Affirmative action has failed

[Anonymous]

It was never going to work anyway, since it treated the symptoms and not the cause.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This isn't a failure of affirmative action, but of our education system as a whole. Poor, URM kids go to crappy schools, which set them back from the very beginning. If all American children went to comparatively high quality schools, I would bet money that URM would have higher representation and AA would not even be necessary.

It's not entirely a school problem. The parents of these children also have a role here. There is only so much a school can do if the family / parent figures are not supporting the child.

+1 schools are only reflective of the students (ergo, the parents) who attend them. You can try all you want, but teaching students who come from homes where education is an afterthought is HARD.

The educational level of the parents is key. The studies have shown an absolute absence of long-term (i.e., into high school) impact of programs like Head Start for underprivileged kids. The children do better initially, but the effect goes away as soon as the program ends. I say one study (from Harvard, I think?) that looked at a range of programs, and the only program that worked was one that had focused intervention into the homes of disadvantaged students beginning at a very early age, and continuing on through high school, with mentors assigned to individual students and their parents. The problem was that it is incredibly expensive and there simply isn't the manpower to implement it on any kind of scale. The studies on the "word gap" between underprivileged and middle class kids have been extensively covered. Pouring money into the schools isn't going to fix the problem, when so much of the work that goes into preparing a kid for academic success happens between birth and 5 years of age.

First pp here, and I knew someone would have these responses. Obviously parents are the most important factor. Obviously children from the most broken, messed up homes are going to have a harder time.

But largely I think this is a cop-out, or an excuse to ignore educational inequality. "Oh, their parents aren't good enough, things will never get better." There are also studies that show when you put URM kids in a middle class school with a bunch of middle class kids, their results improve. There are so many schools in America that are either mediocre or grossly inadequate. In other words, actual integration is the answer.

It think that's just part of the same thing. I agree that it's absolutely true that the more role models these kids have, the better, whether its parents or other adults or students. Kids do better in middle class schools because they're surrounded by middle class kids, not because the school itself is necessarily "better." Last time I checked, the City of Alexandria and DC spend more per capita than most schools in America. You use the term "inequality," but it seems that you are equating "quality" with the other students, not the "quality" of the teachers, buildings, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's way past-time to end race based affirmative action, and in time the Supreme Court will end it. If you're going to have a preference, have it be socio-economic. The latter would obviously benefit a lot of socio-economically disadvantaged blacks and Hispanics. But please explain why the African-American, private school offspring of a Big Law partner or surgeon should get a "URM" preference in college admissions over the kid of an Asian dishwasher or of a white unemployed coal miner. Makes no sense at all.

It makes no sense because this is not what happens. Idiots. All of those groups you listed get preferences in admission especially with schools that take a holistic approach. It's not the URM over others. If you want to end affirmative action - you need to end all hooks and preferences - legacies and athletes in particular. You idiots who rail against affirmative action don't even realize that is where the majority of the advantage lies in college admissions, along with the ability to pay full freight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This isn't a failure of affirmative action, but of our education system as a whole. Poor, URM kids go to crappy schools, which set them back from the very beginning. If all American children went to comparatively high quality schools, I would bet money that URM would have higher representation and AA would not even be necessary.

It's not entirely a school problem. The parents of these children also have a role here. There is only so much a school can do if the family / parent figures are not supporting the child.

+1 schools are only reflective of the students (ergo, the parents) who attend them. You can try all you want, but teaching students who come from homes where education is an afterthought is HARD.

The educational level of the parents is key. The studies have shown an absolute absence of long-term (i.e., into high school) impact of programs like Head Start for underprivileged kids. The children do better initially, but the effect goes away as soon as the program ends. I say one study (from Harvard, I think?) that looked at a range of programs, and the only program that worked was one that had focused intervention into the homes of disadvantaged students beginning at a very early age, and continuing on through high school, with mentors assigned to individual students and their parents. The problem was that it is incredibly expensive and there simply isn't the manpower to implement it on any kind of scale. The studies on the "word gap" between underprivileged and middle class kids have been extensively covered. Pouring money into the schools isn't going to fix the problem, when so much of the work that goes into preparing a kid for academic success happens between birth and 5 years of age.

First pp here, and I knew someone would have these responses. Obviously parents are the most important factor. Obviously children from the most broken, messed up homes are going to have a harder time.

But largely I think this is a cop-out, or an excuse to ignore educational inequality. "Oh, their parents aren't good enough, things will never get better." There are also studies that show when you put URM kids in a middle class school with a bunch of middle class kids, their results improve. There are so many schools in America that are either mediocre or grossly inadequate. In other words, actual integration is the answer.

It think that's just part of the same thing. I agree that it's absolutely true that the more role models these kids have, the better, whether its parents or other adults or students. Kids do better in middle class schools because they're surrounded by middle class kids, not because the school itself is necessarily "better." Last time I checked, the City of Alexandria and DC spend more per capita than most schools in America. You use the term "inequality," but it seems that you are equating "quality" with the other students, not the "quality" of the teachers, buildings, etc.

Middle class people don't avoid schools with large numbers of URM in them just because there are large numbers of URM. They avoid them because they are poor, despite the supposed amounts of money spent in certain school districts. The buildings are in bad shape, there is high teacher turnover, there are fewer enrichment programs. If funding were less tied to the wealth of the area being served and schools looked more similar, a better environment could be cultivated. But it's not just about more money towards schools or some integration program. There needs to be a commitment towards giving all kids a level playing field. No, the government can't go in people's homes and change parents, but it can at least provide more opportunities for kids to have a good school experience. "affirmative action" is an inadequate bandaid that just feels unfair to a lot of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's way past-time to end race based affirmative action, and in time the Supreme Court will end it. If you're going to have a preference, have it be socio-economic. The latter would obviously benefit a lot of socio-economically disadvantaged blacks and Hispanics. But please explain why the African-American, private school offspring of a Big Law partner or surgeon should get a "URM" preference in college admissions over the kid of an Asian dishwasher or of a white unemployed coal miner. Makes no sense at all.

