Also notable is that California is finalizing a proposal to eliminate faster tracking in mathematics, arguing that it is a promotion of white nationalist ideology. Calculus may only be taken in the senior year under these proposals, and Algebra is to be de-emphasized as the primary math target of middle school.¹
I found it quite striking that in a long proposal focused on racial justice in math, there is plenty of mention of white nationalism but exactly zero mention of the word "Asian".
[1]: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...
This supposed ADD disappeared once I got into the real world and was given actual problems to solve. I think they did it mostly to keep their test scores up. I have no faith in the education system as a result.
Jesus they've completely lost their minds!
The NYT deftly avoids mentioning this by stating it as
> Though about 70 percent of the roughly 1 million public school students in New York are Black and Latino, about 75 percent of the roughly 16,000 students in gifted elementary school classes are white or Asian American.
I don't think this is true. Asians are being punished because they're successful, and their existence bucks the narrative the blank-slate activists want to push.
Sure, as a group they're being punished, but it's not because anyone sees them as exceptionally foreign. It's just because the top has to be brought down in order to achieve equality of outcomes and the fanatics pushing these things don't care who they harm to achieve their goals.
No. Everyone is being punished, not just Asians.
Ditching G/T programs is going about this completely backwards, and hurts all students regardless of ethnicity or melanin content.
The problem is that schools in poor and minority neighborhoods suck.
Let's fix that problem and the rest will take care of itself.
If you want poor kids to do better, you have to improve their home life.
How to solve the peer group problem? As far as I know it's extremely difficult, even more than reforming home life. You can split up peer groups and distribute their members into peer groups with different mindsets and they will generally conform, but the ratio has to be quite steep towards the peer group you're integrating into. I don't know what the number but I would guess something like 15 to 1. There's definitely not enough middle and upper class classrooms to go around to house all kids from more troubled areas under my stated assumptions. But perhaps the process could be incremental?
A fair point. Although I came to the conclusion when I was in school that while the impact of your home life is important, providing a positive initial experience with school and having high expectations for scholastic performance can do a lot to improve educational outcomes. Perhaps even enough impact to counteract the lack of parental involvement/motivation for education for some.
No, everyone is being helped, not just Blacks and Hispanics. Even most White and Asian students who would benefit from accelerated study in one or more areas are excluded by NYC’s current program.
> Ditching G/T programs is going about this completely backwards
No, its not.
Ditching accelerated student-specific programs would be, but this plan vastly expands such programs, putting them in every kindergarten classroom, available to every student, rather than less than 10% of schools, available based on all-or-nothing test to four year olds.
> and hurts all students regardless of ethnicity or melanin content
How does making student-specific accelerated content with teachers trained in delivering it in every kindergarten classroom, and added experienced teachers in disadvantaged communities, rather than accelerated material made available to a small minority hurt everyone?
> The problem is that schools in poor and minority neighborhoods suck.
> Let's fix that problem
That’s...exactly the idea.
That is incorrect.
> The reason why you group children with similar learning abilities together is so that they can progress together.
Yes, that's the thinking that justified tracking. Among the problems with segregated G&T programs, however, is that G&T-identified and non-G&T students are not, within each group, “of similar learning abilities”; Both have wide variation within groups, and individuals very often aren’t in the same relative position within their group in different specific subject areas.
As much as tracking would make (simple, binary) varying ability fit into the industrial assembly-line model of education, it doesn't work well with real people in the real world (it works very slightly better than the industrial assembly-line model without tracking, and when that was the norm, it was an improvement.)
But what works significantly better (though it takes more work) is to provide baseline curriculum with supplementation to individuals (in small groups of similar ability in the subject, where possible) based on ability. Which is what this proposes training all (initially) kindergarten teachers in, and hiring additional teachers in particular areas of need, in place of a high-stakes tracking exam for four-year olds. Its what has proven better than binary tracking in many places. (And it is, incidentally, what decided my family’s choice of schools for my son, who is now in kindergarten.)
It’s not the 1980s any more. Education has moved forward. Whether NYC will execute this well is, of course, up in the air. But that what it has identified is what has been widely used and proven better than binary tracking already, for the students that would be tracked into G&T, for the students that would not, for racial and socioeconomic class equity, and in basically every other conceivable manner is not up in the air.
