New York Top Schools - Top marks largely go to Asians. Bill de Blasio wants to change the exams

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a mistake for these schools to take kids who need to spend all their time studying to get high enough scores on the test. These schools should be filled with kids who can do well without spending all their out of school time studying, so they can be participating in and learning from non-academic activities such as arts, music, and sports. High school is a time to explore; kids are narrowing their opportunities if they only have time for schoolwork.

I disagree. Well-rounded individuals who get secondarily high academic scores deserve to go to college, but do not deserve to displace the highest achievers. Those who have the drive and will to succeed at any cost, including spending all of their time studying are the types that make scientific breakthroughs, create inventions, and drive intellectual progress forward. I work in a science and engineering based industry and it's the hard workers that are the most needed, not the bright kids who want to do a lot of everything, do everything well, but not truly excel at anything. Great support staff, but not the true bright stars. The best institutions need to have both the brightest and the hardest working.

It's this attitude that well-rounded individual should take the places of the truly academically gifted and diligent that has deteriorated the American dominance in science, engineering and technology. Once we were the unchallenged leader in those areas and now we are just one of the top-10 nations in those areas. We have diluted our intellectual dominance with jacks/jills-of-all-trades.

OMG. I agree with this so much!

Yup, jack of all trades master of none

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a mistake for these schools to take kids who need to spend all their time studying to get high enough scores on the test. These schools should be filled with kids who can do well without spending all their out of school time studying, so they can be participating in and learning from non-academic activities such as arts, music, and sports. High school is a time to explore; kids are narrowing their opportunities if they only have time for schoolwork.

I disagree. Well-rounded individuals who get secondarily high academic scores deserve to go to college, but do not deserve to displace the highest achievers. Those who have the drive and will to succeed at any cost, including spending all of their time studying are the types that make scientific breakthroughs, create inventions, and drive intellectual progress forward. I work in a science and engineering based industry and it's the hard workers that are the most needed, not the bright kids who want to do a lot of everything, do everything well, but not truly excel at anything. Great support staff, but not the true bright stars. The best institutions need to have both the brightest and the hardest working.

It's this attitude that well-rounded individual should take the places of the truly academically gifted and diligent that has deteriorated the American dominance in science, engineering and technology. Once we were the unchallenged leader in those areas and now we are just one of the top-10 nations in those areas. We have diluted our intellectual dominance with jacks/jills-of-all-trades.

Steve Jobs was extremely well rounded and extremely successful. He would never have thought of adding fonts to the Mac if it weren't for a calligraphy class that he took after dropping out of college. You are making a sweeping generalization, PP.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/what-a-calligrapher-priest-taught-steve-jobs

But it was the other Steve who really invented Apple computer. Steve Jobs is a visionary but scientist he is not.

If it weren't for Jobs, Wozniak would've just been a computer club geek with some cool ideas. Jobs had the sense to partner up with Wozniak, who was a shy engineer content at staying at HP. Someone asked him if he could improve Atari's video game and he had the sense to recruit Wozniak. Many visionaries partner up with technical people to make their ideas become a reality. Look at Alexander Graham Bell (another college dropout) and Thomas Watson, for example. I realize that Wozniak was more than a technician and was very much an inventor, but he didn't have the bold vision to do much with his ideas. He needed Jobs to draw it out of him.

I am not going to argue that Steve Jobs was not needed. We need a lot more people like him as well. But he couldn't have done what he did without the likes of Wozniak. And the likes of Wozniak are in danger of being shut of from the gifted programming and elite schools. And this is in technology that has a natural market, presumably some nerds can find employment without elite higher education. Lots of basic science has no immediate market value, why can we save a few magnet programs and elite colleges for these brilliant yet not so well rounded individuals?

Thankfully there is always graduate school. I don't think extracurricular counts much there yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am not going to argue that Steve Jobs was not needed. We need a lot more people like him as well. But he couldn't have done what he did without the likes of Wozniak. And the likes of Wozniak are in danger of being shut of from the gifted programming and elite schools. And this is in technology that has a natural market, presumably some nerds can find employment without elite higher education. Lots of basic science has no immediate market value, why can we save a few magnet programs and elite colleges for these brilliant yet not so well rounded individuals?

Thankfully there is always graduate school. I don't think extracurricular counts much there yet.

It doesn't seem to me like Steve Wozniak was a person who would want to go to after-school test prep and who would be happy at an extremely competitive, achievement-focused place like Stuyvesant High School.

[Anonymous]

I find it amazing that people are so worried about the inaptitude of Asians when all statistics and data proves that it is not so. If you think that the Asians kids who prep will crash and burn - then how does that concern you or your child? Let these guys crash and burn and become failures. Statistically they are such small numbers that it should not even register in the nation's consciousness.

If you think that these kinds of gifted programs should take equal number of Blacks, Whites, Latinos and Asians - make that happen. Do you think that this will stop Asians from becoming high achieving?

To disqualify AA and Latinos from gifted programs because they can not pass the admissions tests and to disqualify Asians from gifted programs because they are the top scorers in these admissions test - does not make any sense. Why not come out and say that these programs should have majority White students?

[Anonymous]

I know. Every time when Asians are a majority in a magnet school, all the concerns about well-roundedness and creativity come out. Majority white, not a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am not going to argue that Steve Jobs was not needed. We need a lot more people like him as well. But he couldn't have done what he did without the likes of Wozniak. And the likes of Wozniak are in danger of being shut of from the gifted programming and elite schools. And this is in technology that has a natural market, presumably some nerds can find employment without elite higher education. Lots of basic science has no immediate market value, why can we save a few magnet programs and elite colleges for these brilliant yet not so well rounded individuals?

