Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion In the news - fair & equitable admissions criteria

This is very much like it is in our area. One particular school district has a very organized Chinese group. They attend the same church but are spread over several different elementary and middle schools. They have a rented store front in a small strip type mall. They love to start the kids as young as you can they stress respect and hard work. You have to complete a series of math test to be considered. They have high numbers of kids who compete in the top at national competitions middle school and high school. Chemistry Olympiad, USAJMO, USAMO, Mandelbrot, ARML and others. My son has participated in summer and weekend classes mostly in competition math, science and chemistry bowl and olympiad type prep.

They are very inclusive with 25 or 30 showing up at each class 2 times a week. There are very few to just 1 or 2 non-Chinese people who a regularly participate. This is not at all uncommon in their culture.

At least one of the Chinese language schools in our area offered SAT prep classes for a nominal fee ($10-$20 a semester) to students enrolled in their Chinese classes, which were open to all races and in fact did enrolled a number of non-Chinese students each year. Many parents volunteered their time or accepted a nominal fee for teaching although they did have to hire some non-parents to cover all the Chinese classes but it helped to keep fees relatively low.

This brings me to to another tangent that occupied my thoughts this past year. Parents really make a huge difference and that is one reason why poor inner city schools cannot offer the same education as weathy suburban schools with well-educated involved parents. My kids are enrolled in a majority white suburban high school within a fairly diverse metropolitan district, which is ranked high nationally (gold medal) and statewide (top ten). However, beyond all the AP college readiness crap, it is the parent volunteers that contribute so much to elevating the students' education. For example, we have STEM professionals, including a Ph.D. mathematician, volunteer to teach math to the Math Club every other week. Then when the district refused to fund ARML, our school paid the team fee so still managed to send a team because parents also volunteered to drive the students hours which reduced costs to just room and board. Our music program is very strong partly because a bunch of parents contribute money and/or time for the extras. The list goes on. If there is a way to simulate these extras plus parental involvement for the students in poor inner city schools, that would contribute to leveling the playing field; of course, the lackluster core academics during the school day remain the larger obstacle.

Our school system handles this by requiring all volunteered hours and funds to go through the PTA, and then the PTA is tightly controlled for equity between schools. So, there is a list of what PTA can fund.
Inequity may come in with parent volunteers for school hours, helping teachers cut things out, etc.
But, parents cannot volunteer to help with math clubs or anything like that. Teachers can sponsor the events (for a small stipend) and then they can bring in a parent-- which is how we did it. Teacher gets paid to sit and do nothing while parents and (later) kids run the show. Of course this brings some inequity, and I hope they don't crack down on this loophole. I feel like it discourages parents from participating and a better way is to require sharing of PTA funds or inviting other schools in, but apparently that's against some major rules.

We encountered these same exact obsticles this year in my sons public high school.

Quizbowl team had a few regional tournaments the kids wanted to attend. The coach had something else to attend (spur of the moment choice). Three groups of parents said we can provide transportation and meals and pay the fees if that was OK. The coach had to take to the board and they gave it a thumbs down without even a consideration. ARG... Our next move for next year, get an assistant coach who might be a bit more dedicated to the team or at least provide another option if the main coach is unwilling to set aside time for competitions.

My son attended a private school through 8th grade so the parents were providing most everything on our own anyway. This barrier is something we can't move or sway easily. So doing things out of school is so much simpler.

As this is a government school, there are laws in place to require transparency in government, open meetings, public records, freedom of information, etc. This means that parents can learn the reason(s) why the coach's request was declined. For example:
- Was it an issue of insurance?
- Are background checks required for the parents?
- Is a school representative required to attend the event?
- What specific State Laws and/or School Policies are cited as reasons for denying the request? (If there is no state law or school policy which addresses your issue, then organize interested parents to help draft a suggested policy to guide future decisions, manage expectations, and provide consistency.)

Depending upon your State Laws and School Policies, most likely the parents can request the reasons for the board's decision, so that your strategies to prevent a repeat of this disappointment address the true issues (and are not based on guesswork).

