Reply to I believe in affirmative action and racially balanced educational environments but...

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've seen what's happening to TJ in other places.  For example, once upon a time, the Internet was a fairly exclusive place - to use it, you'd need to have access (meaning most likely that you're affiliated with a university), you'd need the technical know-how to use it (computers weren't as universally user-friendly as they are now), and you'd need the money for the equipment (meaning a computer and Internet connection and/or the enrollment fees for a university).  They weren't insurmountable barriers to entry, but they were barriers to entry, and the result was an Internet which was a bastion of wisdom.

Now the Internet has over-time become a bastion of reactionism and misinformation.  Why?  Because now, basically anyone can use the Internet, from kids to the most vile and ignorant people out there.  You can get Internet access at Starbucks or the public library, and getting at least a user-friendly second-hand computer isn't much of a challenge.  The information on the Internet hasn't disappeared, but it's been flooded by so much other stuff.  People don't see that bastion of wisdom that the Internet once was as being that important anymore.

I think that what's happening to TJ (and APP, and advanced/GT programs in general) is just a reflection of that phenomenon.  It's not that the academic needs of advanced and gifted students are necessarily better met now, or that their contribution to society is less significant than it once was.  It's more like how we also cause the habitats of many species of bees, butterflies, frogs, etc, to disappear without realizing it, because the resources we can reappropriate from them are much more appealing.  I don't know what resources administrators see in TJ which they'd like to reappropriate for their use, but I think that equity is less of a goal and more of a focus-group tested go to move to achieve whatever they're after.  If equity was a goal, I'm suspecting that it would be possible to find much better strategies (including but not limited to spending the effort to identify minorities which benefit from a particular set of circumstances - like AAs - and then making sure not to disrupt them...)[/quote]

Yeah, not at all on point. [/quote]

Yeah, I think I'll stcik with my opinion over random reason-free anonymous internet commenter.[/quote]

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