Thankfully there is always graduate school. I don't think extracurricular counts much there yet.

It doesn't seem to me like Steve Wozniak was a person who would want to go to after-school test prep and who would be happy at an extremely competitive, achievement-focused place like Stuyvesant High School.

Wozniak and Jobs learned most of what they knew about electronics from their dads and not "gifted education". I guess those types of programs should be for people who don't have those kind of positive influences at home, hence DeBlasio's efforts to get more underprivileged kids into such programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know. Every time when Asians are a majority in a magnet school, all the concerns about well-roundedness and creativity come out. Majority white, not a problem.

Unless those whites are Jewish. Asians are becoming the new Jews. That is, many other whites are jealous of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know. Every time when Asians are a majority in a magnet school, all the concerns about well-roundedness and creativity come out. Majority white, not a problem.

Unless those whites are Jewish. Asians are becoming the new Jews. That is, many other whites are jealous of them.

+100, and it's not just magnet schools. It's college level, too. Shameful.

[Anonymous]

Read the article pp linked. Jews are overrepresented now in the Ivy League. The nonjewish white are actually underrepresented to a degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read the article pp linked. Jews are overrepresented now in the Ivy League. The nonjewish white are actually underrepresented to a degree.

Many white protestants avoid the Ivies anyway, many of which were started by Christians. They have become way too liberal, expensive, and overrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read the article pp linked. Jews are overrepresented now in the Ivy League. The nonjewish white are actually underrepresented to a degree.

Yes, and isn't it shameful that the same thing is happening to the Asians now that happened to the Jews many years ago? History repeating itself. There are too many of x people, so let's change the admissions so that we can decrease x.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the article pp linked. Jews are overrepresented now in the Ivy League. The nonjewish white are actually underrepresented to a degree.

Yes, and isn't it shameful that the same thing is happening to the Asians now that happened to the Jews many years ago? History repeating itself. There are too many of x people, so let's change the admissions so that we can decrease x.

+1000000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a mistake for these schools to take kids who need to spend all their time studying to get high enough scores on the test. These schools should be filled with kids who can do well without spending all their out of school time studying, so they can be participating in and learning from non-academic activities such as arts, music, and sports. High school is a time to explore; kids are narrowing their opportunities if they only have time for schoolwork.

I disagree. Well-rounded individuals who get secondarily high academic scores deserve to go to college, but do not deserve to displace the highest achievers. Those who have the drive and will to succeed at any cost, including spending all of their time studying are the types that make scientific breakthroughs, create inventions, and drive intellectual progress forward. I work in a science and engineering based industry and it's the hard workers that are the most needed, not the bright kids who want to do a lot of everything, do everything well, but not truly excel at anything. Great support staff, but not the true bright stars. The best institutions need to have both the brightest and the hardest working.

It's this attitude that well-rounded individual should take the places of the truly academically gifted and diligent that has deteriorated the American dominance in science, engineering and technology. Once we were the unchallenged leader in those areas and now we are just one of the top-10 nations in those areas. We have diluted our intellectual dominance with jacks/jills-of-all-trades.

No, just no. The scientists and engineers that we want to develop can see across disciplines, make cognitive leaps, and immerse themselves in their work out a sense of wonder and curiosity rather than duty. And for the record, I am an Asian engineering phd

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a mistake for these schools to take kids who need to spend all their time studying to get high enough scores on the test. These schools should be filled with kids who can do well without spending all their out of school time studying, so they can be participating in and learning from non-academic activities such as arts, music, and sports. High school is a time to explore; kids are narrowing their opportunities if they only have time for schoolwork.

I disagree. Well-rounded individuals who get secondarily high academic scores deserve to go to college, but do not deserve to displace the highest achievers. Those who have the drive and will to succeed at any cost, including spending all of their time studying are the types that make scientific breakthroughs, create inventions, and drive intellectual progress forward. I work in a science and engineering based industry and it's the hard workers that are the most needed, not the bright kids who want to do a lot of everything, do everything well, but not truly excel at anything. Great support staff, but not the true bright stars. The best institutions need to have both the brightest and the hardest working.

It's this attitude that well-rounded individual should take the places of the truly academically gifted and diligent that has deteriorated the American dominance in science, engineering and technology. Once we were the unchallenged leader in those areas and now we are just one of the top-10 nations in those areas. We have diluted our intellectual dominance with jacks/jills-of-all-trades.

No, just no. The scientists and engineers that we want to develop can see across disciplines, make cognitive leaps, and immerse themselves in their work out a sense of wonder and curiosity rather than duty. And for the record, I am an Asian engineering phd

You know you are not contradicting the pp by any means. You are projecting your views on her posts. Why did she say anything about duty and lack of curiosity? Pray tell?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21646217-top-marks-largely-go-asians-bill-de-blasio-wants-change-exams-asians-beware

What are your thoughts about this? I feel that this is a trend that one can see in the most exclusive and competitive schools and colleges - where Asians are becoming the majority because of higher academic performance.

The lowering of admissions criteria will help Whites rather than Hispanics and Blacks. Similar to what is happening in the Ivy League colleges.

I don't trust any report that calls math "maths."

I too love when the Brits try to write a nuanced story about America.