It makes no sense because this is not what happens. Idiots. All of those groups you listed get preferences in admission especially with schools that take a holistic approach. It's not the URM over others. If you want to end affirmative action - you need to end all hooks and preferences - legacies and athletes in particular. You idiots who rail against affirmative action don't even realize that is where the majority of the advantage lies in college admissions, along with the ability to pay full freight.

You're missing an important point. URMs receive well documented allowances in the evaluation process in the for skin color.....250 points on the SAT if you're black, 180 if you're latino, etc. Legacies and athletes receive a benefit in the admissions process as well but it doesn't come in the form of handicaps, it comes in the form of an extra (albeit heavily weighted) credential in their application. You're assuming athletes and legacies aren't qualified to gain entry on their own merits but that's erroneous. Any elite college will tell you that >90% of applicants are qualified, based on their statistics, for admittance. The challenge of course is standing out with non-quantifiable attributes. Athletics and legacies are great ways to stand out but by no means a guarantee of admittance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's way past-time to end race based affirmative action, and in time the Supreme Court will end it. If you're going to have a preference, have it be socio-economic. The latter would obviously benefit a lot of socio-economically disadvantaged blacks and Hispanics. But please explain why the African-American, private school offspring of a Big Law partner or surgeon should get a "URM" preference in college admissions over the kid of an Asian dishwasher or of a white unemployed coal miner. Makes no sense at all.

It makes no sense because this is not what happens. Idiots. All of those groups you listed get preferences in admission especially with schools that take a holistic approach. It's not the URM over others. If you want to end affirmative action - you need to end all hooks and preferences - legacies and athletes in particular. You idiots who rail against affirmative action don't even realize that is where the majority of the advantage lies in college admissions, along with the ability to pay full freight.

You're missing an important point. URMs receive well documented allowances in the evaluation process in the for skin color.....250 points on the SAT if you're black, 180 if you're latino, etc. Legacies and athletes receive a benefit in the admissions process as well but it doesn't come in the form of handicaps, it comes in the form of an extra (albeit heavily weighted) credential in their application. You're assuming athletes and legacies aren't qualified to gain entry on their own merits but that's erroneous. Any elite college will tell you that >90% of applicants are qualified, based on their statistics, for admittance. The challenge of course is standing out with non-quantifiable attributes. Athletics and legacies are great ways to stand out but by no means a guarantee of admittance.

Bullshit especially at places like Tufts and Amherst. I've seen this for myself first-hand. Legacy and athletics impact admissions way more than the points given to URMs on tests- which by the way is just one metric for admission. You don't know anything about their grades, talents, recommendations or ECs.

[Anonymous]

I think liberals should be forced to have affirmative action surgeons for every procedure their family needs.

[Anonymous]

I would rather have them than the "got in on daddy's phone call" but still think their kid is superior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would rather have them than the "got in on daddy's phone call" but still think their kid is superior.

Good lord you have a chip on your shoulder. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're a URM who hasn't done particularly well in life and resents anybody who has achieved some level of success.

[Anonymous]

Has Affirmative Action failed, or have those who it's supposed to help failed? At some point, you have to take responsibility and stop blaming everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP I think that's kind of a minor detail. I don't think you're going to see a huge number of AA and Hispanic students even applying to the top schools because for many the type of education they've received up to high school would not make them competitive in the first place.

The really sad data point was some of the data from state flagship schools, especially in states that have a significant AA population. I don't understand what is going on there.

We really need minority populations to go to college and graduate because otherwise we are writing off the portion of our population that needs to be working and productive to keep our country going. I am somewhat concerned about this as a 50 year old and I think we sometimes miss the forest for the trees in this discussion.

I think it's a different problem than college admissions though. It's a high school problem.

No, it is a family problem. Schools can't do anything if family support is not there and encouraging achievement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's such a big leg up so this is mind boggling.

It might not be as mind boggling if the applicant pool demographics were known. Another interesting data point would be the percentage of applicants of each race rejected from each school.

You can see this for black students for some schools here. But I still don't get why it matters:

So african americans are 13.3% of the population but almost all of the schools on this chart, they represent a greater percentage of admitted students...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's such a big leg up so this is mind boggling.

It might not be as mind boggling if the applicant pool demographics were known. Another interesting data point would be the percentage of applicants of each race rejected from each school.

You can see this for black students for some schools here. But I still don't get why it matters:

So african americans are 13.3% of the population but almost all of the schools on this chart, they represent a greater percentage of admitted students...

Black applicants = American and foreign. Particularly in high ranking schools, you will see more foreign born blacks. They generally come from wealthy more educated families. They typically also did not grow up in the US schools and have first hand experience living their entire lives under a white supremacist government.

[Anonymous]

Well, if AA students are over-represented in admissions but under-represented in matriculations (which they consistently are, based on your population stat and the last column of the chart), all that means is that the yield rate is lower for AA students than for the pool of admitted students as a whole. Lots of reasons why that could be true -- more offers, different preferences, financial issues.

[Anonymous]

Most of these black kids are rich Nigerians, rich American kids with doctor & lawyer parents ... for every DACA kid from Mexico there are 10 upper middle class white kids with Hispanic surnames.

Affirmative action is a total scheme. We should do away with it entirely (as well as legacy and athletic hooks) or it should become totally socioeconomic based.