Yes. Holding back advanced kids from taking Algebra I or other higher level classes until high school materially harms their progression and ability to learn college level math as teenagers, which in turn harms their ability to learn higher math in college. When I was in middle school I took the equivalent of Algebra I in 6th grade. That's a 3 year gap to taking it in high school.
In China they teach Algebra I in elementary school. How does mandating everyone stick to the same track of mediocrity help America's competitiveness?
> Is it possible that is just your perception as a person who may not support education on gender and race?
Modern woke "education" on race/gender focuses exclusively on black/latino races and LGBT peoples. There is no discussion of other races which have historically been, as woke people say, oppressed, such as Middle Eastern or Asian people. There is a single minded idea that black/latino/LGBT/women must be the only oppressed groups and that anyone else with a dissenting opinion to this is invalid or privileged. That lack of critical thinking and discussion is not what our kids should be learning.
For example, no discussion is given to the fact that Jews were historically discriminated against by Harvard and other prestigious schools, because Jews are mostly white. Similarly no discussion is given to the fact that Asians today are discriminated against by Harvard and other prestigious schools and corporations. There is no discussion on the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese concentration camps of WWII. Why? Because Asians are "overrepresented" and serve as a counterexample to the narrative that systemic discrimination can't be overcome with hard work.
What you described has been happening long before anyone cared about gender and race.
> Modern woke "education" on race/gender focuses exclusively on black/latino races and LGBT peoples.
Because those are the groups who have historically been most oppressed in North America. I'm sure students will have discussion at some point about Asians being discriminated against by Harvard, but it's clear that slavery and gay bashing has had a much worse effect on black and gay people than being rejected by Harvard has had on Asian people, and I say this as an Asian person.
The primary motivation for holding back students _was_ gender/race concerns. It's plainly stated in the GP's linked document and in many other documents on the CA education "reforms" that differentiating students into different tracks is supposedly racist.
> What you described has been happening long before anyone cared about gender and race
No, it hasn't. State standardized testing has lowered standards, but individual school districts have always been free to move advanced students onto a faster track. I don't know of any high performing school district that actually cared about standardized testing results, because their students were so overprepared for the state tests it didn't matter.
> being rejected by Harvard has had on Asian people, and I say this as an Asian person
I see you're not familiar with the history of American discrimination towards Asians. Maybe we do need some education in our schools on racism against Asians to teach people like you? You should start with the Wikipedia article on the Chinese Exclusion Act and go from there. I don't see how you can compare gay bashing to literal concentration camps, systemic bans on Chinese immigration, and indentured servitude of Chinese railroad workers.
> I say this as an Asian person
Would you feel the same if you worked your ass off and got rejected but saw people with inferior achievements around you get accepted because of their skin color? If I was your boss and I promoted your black coworker over you because of his skin color wouldn't you be mad? Don't dismiss the hard work of millions of high school students applying to college with a simple "being rejected by Harvard".
You say things like “supposedly”. What if it is?
> No, it hasn’t.
Yes, it has. I witnessed parents complaining about the removal of specialized tracks in the 90’s, in nearly 100% white communities. It had nothing to do with race, and everything do with with parents not wanting to accept that their kid didn’t have the same abilities as other kids. Maybe the focus has changed to race now, but this is nothing new.
> I see you’re not familiar with the history of American discrimination towards Asians. Maybe we do need some education in our schools on racism against Asians to teach people like you?
People like me? That’s very rude, and very much in bad faith, which is against the HN guidelines. I’ve tried to avoid that language myself, and would appreciate if you did as well. As for me not being familiar, my father was in an internment camp. I'm likely more familiar than you are.
> I don’t see how you can compare gay bashing to literal concentration camps, systemic bans on Chinese immigration, and indentured servitude of Chinese railroad workers.
Yes, I am comparing the murder and system oppression of gay people. I am also comparing the enslavement and systemic oppression of black people.
