Are AP-type classes racist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You won't ever get rid of poverty, but you can reduce it. Capitalist societies are capable of that last I checked.

Again, there is a strong correlation between family income and educational success. We should be working toward reducing poverty and that in turn will boost educational outcomes.

Some people say 2/3s of learning occurs at home. There's only so much that you can do through schools.

There is a CORRELATION between income and educational success. That does not imply causation. You can't give poor people money and expect their kids to suddenly start doing well in school. It doesn't work that way. My family was economically stable because of my dad's work ethic, and he instilled that trait in all of his children, which is why we were successful in education. You cannot make people succeed in school without motivation. And motivation comes from learning that hard work pays off. Giving people handouts teaches precisely the opposite. "Son, you don't need to work hard in school, because the government will take care of you."

I would argue most UMC and MC kids succeed in school not because the are particularly motivated, but because succeeding in school is just the norm. For them not succeeding would be the aberration- they do well in high school and then go to college- it’s just the expectation

[Anonymous]

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-

Everything is racist.

Next question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You won't ever get rid of poverty, but you can reduce it. Capitalist societies are capable of that last I checked.

Again, there is a strong correlation between family income and educational success. We should be working toward reducing poverty and that in turn will boost educational outcomes.

Some people say 2/3s of learning occurs at home. There's only so much that you can do through schools.

There is a CORRELATION between income and educational success. That does not imply causation. You can't give poor people money and expect their kids to suddenly start doing well in school. It doesn't work that way. My family was economically stable because of my dad's work ethic, and he instilled that trait in all of his children, which is why we were successful in education. You cannot make people succeed in school without motivation. And motivation comes from learning that hard work pays off. Giving people handouts teaches precisely the opposite. "Son, you don't need to work hard in school, because the government will take care of you."

There are many poor people who work incredibly hard, but due to a variety of factors can't hold a well paying job or accumulate assets. Working hard is by no means a guarantee of success, and it's a stereotype to label poor people as lazy.

I also think you're looking at it the wrong way. Having a decent household income won't guarantee educational success, but poverty overwhelmingly results in a bad educational outcome.

It's well documented that poverty leads to all kinds things that negatively impact school readiness. Poor kids enter kindergarten already behind their peers, and it snowballs from there. School just doesn't matter as much if you're hungry and just trying to survive. This goes for the parents and the children. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs comes into play here.

By reducing poverty you're increasing the number of kids who can actually focus on school. That in turn will lead to better educational outcomes.

Of course, reducing poverty isn't all that easy either, but I think we're relying too much on schools to magically fix our society. More focus should be spent on reducing poverty.

It could be an expanded EITC, some kind of baby bonds, higher minimum wage, job creation incentives, UBI, more affordable housing, expanded Medicaid/cheaper medical insurance, or something else. I'm not saying all those solutions will work, but whatever does a better job of reducing poverty will in turn lead to better educational outcomes.

You are romanticizing poverty. There are some poor people who now must work very hard because they: 1) did not have the intellect to do well in school; or 2) did not have the motivation to do well in school; or 3) grew up in a country where school was not expected or provided. These people now must work hard without great wealth gains to compensate for that early lack of education. Many of these people learn the lesson and push their own children to do better.

But, yes, the U.S. welfare system has perverse incentives and has created many families that ARE lazy, both about school and work. Providing still more of the same benefits will not solve the problem. Any additional funds should incentivize work and school performance and ALL benefits should be time limited. We also make the mistake of leaving kids with parents who are addicted to substances, but that's a whole different thread.

Those who have false compassion want to totally remove all stigma from poverty (has pretty much been done), and this is a big mistake. Being poor sucks and provides a great incentive to kids who just need to do their homework and show up to class to move a step up the SES ladder - Poor kid who learned that lesson

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The description about the above poster’s daughter indicates that she was subject to direct Racial bias -racist assumptions of one AP teacher and maybe others responsible for recommendations, but that she did very well when she transferred into the AP class of a different teacher. I don’t see, however, that this is evidence of “systemic racism.” That terms seems to be used today in many instances of just old fashion racial bias. The distinction matters. If individual bias is the problem, we need to address it. An “equity” remedy based on proportional representation relative to demographics (and I realize the above poster didn’t propose that) does not solve the problem. It only creates a virtual quota system that will likely result in more admission errors in both directions. If you want to take personal bias out the system, then don’t rely on teacher recommendations but rely on straight grades in other classes or standardized tests. Ironically, these are widely attacked as systemically racist as well.

I'm AfAm and I can think of another reason why the numbers of students dropped, peer pressure from other AfAm students. Yeah, I'm going to drag up the 'acting white' boogeyman. I had to deal with it in high school when I was a teen. So I curious what the survey question was because if it said 'peer pressure', it allows one to also assume who was doing the peer pressuring.

I'm glad the teacher mom was able to get her DD to another AP teacher and get the score she wanted. It must be nice to have enough AP teachers in the same subject that you can just switch. When I was a kid we just had 1 AP teacher for each subject. If you had a problem with that teacher you sucked it up. Also it's been a very long time since I was in high school, but aren't the scores earned from a test? And if student had talked about HBCUs and not mention competitive colleges, thinking she'd go to an HBCU would be a logical guess. Yes, the AP teacher was biased, but racist?

Anyway.

