Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Atlantic: “The Other Segregation”
The Atlantic has an excellent piece on the divisive nature of education and socio-economic/racial disparity. If you recall, Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has been tasked with fixing our education system. Few changes have been made. In New York’s elite Stuyvesant High School, only 1% of the students identify as African-American. This is in New York City, one of the most diverse areas in the United States. Only 1% identify, whereas nearly 17% of students nationally are identified as being African-American.
Clearly, Ms. DeVos has not taken her role seriously. Students are being segregated, not only by color, but primarily by academic ability. As the Atlantic makes clear:
But more troubling, and often less discussed, is the modern-day form of segregation that occurs within the same school through academic tracking, which selects certain students for gifted and talented education (GATE) programs. These programs are tasked with challenging presumably smart students with acceleration and extra enrichment activities. Other students are kept in grade-level classes, or tracked into remedial courses that are tasked with catching students up to academic baselines.
Students who do not score highly enough to be in Gifted and Talented Education are being demoted and tossed into grade-level classes. In cases where they cannot meet grade-level requirements, they are even being tracked into remedial courses! What does DeVos say about this? Nothing.
This institutionalized racism has also tracked students into these lower-capability classes. Instead of putting students of color into advanced placement classes at a racially proportionate rate, they are instead being placed based on achievement. Children of diverse socioeconomic and racial backgrounds are being disproportionately tracked into standard general education, rather than college-prep or advanced placement.
Black students are regularly excluded from schools’ conceptions of what it means to be gifted, talented, or advanced. There are real, systemic factors that fuel the disparity in access to gifted and specialized education. A history of racist policies, such as housing segregation and unequal funding, means that schools with a high proportion of black students often have resource constraints for specialized programs. Teachers’ biases against black students limit their chances for selective advanced opportunities. Admissions into gifted programs and specialized schools are based on a singular standardized test that often ignores qualifications aligned with a student’s training and does not capture black students’ potential. Minority students, particularly black students, are also often over-policed, which can affect their educational opportunities.
These children are being diverted into these lower-levels of education at an alarming rate due to the locations of their homes. They are being educated according to the resources available at their district; this does not meet the vast resources provided to elite schools where the populations are significantly more melanin-challenged. Additionally, testing does not take into account the unique cultural expressions and needs of minority students. The objective exam does not allow for consideration of extra-curriculars, popularity with authority figures, or ethnic descent. Economic privilege also imparts certain knowledge via experience of the parents. If a parent is well educated, as is often the case in a higher socioeconomic class, the child may advance from the knowledge. An extension could be discussed, rather than a parent saying that a deadline is a deadline and should be adhered to at all costs. This is patently unfair to students from undereducated ethnic minority groups who do not have the privilege to know to ask for an extension or for disciplinary action to be dismissed.
Furthermore, parents of higher-achieving students may actually advocate for their children; they may attend meetings, read school emails, and insist upon interaction with the administration of the school. Perhaps more concerningly, they will advocate for their children even to the detriment of others! This socioeconomic and racial privilege cannot be allowed to continue!
As was so well said:
Despite knowing that doing the best for their children often means leaving other children, often low-income students or students of color, with fewer opportunities, the knowledge doesn’t change their behavior.
These parents will not even change their behaviors! They will continue to do what is best for their own children.
Where does it end?
Quotes taken from The Atlantic
Published in General
Neither am I, but it is interesting.
The percentage of blacks in the US is only about 13% according to the last census. I’m not sure where you got 17%.
Normalize the stats for wedlock birth rates. I bet there is almost no diffrence in race after that. Stop having kids when you are not married. That would take care of the issue.
I normally dont think congress should interfer in forcing varbles in reporting. However they need to make an exception in education. They all ready by law requirer reporting by race I believe. Force anyone getting federal funding to publish stats on parental status like they due with race. They intentally hid that data because of the offense it would cause. When offense arrises because of pointing out the truth. always offend if you are the goverment.
Because schools are an area of government competence?
I think you actually meant to say something like, Students are being segregated, not
onlyby color, but primarily by academic ability.FIFY
“An excellent piece.” Gary good!
Look, y’all can ignore the reality of this horrible problem as much as you want, but it’s clear the writer for The Atlantic has identified a terrible problem. It’s clear that racism, sexism, genderism, and probably several other as yet unidentified isms are responsible for this horrendous inequality. But it is a problem that can be fixed, provided we are all willing to set aside pre-conceptions and simply allow government to do what needs to be done. If Stuyvesant is the top performing school and everyone who gets into it is given a real step-up in life, then it’s clear that excluding anyone in the New York School system from Stuyvesant is simply wrong. Therefore, all the students in New York must be admitted. Simple as that; no excuses; no ifs, ands, or buts – just admit everyone. Now, admittedly, it might require a slightly larger building – but maybe not. Why couldn’t they just issue every student an iPad (or the Android equivalent – it would, of course, have to be the student’s choice) and let them take courses remotely, whenever they wanted to (because we know that some people perform better at night – so why should we discriminate against them by forcing them to go to school during the day when they’re barely awake?). Or maybe, like in The Wizard of Oz, we can simply give all the students a piece of paper that says they’ve been admitted to Stuyvesant. And four years later we could give them a piece of paper saying they’ve graduated! Why force them to actually study or write papers or read books or pass exams? Doing that discriminates in favor of those who can read and write. And don’t get me started on exams! Can you begin to see the possibilities? Can we all join together on the joyous march into the future where all ignorance, discrimination, sexism, racism, etc. will be eliminated and we’ll all live happily together? Here, take my rose-colored glasses and gaze into that future! See that rainbow-striped unicorn; it’s there for you!
