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Comment by cjohnson318 | Hacker News Reader

I think we tried that in the form of scholarships. Basically, the students with the highest grades get discounts from different colleges. It's not exactly the same, but the effect is similar, and this system has been running for generations.

I think one big problem is that low test scores are highly correlated to poverty. Parents who earn less usually don't have time to help kids with their school work, or don't understand the school work, or don't know how to study or teach children. Sure, there's exceptions to this everywhere, but that's the general pattern.

Incidentally, Louisiana has/had a program called TOPs that covers in-state tuition for students that get over a 3.something GPA. Who benefits the most from it? Kids whose families make above the median income in the state.

I don't think giving X dollars to the families with the top ranking students would change society overnight.

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> I think one big problem is that low test scores are highly correlated to poverty.I think one big problem is that low test scores are highly correlated to poverty.

True, but the arrow of causality is not from "poverty" to "low test scores".

Children of poor (and sometimes illiterate) Chinese immigrants did and do quite well!

Careful, you’re not allowed to utter the “C” word here in relation to educational outcomes.

(The word is “Culture”)

I find this site more open to constructive debate than elsewhere.

Thanks for specifying which c word you meant, as the only one in the post you replied to was Chinese.

Your phrasing is crude but there is truth in it. In theory, African-American communities could be much better off with some drastic changes in culture, and it would be far more feasible for the government to pick up the slack and level the playing field (affordable quality education, abolish legacy admissions, etc.). Any amount of public school infrastructure and funding doesn't inherently get people to learn; students play a part in their own success. Of course, changing culture is much easier said than done.

I agree if only black people would change.

> In theory, African-American communities could be much better off with some drastic changes in culture

African-American communities could be a lot better off if they had been able to take advantage of the same veterans benefits programs that white veterans were able to take advantage of, if they had been able to get home loans on the same terms that white counterparts were able to, if Black professionals had been able find work outside of Black operated businesses, and so on.

But yeah, Black people are real lazy if you just ignore hundreds of years of history. Black people ain't lazy, they just don't have the same opportunities as everyone else because when they walk into an interview with a white manager, there's a real good chance that manager is thinking something like, "In theory, African-American communities could be much better off with some drastic changes in culture".

You're not addressing what I said. I recognize that African-Ammericans are generally very disadvantaged by a multitude of factors that they had no control over. However, a drastic change in culture that embraces education could improve outcomes signficantly, and ample government support could boost this to the point of actual equality being viable in a few generations. I don't remember if it was Kenyan, Nairobi, or other immigrants, but I remember reading about certain African-American immigrants being focused on education and doing fairly well (don't remember how well), like the Chinese immigrants mentioned upthread.

I addressed the fact that you're conflating over a hundred years of systematic disenfranchisement with an some imagined flaw in Black culture. I've taught black kids and I've taught white kids, and there is not a cultural difference between them that explains why one group generally succeeds in life, while the other generally flounders.

> I remember reading about certain African-American immigrants being focused on education and doing fairly well

From the Harvard Business Review: "In the United States, where 13.7% of the population is foreign-born, immigrants represent 20.2% of the self-employed workforce and 25% of startup founders". So, this pattern shows up for immigrant communities in general, it is not evidence that Africans off the boat from Africa have a different culture that makes them more likely to succeed than their American counterparts that have lived in America for generations.

The idea that a historically disenfranchised group is unsuccessful due to certain "cultural values" does not hold water. It's just a way to ignore history, and in turn ignore and excuse existing biases.

How well are the schools in Baltimore doing with all that money thrown at them?

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/baltimorecityma...

How did the Chinese immigrants become so prosperous so quickly if not for their cultural values around hard work and education? It's not as if there was affirmative action for them at the time because they were disenfranchised or something.

Education matters. Black immigrants (from Africa, the Caribbeans, etc.) are doing pretty well. There may be some subconscious biases in hiring, but it's not significant.

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-ethnicity/2022/01/20/a-grow...

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-ethnicity/2022/01/20/househ...

I'm not ignoring history. I recognize that African-Americans have been heavily disenfranchised and discriminated against. I'm trying to find a way forward from here. If African-Americans achieve similar educational attainment, I think it's fair to say that we'll be on the path to achieving equality. As they become more successful, fewer people will have undue stereotypes about them. Now the problem becomes initiating the process of betterment. The government should pitch in, but that will do little good without a change in culture. Plants can't grow without light, even if there's plenty of water and nutrients.

> How did the Chinese immigrants become so prosperous so quickly if not for their cultural values around hard work and education?

> Black immigrants (from Africa, the Caribbeans, etc.) are doing pretty well.

You keep attributing immigrant success rates to "cultural values" when they should be attributed to the self-selection process of emigration.

If it is as you say, that a sample of immigrants is representative of their native population and their "cultural values", then you should see comparable poverty rates and earning rates in immigrants' native populations, adjusted for local economies. You do not see that. Immigrants tend to be more enterprising and hardworking, otherwise they would not undergo the immense challenge of immigration in the first place. This whole idea is as absurd as saying that American expats in Berlin or Paris are a representative sample of Americans, and their ability to thrive in another country is reflective of uniquely American "cultural values".

