Are AP-type classes racist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I don't think AP classes are the issue and I think they should stay. It sounds like it's the schools and teachers who have preconceived stereotypes of black and Hispanic kids that result in them subconsciously or consciously holding back students of color. So first, I think we need to pay teachers very well, specifically those who choose to work in title 1 and Focus schools and who stay there for x number of years.. Evaluate them on how well they are supporting URM students. Next why can't we provide free tutoring to all kids who need support starting at elementary school? Make it a mandatory part of their day..not an after school or weekend program. Finally, I do think we need to get rid of the ridiculous GS ratings which is a huge reason we have segregated schools.

Who will do this?

Qualified tutors hired by the school system. I would rather see title 1 money or money spent on ridiculous studies implemented by Central office towards this.

School districts can't even get decent substitute teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every student at our school takes AP classes. Everyone.

Love this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A recent study in Boston concluded they are. I have never seen statistics like this.


From the article: 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. There's been a lot of inequities that have been brought to the light in the pandemic that we have to address," Cassellius told GBH News. "There's a lot of work we have to do in the district to be antiracist and have policies where all of our students have a fair shot at an equitable and excellent education

https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2021/02/26/citing-racial-inequities-boston-public-schools-suspend-advanced-learning-classes

This is the link: https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2021/02/26/citing-racial-inequities-boston-public-schools-suspend-advanced-learning-

"Antiracist" is certainly quite a word. It sounds like a good thing to be. It was coined by Ibram X. Kendi, who is quoted in his book "How to be an Antiracist" as saying: "The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination." Woke anti-racists also demand that any difference in achievement, performance, or wealth between two groups be explained as a form of racial discrimination. The cherry of the cupcake is that anyone who argues with the antiracists is, by definition, a racist. It's been shocking to me that Liberal white America has fallen for this anti-liberal claptrap so quickly. I suppose it's some combination of well-meaning charity with a heaping amount of guilt-assuagement.

Back to AP classes; the same argument, by the way, can be made for elite college admissions and test-in high schools like TJ (until last year.) The argument goes like this; if a desirable thing does not perfectly represent the demographics of society, it must be racist. The solutions these days seem to be to either abolish the institutions, or remove the barriers to entry (tests, performance.) Or, in a more radical version, actually bar white / asian kids from attending. This has been happening a lot in the education sector. Where will this end up?

Perhaps the most powerful human drive is the parental nurturing drive. Parents want the best education for their children for one simple reason; so that they will have good lives. Parents will eventually wise up to what is happening, and dollars will start to flee organizations who lower standards. What we will be left with will be worse for everyone; for the high achievers who are suddenly being shamed for being smart and driven; for poor kids of all races who now can't even find a good public option; and for the country, which will be even further divided than it is now. By lowering standards and ripping out selective public educational institutions, we'll simply create even more of a "have" (private) and "have not" (public) system. And what about the kids who now enjoy "equal access" to test-free high schools? They will hit a dead-end when they hit the workforce. Companies don't care about AP tests or the name of a high school; they care about talent and skill. Lowering the bar to make something "antiracist" is perhaps the most racist thing that can be done; we'll have another generation of kids who can't find work.

You are forgetting that workplaces must employ affirmative action to make sure employees are representative of the population.

That ... is not how affirmative action works. It’s not a quota.

Of course it is. Stats don’t matter any more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every student at our school takes AP classes. Everyone.

Love this!

If you love this, you are definitely not an AP teacher. Not all kids are capable of college level work and this would substantially degrade the experience and pass rates for advanced kids.

[Anonymous]

Interesting discussion of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundations efforts to promote equity in math instruction:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/970638.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tutoring is good, but its impact will be lower than you think.

Mainly the kids with motivated parents will want to stay for extra tutoring/school. These are the kids that are likely to succeed anyway.

The kids that have the most trouble come from households that don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to care about school.

They won’t make their kids sign up for tutoring.