Oh, pardon me, it appears I forgot to take my medication. Please ignore what I’ve just written.
Good post. As satire, it fails only to the extent that it’s too subtle: if the people at whom fun is being poked don’t know that the piece is sarcastic, your poker face is probably too good. And I suspect that almost everyone who approved of the Atlantic piece that inspired your post would read this with head nodding, in complete agreement with everything you said.
But I liked it.
They are not the target.
It will be interesting to see how that plays out, when at this time most of the left (but not all) want to point at Sweden as what the aspire to be, as opposed to half a century ago, when if they weren’t pining to be like the USSR, they were singing the praises of Cuba or North Vietnam. Cuba’s still around, of course, and still gives progressives a warm and fuzzy feeling, even as it remains a basket case. But the number of hard-core out-and-proud worker’s paradises has dwindled markedly in the past half-century.
John Podhoretz made the point last week on the Commentary podcast that millennials today getting gushy over socialism have the benefit of not having to then defend the disparity between the Soviets and other nations behind the Iron Curtain versus the West — the only blatant example in recent years of socialism turning a relatively prosperous nation into a dumpster fire is Venezuela. Which is why only the hardest of hard-core on the left are still defending Maduro, while the others with better PR skills are telling the millennials and anyone else that will listen they want to be like Scandinavia, not like Caracas (and then in passing they’ll tell you Venezuela isn’t real socialism, anyway….)
I don’t have access to data that would allow hypothesis testing in any event (the hypothesis, from my #30 on the prior page, is that people in the 110-125 IQ range have a unique developmental path that leads to unusually high levels of resentment and adoption of a far Left-wing view).
Perhaps different characteristics would appear in correlating Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations with IQ, or in correlating IQ with the Big 5 personality traits. I don’t recall hearing or reading any results from Haidt on moral foundations and IQ. My recollection is that the Big 5 traits are generally not correlated with IQ, but there could be an unusual distribution — perhaps a nonlinear relationship that might not appear in a standard correlation coefficient.
The left saw that dodge and has fixed it. Now, if you take AP history, you will be a fully compliant leftist, in all your written work. Or you will fail. Expect the same for every subject outside of calculus and chemistry (for now).
the most disappointing thing DeVos did was not say her goal was to shutter the department by 2020
On the one hand, failure to provide more complex education for more capable people would be wasteful and nationally self-defeating.
On the other hand, there are aspects to this ‘more complex education’ that are downright dishonest and are little more than a certification for even more fast-tracking to success.
Additionally, by removing the brightest and most motivated people from the average areas you have a higher percentage of the stupid and unmotivated per unit average.
Earned or unearned, the elite status of the winners is a rebuke to the losers and also-rans.
These elite will have more opportunities – as well they should – but we shouldn’t be surprised when people who can’t afford bribes or endowments make baseless accusations in the hope of getting the good stuff which leads to the good stuff which leads to the good life for their children.
Ooh, that’s a great oxymoron.
I think that’s not true.
[EDIT: Sorry. On second thought, I think I understand what you meant now, and I think it IS true.]
I’ll disagree with you either way. ;)
Whereas I think both perspectives are correct.
I feel strongly both ways: I never argue.
Now truly, there’s a PIT statement if there ever was one!
According to this author, students are being racially segregated, but they are being racially segregated primarily through their academic ability (which is, of course, determined by their SES and family status). So really, it is both. It is not only one cause but is primarily now academic ability as some sort of cover for racism.
SES and family status are relatively minor factors in this, I think. The latest major research that I’ve seen on this was The Bell Curve, about 25 years ago. More important factors are probably: (1) innate intelligence; (2) the personality trait conscientiousness; and (3) moral values.
I don’t disagree, that’s just what the author is saying. And she’s nuts.
@ Jerry Giordano
And I’m guessing you could include their failure to excel in a variety of real-world job environments that involve creativity, technical skills, or just plain hard commitment.
Aren’t moral values connected to family status?
I think that they are correlated, but not perfectly so. It is possible for someone from a broken family to adopt productive values, and possible for someone from an intact family to adopt counterproductive values.
Very possible. Some kids from broken families or single parent families ate still raised with the idea that an intact family is best for everyone; not just the children.
Oh, I’m just using the numbers given by the article. I wasn’t going to look up real stats for this!
Yeah, that would take it far too seriously.
You’re correct about that, the educational system has been appropriated by enemies of the US. I have a 15 yo in the 10th grade and maintain constant tabs. But he’s rational enough to see through most of the programming so I think it’s going to be hard for them to suck him in.
Sadly he says he’s not interested in the girls because they’re too feminist.