Just curious - would you guess Asian students were under or over represented among those classes? I haven't seen any data on it, but I know how I'd bet...
Reason I bring it up is, you seem to be implying the classes were favoring white students, and if that were true presumably you expect they disadvantage Asian students. Is that what you think?
> A district analysis of the program found that more than 70 percent of students enrolled in the program were white and Asian, even though nearly 80 percent of all Boston public school students are Hispanic and Black.
Just from these two numbers you can see that a white/asian student is ~10x more likely to end up in the program than a black/hispanic student.
So to me it definitely looks like the classes are favoring white and asian students. (Can't say much about white vs. asian because the article doesn't say much about them)
The article doesn't explain why this difference is there, and I don't think there's an easy explanation, but it's defintely something where you should look closely at the criteria for picking students, because it sure looks like some students are at a systemic disadvantage.
I also read the article and I don't understand why you're asking. As you yourself elaborate the article doesn't clarify the breakdown between Asian and white students. It's possible that Asian students are under or over represented based only on the text. Of course, I think it's reasonable to assume that Asian students are over represented because Asian students are usually over represented in academic achievement.
The comment I'm replying to suggests that the system favors white students. I'm pointing out that a system that favored white students probably wouldn't over represent Asian students in advanced programs, as, I assume, Boston Public Schools probably do.
In general, I get annoyed at the pretense that there is something strange, mysterious, or maybe racist going on when the explanation is obvious and well understood. Asian people typically outperform white people on standardized tests. White people typically outperform black and Hispanic people on standardized tests. What a shock that on systems based on or like standardized tests (schools) Asians do better than whites who in turn do better than blacks and Hispanics! I wonder what incredibly complicated "systemic disadvantage" explains this? Or, maybe, it's just the simple, observable, and widely documented fact I alluded to before.
"It's defintely something where you should look closely at the criteria for picking students, because it sure looks like some students are at a systemic disadvantage" - The article explains the process. There is a test given to third graders. Students who score highly on the test are placed in a lottery to randomly select students who will be allowed to apply and join the program. Most of the students (116/143) who applied after the lottery were accepted.
I agree that it is worth checking on racial demographics on each of the steps of the process. For example, if 70% of high scores on the test were earned by black and Hispanic students but only 20% of black and Hispanic students were admitted to the program, with the remainder being rejected due to "losing" the lottery or having their applications denied for some reason - that would be an enormous red flag, and, without some explanation I cannot imagine, likely evidence of a terrible racist act by the people organizing the system. Would you agree though, that if the proportion of black and Hispanic students ultimately admitted to the program roughly corresponded to the proportion who achieved high scores on the admissions test, that racism was likely not the explanation for what is observed here?
I never said anything about racism. You are putting words in my mouth. Systemic disadvantage doesn't mean someone is actively trying to harm these students.
A 10x difference needs a bit more explaining than some handwaving about racial stereotypes.
If there's a program, and it only helps the high achievers of a group that is likely already very privileged, it's a good idea to ask if that program is really working as intended.
And no, I don't think that explaining results with some arbitrary test scores is enough. Tests results often strongly depend on how well students were prepared for them, so they might just exacerbate previous inequality.
Earlier you wrote "Not useful for the many gifted students who are not white" and "it sure looks like some students are at a systemic disadvantage". What is a systemic disadvantage for non-white students but racism? For what it's worth, I would categorize a system that disadvantages people based on their race as racism/racist. I don't mean to be putting words in your mouth, but I do understand you as claiming that this is a system that is disadvantaging people based on their race (privileging white students, harming black and Hispanic). If that's not what you mean, then I apologize because I have misunderstood.
I'm not relying on handwaving and racial stereotypes here. There are plenty of measurements pointing out the difference in standardized tests. For example, this document[1] shows SAT scores and percentiles divided by race. Assuming I'm not misreading this, it shows that 23% of Asian students score a 1400+ on the SAT compared to 1% of black students with the same score. That's more than a 10x difference. That seems a little hard to believe, but wikipedia[2] also has some illustrative graphs that suggest 10x+ differences. For example, figure 1-9 shows the difference in perfect math scores by race.