Kids that are advanced need to be with other advanced kids. Not all kids are equal in ability. Using weasel words to push an agenda of "equity" that hurts the best and brightest is what will kill public education and push moderate Democrats such as myself to voting for Republicans who want vouchers to gut the public education system.
I'm replying here to your reply ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28806171 ) to my comment.
You make a bunch of really good points. I haven't been in the NYC public schools in nearly 40 years and the elementary schools in nearly 50, so I was unaware that the G&T programs weren't actually housed and run within each school.
In fact, when I was in elementary school (1971-1978), the gifted and talented programs were just getting started, and were housed within neighborhood schools[0] as a separate track.
After reading your (and a bunch of other) comments, I realized (as you already knew) that G&T programs had been moved to completely separate schools. Which is a terrible implementation of G&T.
But even back then, only a small number of city schools had those programs at all (they certainly didn't at mine -- PS 84 and JHS 117).
I was just a kid, so I don't know what justifications were made for moving all G&T programs out of the neighborhood schools.
There should be G&T (or some tracked analog) in every city school, something to which you alluded.
tl;dr: You were absolutely correct. My comments were based on an understanding that was decades out of date.
[0] https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/metro-learning/spoils...
There is a whole narrative that people are equal and have same capabilities.
Anyone can be a sport start if trains enough or a super scientist if study enough.
Then looking at statistics it is not true.
The same people with cognitive dissonance claim that because social factors, etc. Usually whites get a better treatment thus because and only because of that they have better representation in certain areas (only certain).
Then a lot of money is poured in programs to fix that. Because the narrative says all people are equal.
The opposing narrative says that IQ is genetic and it reflects on career that needs IQ so it really does not matter it will always reflect that.
The two narratives are fighting: social-economics vs genetics and if its a fair fight.
Came the asians.
Poor, non-english skills, living in bad neighborhoods.
They start getting advanced classes more than white. They advance more.
Then looking at statistics we can see Asians have higher IQ and looking on Advanced programs we have Asian as the largest, Whites as second and others as third.
Bang one narrative suffers a blow. Then they start changing rules. "Asians are White". "We need to make it more equal" meaning removing asians from programs.
While these boths narrative fight we as whole suffer.
As I want the best players on Soccer I want the best players on Medical field or Math.
I really don't care if the whole Math department is Asian. I care about the results to the society.
Intelligence was not valued in black culture when I was growing up and I'd argue is still not.
I could be way off the mark here, but to me it seems like the reason for this is that if one has been blaming external factors for all of their failings, it doesn't feel good to see someone with the exact same limitations pushing ahead. It hurts the excuse that one has been making to oneself about what the reasons for not being successful are.
But as embarrassing as it might feel to have others surpass oneself, dragging others down is never a good way to handle it. Fixing that really requires a culture shift and I'm not sure that any amount of changes from the outside can have a notable impact (if anything, pushing too hard for change from the outside can make people stick harder to their ways of thinking).
Asians in the US are more motivated to study, it's the culture. It doesn't take a lot of dedication to studying to get a major advantage over those that don't study as hard.
This is a meaningless claim, and also the fact that you are hardly exposed to the innovation that Asia brings to the table, only US. (Note what website you are writing this on)
But you can't compare the innovation of China to the US... for the time being. Admittedly the inflection point is coming soon if the US doesn't get it's head out of its ass.
further, we shouldn't assume the "most intelligent" rise to the top in terms of hegemony and leadership ex. Trump and our world governments in general.
Two problems arise when trying to raise the profile of the school:
1) This is one of the only good examples of integration, but nobody seems to be interested in learning how to replicate this model high performance and integration across the rest of NYC's schools.
2) Draws unwelcome attention to the pipeline problem whereby some ethnic groups are underrepresented compared to the city's ethnic makeup when applying for the test.
[1] https://www.publicschoolreview.com/tag-young-scholars-profil... (scroll down to "All Ethnic Groups")
[2] https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/1c478c_f14e1d13df45444c883bbf... (page 26)
Do you have evidence for this? Asians are by far the richest minority in the US so I was surprised by this statement.
> Activists have no problems openly discriminating against Asians because whites, blacks and Latinos think of "Americans" as whites, blacks and Latinos. Asians are considered foreigners. So when a prestigious program is dominated by Asians, something must obviously wrong, right?