The fact of the matter is that those black immigrants have good educations and are doing well in the US, even if there is perhaps some bias in hiring. I'm talking about outcome here. So shift the culture of African-Americans here to focus on attaining good education, throw in government support and enforce race-blind policies (possibly favor poorer candidates that are acceptable), and I think there will be a similar outcome: within a few generations, equality should generally be reachable. I think that shift in culture is necessary and isn't widespread in African-American communities today.

> Immigrants tend to be more enterprising and hardworking

Yeah. So have the African-American populace at large match that.

> This whole idea is as absurd as saying that American expats in Berlin or Paris are a representative sample of Americans, and their ability to thrive in another country is reflective of uniquely American "cultural values".

I don't know what the financial situation of those expats are and how hard it is to live in Berlin or Paris, but if it is difficult then hard work is necessary, no? Whether that would be American cultural values is trickier to answer because of the diversity here.

You're fine with comparing African Americans to African immigrants, so let's now compare White Americans to African immigrants: most Americans are not highly skilled, while many African immigrants are. In your words, we should "have the American populace at large match that".

Seems like you're trying to get me to say something wrong. Anyways, I see nothing wrong with encouraging skilled work all around. I'm sure there are plenty of things to innovate on. For example, reducing dangerous manual labor or mitigating global warming. Maybe one day we'll be so advanced that few people will need to do work.

> Seems like you're trying to get me to say something wrong.

Listen, if you honestly thought that saying half the stuff you said was right, then I don't know where to start. Imagine landing an interview for a job that will significantly effect where you can afford to live, what you can provide for your kids, and your ability to retire. Now imagine that your hiring manager is making value judgements about you personally, that are based on unfounded opinions he has about how your "culture", and you're passed over for a candidate that comes from a "culture" that he holds in higher regard. This is a real life scenario for millions of Americans, every single day.

I don't even know you're drawing these conclusions from what I'm saying.

Here:

Result I'm looking for: Decent baseline of financial stability among African-Americans

Objective: Get educational attainment and good employment up

Major factors I think are necessary (for relatively quick results, anyways):

- culture shifts towards focusing on education

- government funds public schools in terms of materials, transportation, teachers, etc.

- reduce college tuition somehow

- race-blind hiring/whatever policies

I'm just trying to justify why I think the culture is important. There is evidence that culture is important. Furthermore, I'm saying that there's currently a lack of that education-focused culture and that's why e.g. Baltimore isn't doing too great even with all the funding.

So you should at most have an issue with

- culture shift necessary (which embodies "current culture not working")

I don't see where your evidence that culture isn't an important factor here is. Also, I'm not here to talk about historic grievances and bias and all that. I'm trying to discuss a way out, not bemoan the current circumstances or hope the world magically changes overnight.

> I don't even know [how] you're drawing these conclusions from what I'm saying.

That is abundantly clear. Here it is in a nutshell: *if* you accept that "culture is important," *then* you cannot have "race-blind hiring/whatever policies," *because* you have already accepted that one culture values hard work more than another culture.

When you reject that "culture is important," then you can hire individuals based on their merits, instead of the opinions you have about their culture. Making decisions about individuals based on opinions you have about their culture is the definition of racism.

When did I say to consider culture in hiring people? You're just putting words into my mouth. I'm saying culture is an important factor in getting African-Americans to be employed at good jobs, not that companies should consider a candidate's culture. If people start growing crops in hydroponic systems, end consumers won't care as long as the results are good. Wouldn't it be great if more and more African-Americans get quality education and it becomes less and less tenable for companies to have racist (perhaps unintentionally) hiring policies in the face of skilled work?

Cultural problems within the poorer communities in the US cannot be solved completely internally. Because sadly many of the problems come from systemic racism forcing people into a box of sorts. Escaping that requires overcoming a mountain of challenges. My SO taught in some of these schools, and the circumstances in these communities is tragic.

It's a bit like telling prisoners they can all leave if they'd just try harder, meanwhile the outside world has been pouring concrete around the outside for decades.

I don't mean to say that changing a culture/mindset is at all easy. It's just that if the culture were to start changing, I think we would see significant progress in terms of elevating African-Americans to decent socioeconomic standing. The other day there was another HN thread about charter schools, where some people discussed what to do about chronic trouble kids (for lack of a better term). The fact that home life is a major factor in how kids develop means that bad households generally produce bad kids, but good households generally produce good kids.

If there was some magical way to change the culture of many African-American communities instantly, and if the government bolstered schools, healthcare, and whatnot, that would really be something. I don't think all that money will be very effective if the culture isn't changed, though. And affirmative action is too late, too little in the education journey.

I recognize this is like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill right now, but that's the only feasible way out that I see.

Merit scholarships were already out of fashion by the time I was applying for colleges (circa 2010). Especially at more selective schools (those with lower admission rates), merit scholarships have been displaced in favor of diversity scholarships, which I suppose reflects the changing priorities of those schools.

Scholarships also just possibly dried up after the great recession. My wife and I both graduated from same state with similar GPA, though I was 2010, she 2012. We qualified for the exact same scholarship. Mine covered 100% of my tuition, hers 75%.

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