, though, it makes it more clear that the school just forwarded a paper cert to the kids, and didn’t make a big deal about it. And parents are complaining because the school didn’t make a big deal out of it or get it to students “fast enough” to apply for some early admission stuff. It’s been a while, but I remember most of those “National Merit” type things to be not very important or relevant. It’s just based on your PSAT score.
- havetocharge 4y agoMaybe there's a meatier part still, where the author alleges that they have yet to receive a certificate earned two years ago.
- johnnyo 4y agoAs a parent, the chances a piece of paper given to a kid in homeroom makes it to the parent are probably 50% at best. Probably lower. I know when I was a student, it was probably below 25%
- havetocharge 4y agoThis is a possible outcome. However, another possibility is that not all children are of the same aptitude, and therefore your experience might not be representative of their.
- johnnyo 4y agoI was a National Merit scholar, FWIW. It’s not really a “prestigious award”. According to the article, 240 kids at the school got the same thing. At my large high school, lots of kids got it too.
- ummonk 4y agoIt's an award that can get you a full ride or even a stipend at many state colleges. Prestigious or not, it's a very important award.
- causality0 4y agoRewarding bad behavior, regardless of its origin, does nothing but encourage more. My best friend growing up was Asian and worked his ass off every single day. I had a lot more fun than he did but he got into a better school and makes better money now because he fucking deserved to.
- UncleMeat 4y agoBad behavior? The same kids still get the award. TJ isn’t deciding who gets the national merit scholarship. I personally think that my time hanging out with people watching classic rock concert footage during 8th period was rather valuable for my life and happiness and many of the personal skills I learned are valuable for my career. This isn’t about deprioritizing excellence.
- causality0 4y agoThis isn’t about deprioritizing excellence. Agreed, it's about giving fifty percent reward for zero percent effort. I think HN readers remember perhaps better than most how much the "peanut gallery" in the back of the class interfered with our ability to learn. I find the idea those assholes are going to get at least half credit for doing nothing absutely repugnant.
- UncleMeat 4y agoWho is getting reward for no effort? Literally nothing about the selection for the scholarship changed.
- causality0 4y agothe school district’s new strategy of “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” School administrators, for instance, have implemented an “equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for assignments not turned in. It’s a race to the bottom.
- throwaway22032 4y agoAll of this stuff is just so hilariously nonsense. Dude, some people have to lose. We can shuffle as much as we want, we can probably make them perfectly distributed amongst races, sexes, heights, weights, whatever. But there will still be a shit ton of losers. It's just how the world works. You can't have 8 billion flying Tesla electric private jets to Malibu.
- notwokeno 4y agoThe thing people can't handle with this is that intelligence tends to be heritable* so the more intelligent workers you need the smaller and more racily similar the successful group is going to be which runs directly contrary to the currently popular world view. *It's influenced by other things too of course. Once you hit a (fairly low) limit it's going to start skewing more and more male. Upbringing is a huge part of it too so children of divorced parents tend to perform worse etc.
- NoImmatureAdHom 4y agoThe basic thrust of this comment is correct. Coastal elites can't stomach the fact that people are different. Some are smart, some are not. And there are observable regularities in who's smart and who's not. That's just how it is.
- k__ 4y agoThe thing some people don't seem to get is, it's not that there will be losers, it's that the losers are a liability to society, so we need to minimize "losing" as much as possible. Certainly not by gifting people stuff, but buy gifting them education.
- wombatpm 4y agoOr they could establish the office if the Handicapper General who would be responsible for limiting above average students in some way to make them conform
- stonogo 4y agoThe cognitive dissonance in this article is staggering. It's the "top school" in the country, but at the same time it's being mismanaged because administrators aren't doing the work of some third-party student-ranking corporation? Or it's the "top school" in the country but there's deep injustice because they don't throw pizza parties for kids who are good at standardized tests? The struggle between "this is the best school" and "these administrators are terrible" is never resolved, but it sounds like the quickest way to end this battle in the "war on merit" is for the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to mail the paper to the students instead of outsourcing it to the teachers.
- fatjokes 4y agoThe "best school" reputation was built over many years. The woke mismanagement is recent. It's actually a pretty easy reconciliation but I admit I have some context on TJ.
- gptadmirer 4y ago[flagged]
- kthejoker2 4y agoIs there a broader war on merit in our public school system? Maybe. Is sending National Merit certificates out a few weeks late evidence of such a conflict? No. Does this article come across as a tempest in a teacup, thereby also weakening its argument that there is a broader war on merit? Yes. Propagandists would be wise to choose their battles, Chicken Littling every bureaucratic snag or even isolated incident as evidence of a widespread issue creates fatigue.
- 1letterunixname 4y agoCity Journal is a conservative outlet, and possibly neocon. I'm wondering if NMSC or College Board (conducts PSAT/NMSQT) notified students directly, would school admins kick NMSC out? I doubt they would be able to resist the leverage if parents went political. There have already been explicitly racist tests including the NASP from 1964 until 2015. More racism, cheating, and lying doesn't cure racism, it diminishes faith in public school system and gives ammunition to the pro-private school libertarian types who scapegoat "big gubberment" and don't want to pay any taxes. For what it's worth, California played cute with curricula, race-based admissions, and forced bussing in the 80's and 90's and most of the top students (the rich ones) left for private schools. I'd be interested to know the demographics of children of that county and of the surrounding areas because I don't think they're 72% Asian or 60% male. Gender is not necessarily a problem given how the current education system fails boys and men. Are the students mostly future lawyers, doctors, and software engineers?
- illuminerdy 4y ago[dead]