Diversity means increasing representation. In a situation with limited resources, increasing representation for all means decreasing representation for some. This is the natural conclusion to pushing for equality/representation.
Except the problem isn't with the gifted/talented programs in NYC. And it isn't with the SHSAT[0] either.
The problem is that public elementary and middle schools in majority black/hispanic neighborhoods have measurably much worse educational results.
What's more, those schools don't even consider preparing their students for G/T programs or the specialized high schools.
There are many reasons for this and fixing it is hard. As such, instead of giving minority students a better education, some activists are calling for (and succeeding) removal of gifted/talented programs and getting rid of the SHSAT.
As a product of the NYC public school system, I have no illusions that fixing these problems will be easy.
But removing the G/T programs instead of directing poorly performing schools to bring all their students up to educational levels which allow the best of them (as in every other school) to participate in G/T programs and increase their numbers in the specialized high schools.
IMHO, this is completely ass backwards.
And De Blasio is gone in January, leaving this mess to his successor.
As a NYC resident, I'm glad I don't have kids here.[1]
[0] https://www.schools.nyc.gov/learning/testing/specialized-hig...
[1] I could go on and on about how ridiculous this is, but I am so disgusted with De Blasio and the NYC Department of Education about this stuff that I'll just stop now before this becomes an all out rant.
Are the students doing poorly in those schools because they are poorly run/staffed/and funded, or is it the case that the students in those schools have more problems at home leading to poorer results?
In other words, is this a problem schools can fix at all?
There has been research (don't have it handy right now) that there's a negative feedback loop with that.
Schools in poor areas tend to have less parental involvement (and direct economic support from those parents as is common in wealthier neighborhoods), so school staff don't have as many resources and aren't as incentivized to raise expectations of the students.
That creates an environment where the students aren't learning as well as in other neighborhood schools.
I suspect that if the authority figures on either side of that raise their expectations and requirements of the students, the negative feedback loop can be, at least partially, short-circuited.
>In other words, is this a problem schools can fix at all?
Yes. They can't do as much as schools with significantly more parental involvement, but improving the teacher/staff performance would likely improve parent performance.
No, it's not a panacea, but blaming all this on poor parenting and throwing up our hands just promotes the centuries-old trope that "poor people are morally and intellectually inferior. It's obvious, if they weren't so they wouldn't be poor."
That's circular reasoning and doesn't reflect reality.
This is the natural result of equality of outcomes, which is achieved by dragging down the top to meet those who can't excel. That is not at all what most people mean by equality, and is frankly a perversion of the word.
Then reject diversity.
EDIT: I think that the report shows that Hispanics in 2020 have a higher percentage of poverty than Asians, but it seems like a lot of the articles showing Asians had the highest poverty rates came from before 2017.
It looks like in the last 5 years prior to 2020, Asians had improved the poverty rates.
Regardless even in 2020, Asian poverty in NYC was 22%, Black poverty was 19%, Hispanic poverty was 24% and White poverty was 13%.
It's a dire situation for sure, but I think using "large margin" is disingenuous.
In Seattle, Asians dominate both the high end and the low end (south Seattle has a lot of poorer southeast Asian immigrants, north Seattle has more East and richer south Asian immigrants). It all depends on NYC’s racial mix over the broad term Asian.
Virginia is a weird state. Fairfax and Alexandria are classified as "independent cities", which exist in parallel to and outside of counties. There are only 41 independent cities in the US: Baltimore, MD; St. Louis, MO; Carson City, NV, and then 38 more in Virginia.
The signficance is that independent cities can't levy income tax, but have to pay for their own schools and roads. We make revenue through property taxes (not just land/houses, but also cars! That's a whole other story) and business licenses. The state then calculates how much it will contribute to our school funding based on our supposed "ability to pay".
Between property values and transit issues here, there are a likely more "property owners" in Fairfax than here in Alexandria. Alexandria is much more of a bedroom community for DC, whereas people in Fairfax spread more across NoVA for work. The state sees the higher property values in Alexandria, and our higher population, and thinks "oh, they are loaded, they don't need so much". But we're not. We're a town of renters. All the property is owned by DC and NYC property developers, which got sweetheart tax break incentives to build here.