It seems that your question is why don’t we focus more on the oppression of Asian people? You answered it in your previous reply:
> Because Asians are “overrepresented”
It makes more sense focus on underrepresented groups than overrepresented groups when trying to address systemic issues. It’s more efficient.
> Would you feel the same if you worked your ass off and got rejected but saw people with inferior achievements around you get accepted because of their skin color? If I was your boss and I promoted your black coworker over you because of his skin color wouldn’t you be mad? Don’t dismiss the hard work of millions of high school students applying to college with a simple “being rejected by Harvard”.
Yes, my answer would absolutely be the same.
Note that I didn't state an opinion. I said:
> You say things like “supposedly”. What if it is?
Are you are completely closed off to the idea that there may be more to this than you currently think?
> Because Asians are “overrepresented”
It makes more sense focus on underrepresented groups than overrepresented groups when trying to address systemic issues. It’s more efficient.
And if their use of scare quotes is to express doubt that "overrepresentation" is a good justification for discrimination, then I agree.
I also don't believe gay people are underrepresented in higher education, relative to their overall population in the United States, so I don't find that part of your argument compelling. I've found this quote with a brief Google search,
"The three surveys of American adults consistently indicated that gay men are far more likely than straight men to have graduated from high school or college, with just over half of gay men having earned a college degree, compared with about 35 percent of straight men. Some 6 percent of gay men have a Ph.D., J.D. or M.D. — a rate 50 percent higher than that of straight men."
From this article: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/straight-men-face-e...
They literally wrote that though:
> For example, no discussion is given to the fact that...Similarly no discussion is given to the fact that...There is no discussion on the...Why? Because Asians are "overrepresented" and serve as a counterexample to the narrative that systemic discrimination can't be overcome with hard work.
> I also don't believe gay people are underrepresented in higher education, relative to their overall population in the United States, so I don't find that part of your argument compelling
I didn't say they were overrepresented in higher education. This thread isn't specifically about the Harvard problem. It's about the parent thinking that "woke" people only care about discrimination against black, latino, and gay people.
I'm saying that the focus is on those groups because they have typically been the most effected by discrimination. If Asian people are overrepresented in what society might call successful careers, then I think it absolutely makes sense to focus on groups that are underrepresented.
It's also not at all true that Asian racism is ignored. There was huge outcries when Asians were being assaulted randomly.
You're sort of subtly evolving your argument here, but earlier you reduced Asian discrimination to the Harvard problem, as you say, so for this reason I assumed higher education was the focus.
Quotes are not always scare quotes. In fact, they are most often not scare quotes. And if you read that one sentence in the context of the sentences that precede it, it is quite clear that the sentence means exactly what was written.
> You're sort of subtly evolving your argument here
I'm really not.
> but earlier you reduced Asian discrimination to the Harvard problem,
I did not. You'll notice that the parent brought up Harvard, not me. Higher education was one of their talking points I was responding to, however in no way was my argument limited to higher education.
Maybe the part you missed is where I stated
> It makes more sense focus on underrepresented groups than overrepresented groups when trying to address systemic issues. It’s more efficient.
This is a general statement. It isn't limited to higher education.
> I did not. You'll notice that the parent brought up Harvard, not me. Higher education was one of their talking points I was responding to, however in no way was my argument limited to higher education.
I don't think you quite understand here. The purpose of bringing Harvard, is to talk about how Harvard discriminates against jews and asians in their admission process.
This is a common thing that gets brought up. Maybe you weren't aware of the context.
So then you agree that the other person was attempting to communicate the following: 'express doubt that "overrepresentation" is a good justification for discrimination'.
That is what they were attempting to express. And you have zero disagreement that this is what they were trying to say.
In that specific sentence, they weren't stating any opinion about the justification. They were stating what their prototype woke person is thinking. Now based on everything else they wrote, it's obvious they disagree, but that wasn't the point of that sentence.
