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Comment by jbm | Hacker News Reader

> A district analysis of the program found that more than 70 percent of students enrolled in the program were white and Asian, even though nearly 80 percent of all Boston public school students are Hispanic and Black.

I'm having a hard time trying to understand what the acceptable outcome they want is. Proportional enrollment based on race?

This possibility bothers me, since I never identified myself by race. So would I be lumped into a generic "Asian" category in their statistics based on my skin colour? Why is this the correct form of human categorization?

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It's not. They're embarrassed that this happened and rather than trying to fix it, they'd rather just quit the program so nobody gets ahead.

It is a common trick of managers to only measure things that make them look good. Is the number of regressions going up? Remove the isRegression checkbox from your bug tracking system.

Kurt Vonnegut, it seems, saw this coming 60 years ago.

For those who never read it, here is the link to the archive.org version of the short story HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut [1].

[1] https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...

EDIT: This is the opening paragraph. It says it all:

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Harrison Bergeron's one of those few cases where i actually preferred the movie version to the original story

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron_(film)

I thought the original was a bit over the top a bit ridiculous almost. Bergeron's some kind of god being almost. The movie kept it a little more realistic and was darker i felt.

Every time people talk about the real problem of so-called "gifted" classes containing disproportionately large numbers of white students, this story gets trotted out as an ominous warning of "where this could go". This is the slippery slope fallacy; who is suggesting that we attach bags of lead weights to people who are stronger than average or play loud noises to disrupt the thinking of people smarter than average? No such measures, or anything like them, is proposed in the article. Actually, no measures are proposed at all because the school hasn't decided what to do yet (beyond temporarily suspending gifted classes).

So how is this story at all relevant or illuminating to the article, beyond as an exercise in fearmongering?

You can't apply a literal interpretation of the story when no such interpretation was intended by Vonnegut. Of course he never expected actual lead weights would be strapped to people by legal decree. That's not the point.

How it relates to the article is the "lead weight" of removing the availability of AP classes from White and Asian students is a severely misguided attempt at making Black and Hispanic students equal, as if they weren't already. It's actually a terribly wrong message to the Black and Hispanic students.

It seems to me that a better approach is try to understand the reasons why more Black and Hispanic students aren't enrolling while continuing to provide these classes to any student who qualifies, regardless of race.

Diversity substantively means fewer whites and asians. The goal is a 100% diverse school system.

So essentially backdoor segregation?

Yes, in CHAZ they had separate areas for only black people, so they can isolate themselves from whites.

How in the space of seventy years or so did equal rights go from 'Stop Segregation' to 'Everybody Should be Segregated Based On Race or Other Physical Factors'?

If the 99% stopped dividing themselves, they'd be unified against the 1%, and the 1% does not want that.

"Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity."

-MLK, I've Been To The Mountaintop, last speech given the night before assasination

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemou...

They just don't understand that Asian families work their kid harder? It's a different world. When I was a kid, there were only 3 acceptable outcomes: becoming a lawyer, a doctor, or a professor. Then I discovered coding - sorry mom :)

So I went to a bottom of the barrel districts for school, but still aced it. I got admitted in a great US school, and a semester later I had proved my worth enough to get a full scholarship. What if you had put me in a better system? I would have only excelled more!

The problem is not the school environment, but the families. From what I have seen, only military-style schools, with the students living in, can provide better chances for disadvantaged students. The best school environment will do nothing against a toxic family and toxic friends that use racist monikers to attack those that have a chance to succeed ("crab mentality").

And BTW the comment below "I miss the days when the schools in the wealthier part of town had things like advanced classes and air conditioning, and the rest of us just sucked it up and didn't whine" makes no sense. I went to school in a tropical country, with no AC. Yes I did sweat a lot in class and I took 2 showers per day minimum, but I didn't die.

Since the lack of amenities like AC or computers will do nothing to prevent people that are pushed up by their family, I think they will likewise do nothing to help people succeed when they are held back by their social group. Amenities are just a highly visible distraction, correlated, but not causal.

> The goal is a 100% diverse school system.

What does 100% diverse means in this context ?

Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous

> "Diversity substantively means fewer whites and asians."

So here's what I fail to understand: why punish Asians? They (or perhaps I should say we) had nothing to do with the history of white vs black oppression in the United States. Many of us weren't even here until well after the civil rights movement of the '60s and '70s. This sort of "diversity" is basically progressives being willing to be racist to Asians to compensate blacks for the past injustices perpetrated by whites, which is basically robbing Peter to pay Paul any way you look at it.

So here's what I fail to understand: why punish Whites? The students had nothing to do with the history of white vs black oppression in the United States. None of them were even here until well after the civil rights movement of the '60s and '70s. This sort of "diversity" is basically progressives being willing to be racist to Whites to compensate blacks for the past injustices, which is basically robbing Peter to pay Paul any way you look at it.

Although, in this specific case it's unfair to single out either White or Asian, but in general, Asians are punished the most in terms of Academics.

