Thr proper terminology is Sovial Mobility
> arbitrary things like sex or race can’t work
They work as a litmus test-> if you are massively excluding someome, probably something in the process is fucked.
As for litmus test, again sure. But accounting for cultural and biological differences matters. There’s a reason Asians are over represented in certain things due to a culture that values education. Or men tending to distribute differently than women. And many other things. It would be naive to believe any difference in outcomes is purely discriminatory. Although of course that can be a factor.
This could mean different things to different people
Lets imagine we have a perfectly objective, merit based hiring/admissions process. We could still have proffeshions with 1% women, or 1% blacks, etc.
This could be caused by culture, say no women want to be bricklayers or software developers. Or men spent insane amount of effort, like more than is logical.
There is still a valid debate, what do we do about this. Maybe you should not just 'let it play out'.
Like we should hypothetically reward people that work hard.
But recently we had some poor intern at Goldman literally die from overwork. He worked himself to death, died for like £30K salary, what a waste.
Should we really reward that? Should the company face some consequences if this keeps happening?
Obviouslt we kniw 'Back in the day' culture for women was such, that they would not be prepared, in skills and in attitude, to compete with men in education or employment.
If we never went for cultural change, it would still be that way.
It think it's really important that at early stages in life more people are given a chance to change course. That's what educational institutions are for.
The claim is that they are trying to give the kid from East New York a shot but the reality is that this is all about the Dalton parents not wanting their little precious to have to go head to head on a fair playing field against a Stuyvesant kid.
Their goal is to make all desirable institutions look like Dalton—-very wealthy students with an appropriate sprinkling of diversity make everyone feel great about open minded and progressive they are.
I went to a shitty rural high school - high scores on my ACT made a huge difference as anyone who could read got out of that school with a 3.7.
Does this mean that today's IQ tests have racial bias?
> There’s also a historical association with IQ assessment and eugenics.
Does this mean that today's IQ tests have racial bias?
The big debate in academic psychology is the extent to which factors like SES (and factors downstream of SES, like general health) confound the measurement of some kind of general intelligence. The evidence we have right now pretty clearly points to an effect, so it's down to what the size of that effect is.
Imagine a test to measure the resistance of various materials. Is the test biased because it shows that concrete is stronger than rotten wood? No, it just measures the resistance of different materials. If the measurement error (not the measurement itself) was significantly different for different materials then yes you could say the test is biased.
You are just saying that SES affects intelligence, which is most likely true and immediately prompts the question of what affects SES.
A poor kid may score worse than they would have scored if they weren't poor, but if we want to know whether they're ready for MIT or a course above their grade level, it might do them a disservice to confound our perceptions of their actual current level with our personal indignation over socioeconomic inequalities and our hopes in the potential they'd realize if those inequalities were eliminated.
What is the true value in this case? Is it the counterfactual performance a person would have if their SES were not low? Would that be the "right" true value in all applications? Might it not be the case that, in some contexts, the "right" true value is the person's actual current ability level and not some counterfactual of how they would do in other circumstances that were perhaps more just and fair? For example, what if you are trying to give them the learning opportunity best suited to their actual current ability level, not trying to rank people and only give the top-ranked some special status or credential?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices
and given that standard variants of the test have 60 items anybody who is capable of learning a script could memorize them and get a perfect score. I imagine there is one psychologist who coaches you then you go see another psychologist across the street who administers the test.
> IQ has been determined to be have racial and other biases.
Citation needed
Schools can do affirmative action for African Americans without making standardized testing optional, they have been for decades. What’s harder for them to do without getting rid of such tests is discriminating against Asians (and middle class whites) in favor of rich whites.
It’s no coincidence that this is happening in the wake of the Harvard lawsuit. What these schools want is a class made up entirely of diversity, athlete, and development admits. The first generation Asian-American kid isn’t taking a seat away from a black kid, he’s taking it from the son of the CFO of a Fortune 500 company.
