However elite school needs to reach to poor Afro American population, which has not benefited from Ivies policies. This way they are gearing towards the socio economic problems and not favoring a race. Thus in turn this will dispel a notion that Afro American are not intelligent which is a bogus thing and rich afro American do not need any leg up what so ever. Wealthy URMs have all the means to work hard but they did not because they may have been lazy.

Elite school needs to identify, tap and invest in kids from urban school where the kids have no means. Thus giving a boot to wealthy but underperforming URMS and hire a poor but deserving URMS. This way they will break the cycle and set an example. If wealthy URMs perform as Asian or white, they must be admitted on the same footing.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2004807)

i actually agree with your argument, though it has been made many times before. current affirmative action policies are helping the wrong people.

i hope english isn't your first language though.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016782)

Quotas for Asian Americans? Yes and No

for hero's discussion on this issue;

For example:

> Why not reward the poor URMs over wealthy URMs! <<

Simply stated, there are just not even enough WEALTHY URMs, especially blacks who can meet the standards of admissions to the elite schools. Wealthy blacks underperform and underachieve academically and cannot compete with the poorest Asian Ams and whites. Don't even mention the other poorer blacks, because they are in a deeper hole academially. Many of them can't even qualify for a college and drop out before high school.

The rich black multi- millionaire college educated families have children who cannot compete on an equal basis with the POOREST Asian Americans and Whites from parents with less than a high school diploma. Forget about the lower middle and lower class blacks, because, as a group, they are EVEN MORE ACADEMICALLY DEFICIENT AND UNDERPREPARED. Race based AA does absolutely nothing for these poorer blacks, comprising the vast majority of of blacks in America.

Just think about this!! That's a fact that the flaming pro-race based AA liberals can't admit to or even acknowledge. They support this AA policy in denial of this to make them "feelgood", even though it may even do irreparable harm to underprepared blacks, while not attacking the main problem of poor k-12 education. Therefore, rich blacks from upper class families who are immigrants from the Carribean and Africa are the blacks that benefit from this demented and unjust policy, not the descendants of the African American slaves for whom AA was intended initially. The vast majority of blacks, about 70%, at Harvard are from middle and upper class recent immigrant families, who were not the object of the racist Jim Crow Laws in America. These economically privileged blacks were admitted with race preferences and lower academic standards ( lower SAT scores and GPAs, academic awards, etc..) than the rest of the class.

THE MAIN POINTS (POLITICALLY INCORRECT POINTS)

Re: Standardized Testing resuts

!. This would show that blacks from the highest income levels of $100k/year or more score lower than Asian Americans and Whites from the lowest income levels of $40k/year or less. The real question is simply, "How do you explain this? What are the reasons for this?

2. This would also show that blacks from parents with a college degree or more score lower on the SAT I that Asian Americans and Whites from parents will a high school diploma or less. Again, the real question is simply, "How do you explain this? What are the reasons for this?

3. The College Board had released these figures up to 1995 (I had given you the source for these figures from the CB), and they stopped afterwards because these facts were politically incorrect and damning for the pro-race based AA people, because they could not explain the disparity of scoring based on income alone or with parental education. There are many other factors involved, including cultural, sociological, psychological, and possibly "innate differences", to use Pres. Summers' own words in this instance, that may explain the differences between the races in scoring. Obviously, more research needs to be done, but just the mere mention of this to highlight the aformentioned facts from these SAT I testing results, previously released from the College Board, would bring forth charges of racism, which will do nothing to close the racial gap in testing and academic achievement.

Here's a link to verify the facts above:

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm

STANDARDIZED TESTS: THE INTERPRETATION OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC GAPS

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2005128)

The "new Jews"-- Asian Americans

"The true issue is whether we want or need a policy that systematically restricts the places for Asian-Americans in our elite universities."

"Then as now, university administrators wished to control the racial mix (Jews were considered and called a "race" then). Otherwise, they feared their campuses would be "overrun" with members of a small but academically very high-achieving group."

According to Dean of Admissions at UPenn, Mr. Stetson, Asian Americans are the "new Jews" in admissions to elite colleges. They are subjected to de facto quotas with "diversity goals" for fear of another "Yellow Peril" from Asian Americans of all colors, including the dark hues of Indians from South Asia.

As a group of applicants, they are highest achieving, most stellar and MOST QUALFILIED for admissions to the elite colleges, according any standards or criiteria, both objectively and holistically, which these elite schools use for admission.

Skin hue, color or tone, contrary to politically correct beliefs, should not be qualifications for admissions to the elite colleges, graduate schools and professional schools.