I don't think it's really a stereotype but a well documented fact that Asians outscore white and black students both on standardized tests. I also think that tests are kind of like school. Tests are similar to how you are graded, they are about similar content, classes are meant to prepare you for tests, etc. It seems straightforward to me to say that if Asian students are good at the kind of standardized tests they encounter in school, we should also expect them to be good at the standardized tests that gate high achievement programs, and that we should expect them to enter and perform well in those programs.
I'm not familiar with any evidence showing the efficacy of test prep and I'd be really surprised if it was as large as the differences between groups that I've pointed to in the sources mentioned above. Perhaps you could share something to read on the topic?
Regardless, students who take test prep courses are probably a better fit for advanced classes that require students to do more work. Doing more work is how you prepare for tests and how you perform in the advanced classes. As I mentioned before, I think it is absolutely worthwhile to check and see if racism is happening here - and I think you could do that by checking what percentage of students by race pass the test, win the lottery, and are admitted. If there are unexplainable discrepancies between those steps, that would be good evidence of racism, the fact that different racial groups perform differently on the tests seems just like a recreation of a well known and oft-observed and documented phenomenon.
> checking what percentage of students by race pass the test, win the lottery, and are admitted. If there are unexplainable discrepancies between those steps, that would be good evidence of racism
Yes, I agree that this would be evidence of racism. But you can't turn the argument around. The lack of any discrepancies does not mean that black or hispanic students aren't at a disadvantage, because the disadvantage might be something that lead to the worse test results in the first place.
> What is a systemic disadvantage for non-white students but racism?
Parental income or education could be a systemic disadvantage that is not racist. Or a lack of role models. Or different amount of support by families.
This seems to really stretch the word "system". A "systemic disadvantage" would be something like the test being rigged against you, or people of your racial group needing higher scores to get admittance (incidentally that's a systemic disadvantage Asians often face). In other words, there is an organized set of rules that give you a disadvantage, a system, if you will.
What you're describing seems less systemic and more naturally occurring. Nobody forces Asian families to put more emphasis on academics or black families to put less, that just tends to be the way things happen. If there is a system that encourages it I think it would only be the kind of "system" that could be anything.
Something like parental situation likely has a great deal to do with this and that's important to point out. For example, suppose that children raised by a single parent did worse academically, and suppose that 2/3 black families had only one parent compared to 1/5 Asian families. That's important to know because it means that to fix the problem we would need to encourage black people to stop creating single family homes rather than to force schools to stop educating white and Asian advanced students. I think this approach would result in a culture that spends less "D&I energy" on things like making sure school programs are exactly the right color and more on encouraging good behavior and explaining the problems of single parent families and how they can be avoided.
In this case I used the word "systemic" to mean "relating to the system as a whole" as opposed to just a small part of the system. I don't know if there is a better word. Maybe "societal" would work better?
In any case, I don't really care much about the distinction between "natural occurring" or "caused by some system". Of course it's important to search for the underlying reasons for inequality, but you can still do things even if you don't know what exactly is ultimately causing the inequality.
If you discover that a school program only benefits some races, because your tests tend to select only certain races, you don't need to change everything about society to make sure all races have similar test results.
You could also just change the admission criterion -- and I'm not talking about quotas. Maybe personal interviews with teachers or social workers would work better for selecting students? Or maybe you should just select the best students from each class, to avoid putting students at a disadvantage if they happen to have a bad teacher? Or maybe you could even change the whole program in a way that doesn't limit it to a few lucky kids who managed to get selected by some arbitrary process?
For example, you could just offer advanced classes open to anyone after school! Just let the kids decide for themselves if they want to try some more challenging things, without first testing them to make sure they really are worthy of your time.
Why wouldn’t black and brown kids get any use out of these classes? Are you saying only white and “white adjacent” kids can learn faster? If so you might want to rethink your preconceptions.
There is a lot of research showing lower scores for tests for BIPOC, even from kindergarten where there isn't a clear education gap already established.
There's also a lot of history of using these types of tests to discriminate - at the worst Nazi's killing children with low scores.
