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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As an ivy-league educated African-American, I'd said that admissions to elite high schools are the least of our concerns...or at least should be.

Most of us are much more focused on getting black and brown kids to read and perform math at somewhere close to grade level...the numbers are abysmal (though quite mediocre for white kids as well). A world where 50% of black kids read and perform math at grade level is a world transformed---more meaningfully transformed than a world with a few more black kids at TJ, Lowell, or Stuyvesant.

Once we get a critical mass of our kids to grade level, we can then work on cultivating an advanced crew that operates 2-3 years above grade level (which seems to be about avg among Asians or at least certain sub-categories thereof).

At that point, we can begin to have a discussion about elite school admissions and putting in place the requisite prep systems -- which really need to start around 3rd grade...right? My understanding is that Asian parents are working toward schools like TJ for years before taking the test.

To the extent Asian kids are "privileged", it's because they have parents and a community that are truly committed to academic excellence BEYOND what the public school is offering, and they seem to have developed an academic acceleration eco-system to support it. That is a real privilege for kids with access to those (often ethnic) eco-systems, but one that "we" should seek to emulate, not punish.

Funny thing is, most normal black folks (i.e., black folks you'd meet in the barbershop) would agree with all of the above. These school boards need to spend more time on "the street" vs. carousing with white liberals and activists black folks with agendas far removed from the people for whom they purport to speak.

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+1  very very well stated, and I whole heartedly agree.    I have stated something similar (though less eloquently) in another thread about how the BOE should be more focused on closing the wide achievement gap (made worse by the pandemic) than increasing the URM participation in magnets by a few percentage points.   The achievement gap is more of a shame and concerning than the lack of URM representation in magnet programs.

I also find it alarming that some people say that we shouldn't look at URM kids as just their test scores, but have no compunction about looking at the Asian American kid as just their test scores/grades, or to assume that every Asian American kid was prepped and tutored since grade school, and that's the *only* reason why they got in.

IMO, the school system can just as easily create that ecosystem of tutoring and prep classes after school.  I have no issues with my tax dollars supporting that in lower income areas.  What the parents cannot do for themselves due to the lack of resources, the school system can provide (and they do so in many ways).  But, even if they create that kind of program, you cannot force students to go. That's where the paradigm shift in the culture comes in.  The school can't create that culture in the families/communities.  So, instead, they change the "rules" to overcome that barrier.

FWIW, I grew up lower income, and if my school had these kinds of after school programs, I think I could've gone to a much better university than the B rated state univ I did end up at, and my older siblings could've gone to a 4 yr instead of only community college.[/quote]

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