Some say the problem starts even earlier, with parents not reading or talking enough to their toddlers or even worse neglecting or abusing them.

It sets kids behind even in kindergarten.

I’d say universal pre-K is more helpful than tutoring, but even that’s not a silver bullet.

We really just need to fix poverty. There’s a strong correlation between family income and educational success.

+1

Racism is one thing. It absolutely needs to be addressed and stamped out. Hard. But equity is a different thing.

If you are going to be focused on equity, then any type of grading leads to inequity as well. Educated parents would tend to give their children a leg up, just because they have the time and money. Reading to them, helping them review the subject, etc.

About the only way to attain "Equity" would be for everyone to get paid the exact same amount. I might be wrong, but I think there is a country that tried it out and did not work all that well for them.

- A Liberal Democrat

If this is the country I am thinking about, I was born and raised there. What’s interesting, even though the factory workers were paid as much or more than the engineers and their kids often attended the same schools , the engineers’ kids had, on average, much better outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A recent study in Boston concluded they are. I have never seen statistics like this.


From the article: 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. There's been a lot of inequities that have been brought to the light in the pandemic that we have to address," Cassellius told GBH News. "There's a lot of work we have to do in the district to be antiracist and have policies where all of our students have a fair shot at an equitable and excellent education

https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2021/02/26/citing-racial-inequities-boston-public-schools-suspend-advanced-learning-classes

This is the link: https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2021/02/26/citing-racial-inequities-boston-public-schools-suspend-advanced-learning-

"Antiracist" is certainly quite a word. It sounds like a good thing to be. It was coined by Ibram X. Kendi, who is quoted in his book "How to be an Antiracist" as saying: "The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination." Woke anti-racists also demand that any difference in achievement, performance, or wealth between two groups be explained as a form of racial discrimination. The cherry of the cupcake is that anyone who argues with the antiracists is, by definition, a racist. It's been shocking to me that Liberal white America has fallen for this anti-liberal claptrap so quickly. I suppose it's some combination of well-meaning charity with a heaping amount of guilt-assuagement.

Back to AP classes; the same argument, by the way, can be made for elite college admissions and test-in high schools like TJ (until last year.) The argument goes like this; if a desirable thing does not perfectly represent the demographics of society, it must be racist. The solutions these days seem to be to either abolish the institutions, or remove the barriers to entry (tests, performance.) Or, in a more radical version, actually bar white / asian kids from attending. This has been happening a lot in the education sector. Where will this end up?

Perhaps the most powerful human drive is the parental nurturing drive. Parents want the best education for their children for one simple reason; so that they will have good lives. Parents will eventually wise up to what is happening, and dollars will start to flee organizations who lower standards. What we will be left with will be worse for everyone; for the high achievers who are suddenly being shamed for being smart and driven; for poor kids of all races who now can't even find a good public option; and for the country, which will be even further divided than it is now. By lowering standards and ripping out selective public educational institutions, we'll simply create even more of a "have" (private) and "have not" (public) system. And what about the kids who now enjoy "equal access" to test-free high schools? They will hit a dead-end when they hit the workforce. Companies don't care about AP tests or the name of a high school; they care about talent and skill. Lowering the bar to make something "antiracist" is perhaps the most racist thing that can be done; we'll have another generation of kids who can't find work.

You are forgetting that workplaces must employ affirmative action to make sure employees are representative of the population.

No they mustn't. High-performing companies are meritocracies. You can bet that Tesla and SpaceX don't use affirmative action approaches when hiring engineers.

This is completely false. I know highly-placed hiring executives in top tech companies who are actively recruiting minorities for high level positions (engineers, software developers and other IT positions).

So? My company is actively recruiting minorities for well paid technical positions. We sponsor career fairs at HBCUs and do other outreach. That doesn’t mean that we are hiring unqualified people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tutoring is good, but its impact will be lower than you think.

Mainly the kids with motivated parents will want to stay for extra tutoring/school. These are the kids that are likely to succeed anyway.