BTW, Harvard is 30% Jewish for 2.5% of the American population, and 17% Asian Ams for 4% of the population, Caltech is 28% Asian American with a smaller % of Jews. The reason for this is that CalTech has no quotas against or for Asians or any other group.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2005191)

While it's true that Caltech doesn't have quotas, there are also demographic factors in favor of the differences you cite. Caltech is on the West Coast, which has a disproportionately Asian population; Harvard is in New England, which has a disproportionately Jewish population. Caltech is mostly engineering and science, which are historically more popular disciplines with Asians than other ethnic groups--meanwhile, Harvard has relatively poor programs in engineering. Etc.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2005217)

I agree with you partially. I can say that the demographics have changed with the fall of Communism in Europe, where many Jews formerly living under these regimes have immigrated to the USA and have settled on both Coasts. Their offsprings are academically stellar, not unlike the children of previous Jewish immigrants pre WW II, who gravitated to the math and sciences out of necessity because of culture and language differences, in exactly the same manner the Asian Ams are doing today, for exactly the same reasons subjected to similar quotas in the elite schools. Just read the bios of the early American Jewish Nobel winners in science and medicine.

In fact, Stuyvesant HS and Bronx Science HS, the elite and prestigious magnets in NYC, are good examples for my point. These schools' predominant group was the Asians, with Stuyvesant being 51% Asian, displacing the previous dominate group, Jews, but in in recent years, the Asian % has decreased a few points, despite an increasing population. Do you know why? They are being displaced by recent Jewish immigrants from Europe, the "second wave", who gravitate towards math/science. This is true of many exam schools where admission is granted via a meritocracy.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2005328)

Show me the facts and figures.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016644)

It is not the questions about liberals or conservative as both have their vote bank policies. This question relates to uplifting poor URMS and making them self supporting and let them move out of poor conditions. After all America is about achieving dreams and we need to reward the hardworking and make this country great. Thus, URMs have real heroes who understand the basic dignity of a human being. If not history will repeat itself and will cause our slide.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2005200)

Current wealthy URMS sates that SAT has a bias for them. I do not believe for a single minute that black is less intelligent intrinsically than say Chinese or Indian or Jews. The reason they state these because if they do not have to work harder, why they will. Policies like this if implemented will dispel this notion.

And by all means I support that poor non URMS must be supported but current political leader will not agree with that policies. Thus it is a compromise and get away with the current pro wealthy URM policies.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2005272)

Logistically and statistically, this would not work. I agree with Joe. With this policy, you would see no URMs, rich or poor, because both subgroups are in need of help. even the economically privileged blacks for the reasons that I have stated. Read my post above.

The group that would benefit the most from race blind and pure ecoonomic AA is the Asian Americans, simply because they are the highest achieving for every strata of economics when disaggregated by race.

In order to increase URM representation, one must solve the root problems of k-12 education and find the reasons for underperformance for blacks despite coming from economically and educationally privileged backgrounds. That's the crux of the problem. AA under any form will not solve the problem for blacks.

Again, there are many other factors involved, including cultural, sociological, psychological, and possibly "innate differences", to use Pres. Summers' own words in this instance, that may explain the differences between the races in scoring, and more importantly academic achievement. Obviously, more research needs to be done, but just the mere mention of this to highlight the aformentioned facts from these SAT I testing results, previously released from the College Board, would bring forth charges of racism, which will do nothing to close the racial gap in testing and academic achievement.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2005351)

Poor students, if not academically-challenged and gifted based on their academic record, should attend state schools or less selective colleges where the cost of tuition and room/board would not only be cheaper but the atmosphere won't be so cutthroat. Poor students are also more likely to attend school closer to home.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2005779)

are the leading example that are removing biases for poor URMs.

CTY website now links http://www.jhu.edu/gifted/financial/typesofaid.html

Scholarships from company like The Goldman Sachs Foundation who selects kids and let them attend program like CTY. I am sure IVY school can afford to do it if they want it. Of course Ivies have pressure from rich URM not to do so. If prep school can afford to do it, then HYP can also follow the example. HYP has shown a trend with asking to have kids apply whose income fall below 40,000. They cannot afford to loose to school, which offer merit money to gifted kids. I am sure other schools will follow.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2005843)

Ltorivia: there is a URM kid here (last year got selected to MIT) and one URM female who attended RSI, who do not need AA. In my mind these kids need to be projected as they defy AA and come to school based on merit. I am sure there are more URM kids who are equally intelligent whom I do not know. What bothers me most that even URM leaders do not make noise about it as it will harm their kids. What a shame they are doing disservice to URMs in urban areas.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2006398)

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_pi-close_the_gap.htm

Close the gap by teaching social skills

June 27, 2004

By Abigail Thernstrom

Affirmative action may seem like yesterday's issue. It's been a year since the Supreme Court sanctioned race-conscious admissions policies in two University of Michigan cases, and, today, no students are chanting: "Hey, hey, ho, ho, affirmative action must not go." But the court promised those policies would be temporary. It was a careless and irresponsible promise. Unless American public education is radically reformed, the issue will endure and the flames of ideological passion will burn again.