You can readily see it when visiting. Fairfax's roads are nicer. Their public buildings are newer and larger. They have several, gorgeous, gigantic public parks with stuff like kiddie train rides around the perimeter. Fairfax is apparently rolling in cash. And Alexandria can't even fix a foot bridge across a 20-foot wide creek bed.
So we just don't have the money to fund our schools anymore. Hell, my own kid's school is one of the better ones in town and they can't even afford to have enough bus drivers and substitute teachers for the year. It's garden variety bad administration over the last 15 years, not anti-Asian sentiment.
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Thomas+Jefferson+High+Scho...
This bullshit is a vestige of the Civil War when West Virginia split of to be an abolitionist state. I don't understand the fetishization of such "culturally important" (sarcasm) things like municipal structure when what we have is not working. "This hammer was my great, great grandpappies, that he bought from the Sears Robucks Catalog in 1887. Yes, the handle is cracked and the claw can't grip modern nail heads, but by God, it was good enough for him, it'll be good enough for us".
False. Asians are the second highest income demographic, second only to whites: https://wherewelive.cityofnewyork.us/wp-content/uploads/2019...
So you can still make a case that the tests for G&T measure the wealth available for test preparation.
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/opportunity/poverty-in-nyc/data-to...
Yes, NYC's specialized public schools have become heavily disproportionately filled by its Asian and Asian-American population.
The competitive forces and consolidation does a disservice to them and the rest of the admitted population as well.
When a 4.2 GPA overachieving student can't get selected to good universities or other opportunities because of all the 4.5 GPA students at the same school, that undermines the point of the system. And that system also has the side effect of exacerbating segregation?
And you want to defend it by making it about other Americans focusing specifically on disrupting Asian achievement? I understand your sentiment is and has been shared and represents a collective assumption with some groups in NYC, but its a huge stretch! The other perspective is that it just doesn't accomplish externalities well. Mix the schools up, let cultural overachievers be dispersed instead of consolidated, the mindshare will help the overall local population better.
I agree that public schools should be about education, so focus on fixing where the education occurs. Try to get better teachers and materials to other parts of the city! Yes, if your child is trying to go through school before any of this better infrastructure is set up, I can see how defensive one would be about it, I can see why the low hanging fruit of "they dont want us/my race to win" is the goto argument, but all I can say is.. welcome to the rest of the country? Shitty public schools is the most American thing ever!
Have they? The admission criteria is based on scores. The school is disproportionately filled with over-achievers who happen to be Asian.
> When a 4.2 GPA overachieving student can't get selected to good universities or other opportunities because of all the 4.5 GPA students at the same school
How is that so?
> Mix the schools up, let cultural overachievers be dispersed instead of consolidated
How is that supposed to help anyone?
> all I can say is.. welcome to the rest of the country? Shitty public schools is the most American thing ever!
Because someone eats junk food I should have to eat it too?
As a reflection of the American culture, the idea that the system is proposed to be dismantled because of Asian presence is also not supported.
I'm just here to argue that.
And Asians are dominating the NYC G&T program NOT because of hundreds of years of systemic racism, NOT because Asians wrote the admissions tests an inbueing cultural bias, and NOT by cheating or bribing admissions. And in NYC, Asians are the poorest demographic by a large margin. This makes the entire story extremely inconvenient for activists who want to say that the program is racist and discriminates against the economically disadvantaged. And yet, they somehow are able to get the entire program trashed because of racism against Asians is perfectly accepted in 2021.
Activists have no problems openly discriminating against Asians because whites, blacks and Latinos think of "Americans" as whites, blacks and Latinos. Asians are considered foreigners. So when a prestigious program is dominated by Asians, something must obviously wrong, right?
Activists have gutted admissions at Thomas Jefferson high school in Fairfax, VA, arguably the top public high school in the US because it had a high percentage of Asians. Lowell High school admissions in SF, a top 100 high school, underwent the exact same thing because of its high percentage of Asians. Now NYC is doing the same thing. At Harvard, the admissions department openly discriminates against Asians by saying they lack "courage" or less "likeable". Imagine the outrage if this happened to Blacks, but because it happened to Asians it's considered okay because Asians are unAmerican.