Everything is racist (sung to the tune of 'Everything is Awesome'). Recommendations are racist. Grades are racist. Standardized tests are racist.

[Anonymous]

Yes of course they are, no question about it.

[Anonymous]

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-

Everything is racist.

Next question.

I agree with you. However, you forgot that besides being racist everything is also transphobic and lgtbiqxyz phobic and fascist too.

[Anonymous]

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-

Everything is racist.

Next question.

I agree with you. However, you forgot that besides being racist everything is also transphobic and lgtbiqxyz phobic and fascist too.

The good news is that when everything is lgtbiqxyz phobic, then nothing is lgtbiqxyz phobic.

[Anonymous]

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.

Why wouldn’t the solution be to get more kids to the AP level?

(DP) Because AP is a money-making venture and it isn’t actually college-level work?

Certainly we could/should have curricula that introduce all kids to primary sources, stats, how to read graphs, write analytic essays, etc. But you don’t need AP for that. And you certainly don’t need to wait til HS to do that.

[Anonymous]

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-

Everything is racist.

Next question.

I agree with you. However, you forgot that besides being racist everything is also transphobic and lgtbiqxyz phobic and fascist too.

Wow, I think you’re lending credibility to the argument you’re trying to discredit.

[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-

Everything is racist.

Next question.

I agree with you. However, you forgot that besides being racist everything is also transphobic and lgtbiqxyz phobic and fascist too.

Wow, I think you’re lending credibility to the argument you’re trying to discredit.

Is the color/ethnic background of the children the only difference between who gets in and who doesn't, or are there other factors?

How many of these factors are within the control of the school system (school boards, central offices, principals, teachers, teacher's aides etc.) and how many are not?

How impactful are the factors that the school system controls vs. the ones that they don't?

Has the school system done it's best with what they control?

[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-

Everything is racist.

Next question.

I agree with you. However, you forgot that besides being racist everything is also transphobic and lgtbiqxyz phobic and fascist too.

Wow, I think you’re lending credibility to the argument you’re trying to discredit.

Is the color/ethnic background of the children the only difference between who gets in and who doesn't, or are there other factors?

How many of these factors are within the control of the school system (school boards, central offices, principals, teachers, teacher's aides etc.) and how many are not?

How impactful are the factors that the school system controls vs. the ones that they don't?

Has the school system done it's best with what they control?

I was just remarking on how the PP, clearly aggrieved by any discussion of racism, took the opportunity to express his or her annoyance with LGBTQ advocacy as well. The only unifying logic was “I’m so tired of THOSE people making claims.”

Re your argument/questions. OTOH, they’re pretty much a recipe for avoiding public responsibility for social problems. Though in this particular case, they just seem kind of silly — AP is hardly crucial or the best we could do wrt HS education. And the school district itself seems to be acknowledging that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I was just remarking on how the PP, clearly aggrieved by any discussion of racism, took the opportunity to express his or her annoyance with LGBTQ advocacy as well. The only unifying logic was “I’m so tired of THOSE people making claims.”

DP. I sympathize with that PP in that there seems to be a victim Olympics with lots of different kinds of people striving to assume the mantle of victim. I really like the gay people I know and very much believe that they should have the same rights as anyone else. Same with women. Same with anyone else really -- though I don't personally know so many Black, Latino, or disabled people. But at a certain point, I feel like everyone has challenges in life. I respect people who don't whine about them and just get to work overcoming them more than people who feel the need to talk their problems to death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I was just remarking on how the PP, clearly aggrieved by any discussion of racism, took the opportunity to express his or her annoyance with LGBTQ advocacy as well. The only unifying logic was “I’m so tired of THOSE people making claims.”

DP. I sympathize with that PP in that there seems to be a victim Olympics with lots of different kinds of people striving to assume the mantle of victim. I really like the gay people I know and very much believe that they should have the same rights as anyone else. Same with women. Same with anyone else really -- though I don't personally know so many Black, Latino, or disabled people. But at a certain point, I feel like everyone has challenges in life. I respect people who don't whine about them and just get to work overcoming them more than people who feel the need to talk their problems to death.

Maybe re-read what you just wrote and try thinking critically about it.

[Anonymous]

I think anyone who wants to take an AP course should be offered it. At least that's how it was when I was in school. You needed an A/B average/ 3.0 to be eligible to enroll in them. If only whites and Asian enroll, then so be it. At least someone has the option of taking it versus taking away the option for all.

You all talk about poverty, but I don't think a lack of money necessarily dooms these kids. I have a lot of friends and relatives who are objectively poor. They live off of one small income (a teacher's salary, an adjunct's salary or a non profit) and the other parent stays home. My best friend lives in a 2 bedroom with her husband and 3 children. I don't think they make more than 30k, but they're blissfully happy. Their kids are the brightest kids you've ever met. Both my friend and her husband have PhDs. They spend all of their freetime at the library, museums and free parks. Their 3 year old knew more about the solar system than I do. They don't want more money and I think it goes against their beliefs to have more money than they need. My dad was raised the exact same way. Some people set out to show the wonders of the world to their kids and others just plunk them in front of the TV and feed them junk food all day.

Poverty has nothing to do with it. But I do think that schools cannot fix the damage that is done from prenatal- Kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

So you want to segregate children based on parentage when they enter 1st grade? Just separate out the irreparably damaged ones and focus our public educational efforts on the others?