I’m not saying it leads to quotas, it looks like it’s attempting to lower the representation of Asian students, as if there was something wrong with having a lot of Asian students.
Dallas
I’d say it’s attempting to raise the representation of Black and Hispanic students. Or, I’d say it’s attempting to better reflect the demographics of the district.
Wouldn’t increasing the number of qualified (black and latino) applicants work better than lowering the bar?
I’m not commenting on the intentions. I can see how it would look to different groups of people, and I can see how Asians might be concerned that they are facing quotas in schools. That doesn’t mean that is what is happening here.
Sounds good. How do you accomplish that?
You said that “it’s attempting to lower the representation of Asian students”, which seems to imply intent to me.
How do you justify the status quo, with virtually no black or Hispanic kids?
I justify this change because it provides a better distribution of kids in terms of opportunity. It still allows tons and tons of Asian kids, and it doesn’t discriminate in any way at all, except by GPA.
Only more fair and equitable than the status quo. Still not a perfectly fair or equitable solution.
Huh? Where have I said anything contrary? And this new policy doesn’t discriminate against Asians in any way.
That might be an even better solution. Feel free to argue for it.
That’s a side affect, not the goal. It’s still better than the status quo, though. With the status quo, black and Hispanic kids are underserved by this educational service. This lessens this, without underserving Asian kids. Asian kids still have plenty of access to this (and other) quality educational services in the area.
I don’t think they do. I think there are other explanations – like the power of immigration. Immigrant kids and 1st generation kids always do better, on average, especially the further their journey. I bet Nigerian kids are heavily over-represented. It’s not superior Nigerian culture – it’s the immigration stats re: Nigerians.
It’s not one thing. It’s a multitude of factors. We could talk for days (and have!) about all the things that can hold back black and Hispanic people in America. The success of immigrant kids is a different factor.
The same way they should be doing it from the get go. Start at birth with the opportunities.
But here you are picking some random jumping off point to start trying to equalize equality of outcomes.
This is flat out wrong.
End Goal: we need more minority representation in a good high school.
Process: I know, we can select by lottery people who wouldn’t normally get in by relaxing standards across the board so that more minorities (but not Asians) get in because we realize that they can’t get in on their own merit.
I think I would start asking WHY they can’t get in on their own merit and work from there.
Help them get in on their own merit.
Sounds great. How?
Are you going to randomly assign children at birth to parents? That’s one way of doing this from the get-go, I guess. Otherwise, you’re just saying there’s a problem that has to be fixed, but providing no ideas about how to fix it. This school system seems to be saying, well, we can address the opportunity problem at least a little bit this way.
We’re working on it, by fighting long term systemic discrimination. But that’s a long term project. It doesn’t help next semester’s students. To help underserved kids now, we may need policies like this that are far from perfect, but still better than the status quo.
It has been said many times, certain cultures value education over others.
Work to change the culture(s) that don’t value education.
They are certainly helping opportunity for HS, by changing the outcomes of everything that came before that.
Sounds great. How?
I have an idea! Let’s intelligent, highly achieving kids of all cultures get into magnet schools by some sort of random drawing. That way, those kids from non-education-valuing cultures can start valuing education and passing it on to their kids! What do you think?
Bolding mine.
Ah. That’s pretty subtle, right there.
It’s what I meant. If it looked like I was assigning a motive then I apologize.
No problem! Anyway, this thread is already going in circles, so unless it gets more interesting, I’m out.
Which would be fine if it wasn’t directly disavowing minorities who got in on the before unchanged merit. It might even work! So dropping the entrance requirements is doing that (considering this school is highly intelligent, so high in fact that they had some requirements) which were unable to be reached by enough other minorities that they were disqualified.
What is the acceptable failure/harm rate for this to be considered a bad move?
It “accidentally” targets asians.
I guess it comes down to whether you believe merit is a real thing.
If racial balancing is your primary objective then you would be correct.
If having a school for the brightest kids is your objective, then you would be incorrect.
Of the 3067 kids that applied to tjhsst a couple of years ago, 2687 had a gpa of 3.5 or higher. They selected 486 students students. The median GPA of admitted students was 4.0 (out of 4.0), the majority of the kids that got into TJ that year had a 4.0. 344 of the 486 kids accepted had a 4.0 GPA. 446 out of 486 had a 3.9 or higher. Only 12 kids out of 486 had a gpa below 3.75.
237 out of 363 kids in the bottom 10% on their math exams have gpas of 3.5 or higher.
So yeah, a lottery for anyone with a 3.5 gpa is a pretty severe dilution of the academic talent at the school. I also suspect that a lot more kids will suddenly start getting a 3.5 gpa.
There is not an active intent to lower asian student population. There is an utter indifference to the effect it has on asian students.
An objective race neutral admissions process. See, merit.
Wait. What? This is a better distribution of opportunity? So hand out opportunity randomly is better than rewarding hard work, and sacrifice because you like the melanin distribution of the winners over the losers?
How is admission targetting race more equitable than admission targetting merit?
Supporting a scheme that intentionally reduces the population of asians because they are not a real minority (or something like that).
You’re the one that wants change, You can thank me for the idea but I’m too busy trying to prevent discrimination against asians.
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That’s a side affect, not the goal. It’s still better than the status quo, though. With the status quo, black and Hispanic kids are underserved by this educational service. This lessens this, without underserving Asian kids. Asian kids still have plenty of access to this (and other) quality educational services in the area.
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Discrimination against asians is a side effect? Are you kidding? So now discriminatory policies are ok if its only a side effect?
The status quo is a meritocracy.
You are saying that racial balancing is better than merit?
What educational access do asian kids have that hispanic kids do not?
I think nigerians absolutely have a better culture surrounding education. but OK, lets say its immigrant status. What part of fairfax do you live in that the hispanics are not overwhelmingly immigrants? You seem to be acknowledging that the concept of merit might in fact be valid, except when it helps asians.
No we can’t because I’ve asked this question a dozen times before and you never seem to have an answer.
The left has more or less given up on the notion that blacks and hispanics can achieve anything on their own. It has to be given to them. I would be pretty offended if i was them.
It’s racist.
Busing, school choice, more money, and if they don’t work, then too bad. At least we tried.
But racism can’t be the answer.
The racism against asians is not the result of malice, it is the result of gross indifference and dehumanization.
The school will become little more than a nice charter school. We could already start one of those without destroying this one.
That also describes the new policy.
It’s not random, except at the top. Only very good students have this opportunity.
It’s not targeting race. It is targeting merit – GPA.
That’s not what it does, or why it does it. It’s meant to increase black/Hispanic enrollment – a worthy goal, when it’s so low before.
Luckily, you can do both! And this new policy doesn’t discriminate against Asians in any way whatsoever.
It doesn’t discriminate against Asians in any way whatsoever.
So is the new policy – only top students can get in, but in a larger pool and with some randomness to reduce racial/ethnic bias.
A decent likelihood of getting into this school, for one.
I live in Arlington, not Fairfax. But the immigration circumstances are different for most Hispanic immigrants (as we’ve discussed before) than non-Americas immigrants (i.e. African and Asian immigrants).
I’ve answered a dozen times before, but you don’t seem to like my answers.
No it’s not.
Your conclusion is true if and only if GPA correlates (near) perfectly with “merit” (however you are defining that term). Does it really, however, or is GPA more closely correlated with opportunity, parental income, teacher expectations, and/or other factors [not necessarily excluding your parents’ ability to intimidate teachers]?
For that matter, exactly how are you defining merit?