I think these are complex issues and there’s no scenario where everyone is happy. As a society we’d be better off to tone down the fawning over Ivy League schools.
The majority of rich kids, whose parents are serious about college, are tracked through prep schools beginning with kindergarten.
Its more rare than not that such a kid underperforms enough to be excluded from elite University admission. Especially once one includes the many elite liberal arts colleges that are generally off of the radar of poors.
I do agree about the value of standardized testing, but for the reason that it enables positive filtering of underprivileged kids who otherwise wouldn't be looked at. I don't believe that a downward pull on rich kids is all that significant. To politely disagree with the reasoning of an otherwise well intentioned post.
I attended prep school as a poor. One of the most egregious things that I've ever witnessed, in terms of admissions, is a truly stupid poor being admitted to an Ivy because his Father networked enough as the a prep school's soccer coach (soccer being why his son was at the prep school, but not why he was admitted to the Ivy). I knew this kid from when we attended Catholic school together before the prep school.
This would not apply to everyone else. Only to kids with an unidentified disability. Which will be more in the underprivileged group, but it is still a minuscule group.
Especially taken in the context of elite University admissions, for which we are actually speaking of the even rarer child that is "twice exceptional'. That is, gifted with a disability.
But what about if instead the elevated rate is a result of fraud? In other areas of life (e.g. service animals and medical pot) it’s pretty clear that there are medical professionals out there are selling their letterhead to the highest bidder.
Why should we believe that’s not happening here?
Conversely I've seen people from hardscrabble backgrounds who are obviously disabled (a friend with no diagnosis but who so thought disordered that even though she are addicted to cigarettes it would take hours for her to get it together enough to smoke her first cigarette even with help) who would struggle to deal with the paperwork to get food stamps and TAANF, never mind the much more difficult and adversarial process to get SSI or SSDI.
Let alone at a significant rate.
Why is this wild conjecture worth a discussion?
Give me a break.
As a clinician that evaluates disabilities, it is very difficult to fake one. They tend to be diagnosed at an early age, and not at "test time" in high school. In fact, as a person ages they are much less likely to receive a diagnosis. There has to be early-age evidence even if the diagnoses is later in life.
The disability rate in elite / prep schools exists but is low. These kids tend to be more on the spectrum than anything else.
Underperforming kids who don't have a disability, and might be prone to cheat by one means or another, and who aren't sports recruits tend to transfer to easier schools.
If a kid wants to go through the process of being fraudulently diagnosed by an independent psychologist with ADHD, for the purpose of accommodations, then the same process is discoverable by literally anyone with an internet connection. That is, by everyone.
And from what I know, this has much less to do with clinician corruption than it does with the individual faking symptoms. There's few to zero people risking their licenses to hand out fake diagnoses for scheduled medications that are under heavy scrutiny at all times by the States and the Feds. The liability alone is off of the charts.
Schools are only likely to accept the diagnoses if a thorough clinical evaluation is undertaken. The result of which is not able to be faked.
We see in medical malpractice cases that there’s always two expert witnesses and their respective testimonies always line up with the interests of the side that’s paying them. Why aren’t those clinicians worried about losing their licenses?
I almost dropped the dime on him because one of his patients was a severely disturbed friend of mine who did not have a proper diagnosis (I'd conjecture today she had schizoaffective disorder) and I think would have benefited from a change in medication -- but we never found out because she took her own life. I'm pretty sure somebody else dropped the dime on him.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/h...
It's not a "wild conjecture".
It happens more than you might think, but only because you don't have the money or desire to use such a service.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/artic...
There have been many scandals, relatively recently. This was just one of many many links that are very easy to find.
It helps to have some familiarity with the test, so test prep has some value, but some rich kids can’t test their way out of a paper bag. The one thing they could do is hire a ringer to take the test for them, otherwise it is a valuable form of downward mobility which presents a “barrier” to them hoarding opportunity from someone more able.