The kids that have the most trouble come from households that don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to care about school.

They won’t make their kids sign up for tutoring.

Some say the problem starts even earlier, with parents not reading or talking enough to their toddlers or even worse neglecting or abusing them.

It sets kids behind even in kindergarten.

I’d say universal pre-K is more helpful than tutoring, but even that’s not a silver bullet.

We really just need to fix poverty. There’s a strong correlation between family income and educational success.

Your don’t “fix” poverty- that’s cAlled socialism. USA is capitalist last I checked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have mixed ancestry, but identify as AA. I’m also a mid-career public school teacher and have taught in a diverse variety of schools. I taught AP for three years and two of my own children have taken AP courses. Here’s my thoughts:
1) who gets selected to take AP and who gets support during the course can be shaped by systemic racism. My district had a huge problem with excluding students of color from these courses when selection was based on teacher recommendation. Once students were allowed to chose, the enrollment increased a lot temporarily. When they dropped a bit, surveys found that students of color withdrew because they felt unwelcome by the teachers and white peers. Not because the work was difficult or boring. Because they were asked if they were in the wrong classroom or not called upon unless the question was about race. When my older DD took AP, she was not invited to the elective support course that most of the white students were enrolled in. When she asked about it, the teacher told her that it was for students who needed to get a 5 to apply for highly competitive colleges and she could get into a state school or HBCU just fine with a 3. Of course, we had a meeting about that and the teacher said she meant no harm, it was just based on her experience with students like my daughter. She failed to clarify what she meant other than DD’s skin color. DD transfered to the other AP teacher and ended up earning a 5.
2) The tests themselves do not seem racially biased or class-biased in the way that the SAT can be.

Unfortunately these experiences are well born out by statistical studies. Children of color encounter numerous hurdles that their white peers do not in attempting to access advanced curriculum otherwise a good match for their capabilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. Phasing them out would seem to be the logical extension of a march toward equity and a reduced emphasis on tests.

Agree - these types of classes should be phased out entirely.

Where I live only 1% of students in the district are black (California). We have much higher percent of Asian and Indian students who make up a good portion of AP classes. These tend to be the most diverse classes.

I guess school districts can do whatever they want. But this is a global society and we do have some responsibility to produce highly educated citizens who can compete & advance our medical, health, technology, financial and infrastructure systems. We don’t do this by reducing expectations. [/quote
]

That you see including black kids in GT as lowering standards says more about you than anything else.

[Anonymous]

Did the pp you are complaining about live in an area where black children are barred from taking AP classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did the pp you are complaining about live in an area where black children are barred from taking AP classes?

Highly doubt that prepared kids are blocked. There was probably a misunderstanding about preparation and qualifications between school and parents, and that was attributed to race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not improve the regular courses in high school? APs are a money maker, pure and simple. Top private schools have/are doing away with AP courses.

Do you know why they are doing away with AP classes? I am unclear on that.

Their classes are AP level or above. That's what they claim.

Personally I think they can’t compete with public school kids. My first born attended a „top“ ranked private and after 5 years we moved and went public. Science and math are ahead in the public. My kid is advanced but we noticed a big difference.

[Anonymous]

Nah, they're just subjects. Kinda hard for subjects to be racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tutoring is good, but its impact will be lower than you think.

Mainly the kids with motivated parents will want to stay for extra tutoring/school. These are the kids that are likely to succeed anyway.

The kids that have the most trouble come from households that don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to care about school.

They won’t make their kids sign up for tutoring.

Some say the problem starts even earlier, with parents not reading or talking enough to their toddlers or even worse neglecting or abusing them.

It sets kids behind even in kindergarten.

I’d say universal pre-K is more helpful than tutoring, but even that’s not a silver bullet.

We really just need to fix poverty. There’s a strong correlation between family income and educational success.

This. Move to Russia if you want socialism.



Your don’t “fix” poverty- that’s cAlled socialism. USA is capitalist last I checked.