For next year, most likely the parents can organize their proposal and deliver it directly to the board members and/or address the full board at a regularly scheduled meeting... rather than depending on the coach to present to the board (as the coach may recommend against the parents' proposal, out of self-interest).

Prejudice has a long and particularly ugly history in this country. In decades past, colleges like Harvard had policies against admitting women and found ways to keep Jewish people out, regardless of ability. Today, they look for ways to keep Asian students out, again, regardless of ability.

Bill de Blasio has proposed policies that will reduce the numbers of Asian students in New York's high-achieving high schools in favor of allowing entry to students with lower test scores. My cynical side looks at this policy and wonders if discrimination is okay for him so long as it applies to a group that he favorss over another that he doesn't.

There's been no acknowledgement that the new policy strips opportunities from some kids, while elevating others who are less deserving according to a transparent system (test scores). That sounds like the dictionary definition of discrimination to me.

The obvious solution is to create another specialized high school for the students who scored near the current cutoff, not to kick 20% of higher-scoring students to the curb because it makes you feel good. Thus: there would be a new, lower cutoff score because more slots would become available. Shouldn't de Blasio be striving to lift up as many students as possible rather than playing an education zero-sum game?

In de Blasio's own clueless words (emphasis mine):


So it's okay to be grossly unfair to Asian students who passed the tests? And to blame them for decisions or income their parents made? Will de Blasio start following Harvard's model and assess candidates on personality in 2020?

Again, make a new specialized high school. Given that it's brand new, reserve extra slots for low-income students. Fine. Great -- it's new and you can do that. But don't cheat people laboring under the current system in the name of phony "equity."

And at the same time, look at some of the factors that cause serious problems in the other high schools, like poverty and lack of a safety net. Schools can't fix those problems.

Trading one form of discrimination for another is simply perpetuating the problem. The people who wanted to keep women and Jews out thought they were acting correctly, too.

New York City has many middle and high schools that are somewhat selective, and they have also come under attack as being "segregated":

A Shadow System of Tracking by School Feeds Segregation
By Winnie Hu and Elizabeth A. Harris
New York Times
June 17, 2018

One has to wonder at the hypocrisy of De Blasio and Carranza. If elite academic schools are so antithetical to the values each hold dear, then why did they both enrolled their own children in such schools? De Blasio's son graduated from Brooklyn Tech - perhaps he simply resented that the score cut-off was set a bit too high at the slightly more selective schools like Stuyvesant? Carranza enrolled his daughter at Lowell High School, one of only two selective academic schools in the San Francisco system previously overseen by him - perhaps he is entitled to a different standard because as a Latino he is de facto a disadvantaged minority deserving of a handicap over low income Asian and white students?

It is rather stunning that almost 25% of the the NYC public schools have selective criteria. Yet it makes sense as a method to keep the more academically inclined students from fleeing the public school system. Based on the current distribution of students in NYC, it would seem that even after eliminating all selective criteria schools, the system would still come under attack by Carranza and De Blasio unless it eliminated AP, GT or honors classes or simply make sure all such classes enrolled almost 70% black and Latino students because how else would NYC schools be equitable?

Well said, Quantum2003.

Summary of this thread to date: Meritocracy or quotatocracy?

No, that is not the summary of this thread. The situation is far too complicated to be described in such simplistic terms. I understand that not everyone can see this fact and will re-explain my position here.

Low-income students often need extra help in areas that middle and upper income students don't. I think it's important for a government (in this case, the school system) to provide that help. Hence my idea to make a new school with a lot of slots for low-income students.

The fact that low income students may lack skills that other students learn due to higher SES shouldn't be used to take opportunities away from higher SES students who passed a test that the city administers. Again, hence my idea to make a new school....

Please don't oversimplify complex situations. It's hard enough to discuss something like this in an online forum without someone trying to frame difficult discussions as an us-vs-them thing. Again, as I said, the city should be striving to educate EVERYONE to their potential.

Sheesh.