Because Asians broadly speaking do not depend on favors from the ruling elite for their position, thus they are politically unreliable (although currently mostly aligned with them).

https://spandrell.com/2017/11/14/biological-leninism/

If I wanted to take a critical view of your comment, you're basically saying "Sure, punish white people.. but how dare you punish Asians!"

The goal of any diversity program - ignoring whether or not that goal is good - is to increase representation among historically under-represented groups. At least as far as academics and education are concerned, Asians are objectively not under-represented. If you're looking at diversity programs in the urban United States, this translated pretty directly into "more black and brown kids."

It's hard to ride that line between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. But it seems to be that just saying "wow there's not enough black and brown kids in these classes, so we better cancel them rather than see what went wrong (or if anything actually went wrong)" is a pretty ass-backwards way to handle things.

Because Asians perform better and that would contradict the narrative that without systemic racism the outcome would reflect the overall demographics of the population, so 50% men/women, 60% whites, 18% latinos, 13% blacks, 6% asians etc.

Asians are considered "white-adjacent" by some types of people, which is just woke for "Honorary Aryans"

Because Asians blow up their entire "critical race theory". If racism is truly the cause of certain minorities poor outcomes, then why are Asian outcomes as good or better than whites?

> Proportional enrollment based on race?

Yes.

“Antiracist” doesn’t mean “not racist”; it’s a Marxist ideology focusing on racial identities and purposeful systemic racism to “balance” the power between racial tribes.

It’s extremely racist.

Anti-Asian racism will become normalized as long as “antiracism” is part of the Democratic agenda. They’re literally fighting to overturn civil rights laws in CA and WA so the government can discriminate based on race again.

>They’re literally fighting to overturn civil rights laws in CA and WA so the government can discriminate based on race again.

Source? From a reputable location, the only ones I'm finding are sites with headlines like:

    “If I wanted America to fail”
    Capitalism Explained
    George Soros
    Honest News
    How Do You Kill 11 Million People?
    Joe Biden in Five Minutes
    Lara Logan’s Warning to America
    Make Mine Freedom
    Obama Admin Caught Sending Guns to Drug Cartels
    Rules for Radicals
    SCOTUS: Government Can Force You to Buy Anything
    The Iron Lady
    The Socialist’s Camoflage
    Trump Admin Accomplishments
    Vote Fraud
    What is a Constitutional Moderate?

and even Breitbart says

    Prop 209 prevents race-based affirmative action in state contracts, government jobs, and university admissions

CA prop 16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16

WA prop 1000 https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/initiat...

That second link has a spare "d" after "publications" that broke it, by the way.

Thanks for the links

> “Antiracist” doesn’t mean “not racist”; it’s a Marxist ideology focusing on racial identities and purposeful systemic racism to “balance” the power between racial tribes.

Why do you say this is "Marxist ideology"? What makes it Marxist, precisely?

“Antiracism” is another name for “critical race theory” which inherits from the general Marxist body of philosophy, of which “critical blah theory” tends to be a common name. Like “people’s republic” — it’s a fashion thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Marxism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

But what is Marxist about its philosophy? What particular beliefs make it Marxist?

In sociology and political philosophy, "Critical Theory" means the Western-Marxist philosophy of the Frankfurt School, developed in Germany in the 1930s and drawing on the ideas of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Though a "critical theory" or a "critical social theory" may have similar elements of thought, capitalizing Critical Theory as if it were a proper noun stresses the intellectual lineage specific to the Frankfurt School.

> “Antiracist” doesn’t mean “not racist”;

This is true, antiracism is active in the presence of racism, “not racist” may or may not be.

> it’s a Marxist ideology

No, it's not. I suppose if you met “Marxist” metaphorically in that, like Marxism, it posits the existence of a status quo struggle, and calls for consciousness of that struggle and activity within it rather than indifference to it or denial of it, it would be accurate, but that's kind of a weak basis for such an emotionally-loaded metaphor.

> purposeful systemic racism to “balance” the power between racial tribes.

Antiracism does not call for “purposeful systemic racism” for any purpose.

If you take a random sample from a population, then you'd expect the sample to be representative of the population. All else being equal: if you categorize a population in some arbitrary way, and there's a particular distribution of those categories in that population; you should expect the same distribution in your sample.

In this case the distribution in the population was not identical to the distribution in the sample.

Clearly something isn't right.

Why would you expect the sample of gifted children to be representative of the population. By almost every measure Hispanic and Black students fall behind other students. The achievement gap is very well studied.

The challenge is fixing the problem, not pretending it doesn’t exit by making white and Asian students educations worse.

This is like the Boston PD issuing orders to shoot more unarmed Asians since black and Hispanics are shot more disproportionately.

In this case the skew is pretty extreme though.

In combination with other indicators, a strong gender/racial skew relative to the underlying population can be a predictor that your program or organization will be in trouble soon.

Indeed, it seems to be in trouble at this time: The article states: "Cassellius says interest in the program had declined over several years[...]". So there are clearly more issues.

My understanding of the article is that they're going on a one year hiatus to figure out the issues and fix them.

The populations in these urban school districts are very skewed due to middle class Black and Latino populations migrating to the suburbs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_flight. So the district comprises rich white yuppies, and lower income people of color, often recent immigrants, with little in-between.

