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Federal judge rules that admissions changes at nation’s top public school discriminate against Asian
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Anonymous
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As an Asian-American, I find the whole idea of "over-representation" while we are part of 4% or 6% of the US population to be incredibly fascist or communist or oppressive. So my kid can't be an engineer or doctor or lawyer or accountant if any of my " Asian race" (a completely made-up idiotic way to encompass 2/3 of the world's population and may skin colors and many cultures and countries) limits my kids to be no more than 6% of any profession?
It is incredibly racist and completely oppressive. I don't care how many social justice warriors or black African Americans or White people think this is ok reasoning, for Asian-Americans the "representative of demographics" heuristic for distributing space in society is incredibly oppressive. We will never agree with this. Especially since, the immigration pathways into America for most Asians involve selecting the best and brightest from those lands and then expected that they should regress to the mean and just have their childrens' futures limited by their micro-minority status. No way will we fall for that. |
Anonymous
Cheating, no, but gatekeeping, yes. Frequently parent volunteers end up choosing the rosters for these activities and, lo and behold, they end up choosing their child and their child's friends. |
Anonymous
So volunteer, or get the URM group you're targeting to volunteer. See how that works? |
Anonymous
That may be true for Science Olympiad, but there are plenty of math competitions that are open to anyone. Mathcounts is generally run by a teacher at the school and teams are selected based on performance on a test. AMC tests are open to anyone, and anyone can enroll for free through FCAG, AOPS, or any number of other places. Math Kangaroo can be entered by anyone. Likewise, Beestar, Mathleague, and a bunch of other contests. There is no need to go through a school or be on a team for any of these. |
Anonymous
This rant would have some basis in reality if what you're describing were what is happening. The new admissions process resulted in an incoming class of 2025 that was still majority-Asian (54%). The only group that was vocally dissatisfied with those results on any level were the majority group. It's not as if the School Board came up with a process that limited the percentage of Asian students to that of their population in the catchment areas (~20%). They simply came up with a process that made space for other students from other areas of the county and from other backgrounds, and the only reason that had a significant impact on Asian students is that we were so thoroughly dominant at the school to begin with - there literally wasn't any other population that could have realistically been impacted. Had the number of white students declined by the same raw number as the number of Asian students did, there would be no white students at TJ. I have made a very good living out of evaluating people for suitability in my industry based on past performance and indicators for future success, and one thing I have learned is that a person who has driven themselves to success in spite of difficult circumstances within their home and their community is far more likely to reach their potential than someone who was born on 95 not out and thinks they made a century on their own. |
Anonymous
Economically disadvantaged parents (and this goes for Asian families as well) do not necessarily have the time to volunteer or the money to allow their students to participate in these events. |
Anonymous
You're right, but frequently the students who have the most success in these competitions are those whose families have paid for extra help or prep work in these areas. It always comes back to parents using their resources to boost their kids - and there's nothing wrong with them doing that; they just need to do it without the expectation that it's going to get them into elite schools, because if those resources confer a huge advantage on to a student, you have a classist process. |
Anonymous
It often comes with a lot of demonizing of said group. Think about how many people say Asians are cheaters, undeserving, robots, or anything along those lines. There is a lot of bandwagon hate that goes unchallenged by people trying to reform the system, and it makes the whole thing feel very racist. |
Anonymous
AOPS has a free, very active forum and a ton of free resources for any motivated kids. Even if a kid is economically disadvantaged, at some point the kid needs to proactively do something to prove merit, much like the slew of economically disadvantaged Asian kids who still have the chops to get accepted into Stuyvesant each year. |
Anonymous
Unfortunately, you are correct. It is a challenging needle to thread for those of us who believe strongly in reform - understanding (based purely on results) that the previous admissions process conferred advantages to a specific cultural approach to education must not turn into demonization of that approach. What people like me believe is that there should be space at TJ for outstanding, hard-working, meritorious individuals who come from different backgrounds and different approaches to the educational process - and that making space for those individuals results in a more dynamic and enriched educational environment. The updated admissions process took a step in that direction while, in my mind, removing a few too many opportunities for feedback that were unnecessary. |
Anonymous
Exactly - so the pipeline needs to be fixed at the start, not at the end. As far as volunteering, it's about your priorities. And that's fine you or economically disadvantaged parents choice not to prioritize their kids education. Choices have conseuences. |
Anonymous
#toxic |
Anonymous
I mean, Asian students at TJ refer to the school as toxic. The word has become loaded, but it's one that they use for themselves. |
Anonymous
It is a luxury to be able to volunteer at your child's school during normal working hours, or in some cases even after working hours. There are many ways to prioritize your child's education that go beyond the narrow definition of what historically has worked to get kids into TJ. The viewpoint espoused in this post is incredibly myopic. |
Anonymous
Such as the racist TJ reform? |