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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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Very well said. Why are we focused on admissions to elite high schools when school districts need to focus on providing the supports and supplementation to families to ensure that 50 percent or more students are reading at grade level by the third grade? If school districts invested in providing additional tutoring and summer programing for all students who are not reading at grade level by first grade, they would see clear dividends. The Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that tweaking the admissions process to achieve racial balancing is unconstitutional because it disparately impacts Asian students. But even if the current process was constitutional, what will make the biggest difference in fostering advanced students from underrepresented backgrounds is to shore up reading among younger students. Studies have shown that if a student is not reading at grade level by third grade, it will be difficult to make up for areas where they fall further behind in every subject where reading is critical. You learn to read in the early elementary years and then from third grade forward, you read to learn. Without this foundation, a student is forever trying to catch up.[/quote]

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