The school district addressed in Nice White Parents (great podcast) exemplifies this dynamic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-paren....

So according to you, it's due to demographics, where people are actually becoming more affluent!

That does seem rather hopeful for the future.

Thank you for taking the time to explain.

Are you predicting that schools will have a rough time for the next generation or so, until the current generation (or the one after) become parents themselves?

Yes and no. Immigrants are constantly coming in, and cities like Boston will probably continue to be a first waypoint for immigrants getting their legs under them. So in that sense, school districts in cities will continue to face these disparities. Apart from that, even as the Black middle class grows, there is persistent multi-generational poverty among Black people in urban areas that has proven nearly impossible to improve. Schools will continue to deal with that as well.

Two other Asian kids and I were at a public school of several hundred kids of mostly minority groups. We three were consistently in the top 5 ranks and none of us were especially well off.

Is there a racial issue here?

Intelligence being shown in schools isn't random: it's a result of who can afford better education in the lower grades, education materials in pre-school, a baby sitter who can teach basic math before school begins, private school, pre school, etc. This makes perfect sense, and the smart thing to do is to implement a program below this at the younger grades to try to give the entire lower grade levels a better chance at getting that advanced learning. "Something isn't right" doesn't mean kill the whole damn program. Maybe evaluate their on-boarding process in addition.

In my elementary school, I was lucky enough to not miss the one day they were testing for advanced learning (if you missed it, tough luck: that was the only onboarding year) and it changed my school experience forever. I don't think I would be the person I am today, at all, if I had been sick that one day. If there are similar restrictions or barriers for entry that are not related to intelligence, they need to be looked into.

I agree that children should be taught to the maximum possible. I think that this particular program is in trouble though, sadly.

Your experience sounds very interesting. Would you care to share some more? Were you in the Boston program, or elsewhere?

Sure. It's just my district's extended learning program though, I am not in the Boston program.

It was a program that started in elementary school (https://ycsd.yorkcountyschools.org/EXTENDCenter). In second grade they tested us for it, I don't remember a whole lot about it. I do remember it was logic-based and math-based. Every Wednesday from 2nd grade to 5th grade (then in middle school on a different schedule) we would spend in the extended learning program's building (a very small wing). We learned French (though looking back it was more preparing us to learn other languages than actually learning French), did science projects, wrote stuff about a random topic selected out of an encyclopedia, etc. It really is my most fond memory of school and I still keep in contact with the teacher.

Over in the middle school side, we did more advanced topics. We studied the Ebola virus and how it affects the body, we wrote papers about an unknown John Doe in Yorktown in 1770's (then we literally walked to it, separate tangent below), we had a "socratic seminar" where we debated topics, we built a Rube Goldberg machine, all sorts of stuff.

It actually changed my life. Anyone who says advanced education doesn't help simply doesn't see the changes a well-designed, thought out program has. And this was all in a public school. I checked their site recently and they are still running it even through the pandemic, which warms my heart.

I mentioned the one-day, one-time onboarding process. They have since remedied it, instead scheduling tests with students chosen. This is a good solution and I'm glad they implemented it.

Tangent: I lived in Yorktown Virginia, which is probably my second favorite thing about my childhood. The pre-school I went to was a 30 second walk down a hill to Yorktown Beach. In middle school, we read about the Revolutionary War, then took a field trip consisting of walking outside the doors, through the forest and 5 minutes of walking, and just like that we were where it actually took place, with monuments, statues, historical signs, etc.

Merci de partager votre expérience.

That does sound like a lot of fun. And I'm glad to hear you had such a great time.

No problem. And I do agree with you: there is a problem that needs to be addressed with their system. I just don't think "let's not let new students in" is the answer.

Well -according to the article- they're taking the time to do a review, so we can be hopeful!

I couldn’t agree more. I benefited greatly from a gifted track in my otherwise fairly mediocre public school system. Now seeing my kids and their peers, the differences in starting point of kindergarten and 1st graders was shocking. Many kids came in knowing how to read Dr Suess, do basic math, and take turns in games/crafts/conversation. Others couldn’t even manage any of those basics. We’re in a controlled choice district (where there is cross-city busing but some bias towards the two schools closest to you and to where an older sibling attends). I think I could watch a kindergartner for 90 minutes and predict the family economic status with high accuracy. (Cambridge, MA has plenty of affluent people of all races; this breaks down on economic lines much more than on any other dimension.)

I can’t even really “blame” the families for whom they need to have all adults working outside the home and often more than one job. How can you do that and expect to give the kids a level of attention that a family with a full-time adult in the house (whether a parent or nanny)? Kids are exhausting; so is working multiple jobs and worrying about money all the time.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I think it’s terrible to kneecap the successful and promising students just because not everyone is one or because you find a socio-economic discrepancy in the makeup. If you do that, you accelerate the flight of better students out to better public districts, to private schools, or supplemental experiences, which does nothing to lift the majority of the student body. (I suppose private schooling means you get some money from the parents who didn’t leave your town without having to bother to serve them. But you also lose all that role modeling.)

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