You're not making any substantive points here. Basically just arguing semantics. They made their points, I addressed them. We obviously don't agree, but there was no misunderstanding. I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish.
It seemed like you were incorrectly understanding what the other person was attempting to say, and being pretty opinionated about it, for not much reason.
The point of all of this, is that you don't have to mis-interpret someone else's statements in order to disagree with them.
You can simply agree with the clarification that someone later gave, agree that this is what they said, and then state you thoughts on that clarification.
I wasn't, as I clearly laid out in my last reply.
> and being pretty opinionated about it, for not much reason.
An interesting reply from someone who is making no substantive arguments at all.
> The point of all of this, is that you don't have to mis-interpret someone else's statements in order to disagree with them.
Agreed. Good thing I didn't.
> You can simply agree with the clarification that someone later gave, agree that this is what they said, and then state you thoughts on that clarification.
They gave no clarification. If you actually look at the thread, someone else jumped in to try and claim the parent wrote something they didn't. The parent has not been part of this at all. Now you've jumped in to make your own little interpretation of someone else's interpretation of someone else's comment. Just think about that for a second.
So again, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here?
> someone else jumped in
Yes you were wrong, and and that other person was correct.
The point of all of this, is that they were trying to say the following, which someone else clarified as : 'if their use of scare quotes is to express doubt that "overrepresentation" is a good justification for discrimination'.
I think it is pretty clear that the original poster was saying something similar to that.
Multiple other people here are not interpreting the statement how you are interpreting it. So to everyone else, it was clear, and you seem to be the one mis-interpreting.
No, I was not wrong. If you actually read the thread, you would see that there was no misunderstanding. Continuing to reply isn't going to change that.
> Multiple other people here are not interpreting the statement how you are interpreting it. So to everyone else, it was clear, and you seem to be the one mis-interpreting.
And by multiple people, you mean you and the one other? Both who are ideologically opposed to my arguments. Shocking.
> I think it is pretty clear that the original poster was saying something similar to that.
It's clear that the original poster was saying exactly what they wrote.
So as I said, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here? Because you're multiple replies in, and have accomplished precisely nothing. You've jumped in to make your own little interpretation of someone else's interpretation of someone else's comment. Are you seriously oblivious to how ridiculous this is?
I assume you're talking about me. I am curious about this. Which of your arguments have I expressed ideological opposition towards? The only ideology I've expressed, I believe, is that overrepresentation is not an acceptable justification for discrimination. Otherwise I've pointed out mistakes in your thinking and writing.
There are no mistakes in my thinking or writing. You made incorrect assumptions and then ran with them, which is funny because that's what you accused me of.
There were several mistakes, at least in your writing, which are well-outlined in my post history.
Are we going to keep going, or should we just stop?
I don't really care either way on this topic acceptance criteria in schools. I just don't like it when people misunderstand other people's arguments and refuse to accept reasonable clarifications.
> have accomplished precisely nothing
You could have just accepted the reasonable clarification, with WhoOhWhyQ said, which is "overrepresentation is not an acceptable justification for discrimination", and gone on from there.
> to how ridiculous this is?
You could have just gone with the clarification which was helpfully offered. No ridiculousness necessary.
At this point it’s quite clear that you really just want to have the last word. You haven’t contributed anything of substance to this thread, but will somehow feel emotionally fulfilled if you have the last comment.
So go ahead. Reply and tell me how wrong I am again. It will completely validate everything I just wrote, but I am interested to see whether you’re willing to do that in order to have the last comment in the thread. My prediction is that you lack the self control to stop yourself from replying, but we shall see :)
I'd recommend that you read up on hacker news's terms of service, because your comments like this seem to frequently ignore them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity."
:)
And with that lovely validation, I am out.
I disagree, but who really cares anyways. Have a nice one!
Edit: "This is a general statement. It isn't limited to higher education."
Alright, that's cool.