Racial preferences in admission to institutions of higher education are driven by the racial gap in academic achievement in the K-12 years. And until that gap is closed - until black and Latino students have much the same academic profiles as whites and Asians - colleges and universities, all of which want "diversity," will traffic in racial double standards in admitting applicants.

Not to worry, the gap is closing, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor pronounced in the majority opinion last year. Preferences forever, she stated, would be constitutionally unacceptable; they are discriminatory and thus "potentially dangerous." But the court "expect[s] that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary." In the last quarter of a century, she said, "the number of minority applicants with high grades and test scores has indeed increased."

Educators across the land surely knew better - and, one would hope, O'Connor did, too. The racial gap in knowledge and skills is a catastrophe, and the picture has been getting worse for approximately 15 years. At selective colleges and universities, the number of non-Asian minority applicants "with high grades and test scores" has not "indeed increased."

Through the 1970s and much of the 1980s, the scores of black students on the National Assessment for Educational Progress, the national academic achievement test, were rising nicely. And then they dropped. The typical black student today is leaving high school with an eighth-grade education. The majority of black students in 12th grade are scoring in the test's "below basic" category. Only 0.2 percent of black youngsters are "advanced" in math. (The figure for whites is 2.3 percent, and for Asians 7.5 percent.) Latinos are doing only marginally better.

Pennsylvania has placed closing the gap at the top of its educational agenda. But the grab bag of conventional strategies it has contemplated or embraced (after-school programs, summer school for kids needing remediation, and the like) is not likely to work. The needs of the minority children who come into kindergarten already behind run too deep to respond to limited and scattershot policies - or to the traditional focus on academic skills and knowledge alone.

In the last five years, in searching for superb inner-city education, I made a discovery: Almost all excellent schools teaching highly disadvantaged kids look very much alike - and quite different from most regular public schools.

These schools combat what Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson has called "the greatest problem now facing African Americans." And that is "their isolation from the tacit norms of the dominant culture." His statement is really the academic version of Bill Cosby's recent remarks in which he talked about black parents who are not parenting and about kids who can't speak standard English and who will be shut out of the world of economic success.

This is how the best inner-city schools I know address that "isolation from the tacit norms of the dominant culture." In addition to an academically superb program, they demand that their students learn how to speak standard English. They also insist that kids show up on time, properly dressed; that they sit up straight at their desks, chairs pulled in, workbooks organized; that they never waste a minute in which they could be learning and always finish their homework; that they look at people to whom they are talking, listen to teachers with respect, treat classmates with equal civility, and shake hands with visitors to the school.

These are skills as essential as basic math. Without them, disadvantaged children cannot climb the ladder of economic opportunity.

But such schools cannot be created within the normal structure of public education. It is no accident that those I came to admire were all charter schools; their principals needed the authority and autonomy to shape a distinctive education. And such schools cannot function unless teachers and families have chosen to be there - with the understanding that they will be asked to leave if they choose to reject the discipline and dedication that the principals demand.

In fact, the seeming success of these schools suggests an argument for "school choice" a little different from the usual one. Choice, its advocates say, will create a market in which many brands of education will appear. And while that has its appeal, I'm more interested in the emergence and success of one particular brand for inner-city kids - that which provides an education in math, yes, but also in a range of personal skills and habits they will need to succeed. And it is a system of school choice that is essential to the flowering of such schools.

Cosby went where most educators would not even dream of going. They are terrified of demanding what are misleadingly called white, middle-class skills and values. But if we are to close the racial gap - if we truly want to leave no child behind - we will need to pull black and Latino kids into the norms of mainstream American society. With courage and commitment, it can surely be done.

And if it is, then perhaps Justice O'Connor's otherwise complacent optimism will not look totally irresponsible. And we will be on the road to true racial equality - which only truly excellent schools can create.

©2004 Los Angeles Times

About Abigail Thernstrom: articles, bio, and photo

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2009323)

She ignores generations of factors that could lead to inner-city and rural children to do worse than their middle-class peers. Charter schools are NOT the answer (I've witnessed this school reform movement, and it has created a disaster in some states.)

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2009481)

Dumb and stupid comment.

Heed the message, but don't kill the messenger.

Personal attacks do nothing to close Black-White (Asian) racial gaps in testing and more importantly, in academic achievement. Race based AA in elite colleges, by watering down standards for preferred rich underachieving blacks, worsens this problem and widens the gaps for the vast majority of academically deficient and underprepared poor blacks at the k-12 level. Flaming liberal advocates for race based AA have done more harm to blacks than the Jim Crow Laws of the South. This only serves as a feelgood measure for guilt-ridden whites and black victimologists who make a living on this.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2011300)

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmtdf/is_200408/ai_n6832180

"LOCAL COMMENT: No logic in adding charter schools

by David Hecker, Detroit Free Press, June 17, 2003

For more articles like this visit http://www.bridges4kids.org.

The other day, I was helping my fifth-grade son do his math homework. For the math problem 2 5/6 times 3 2/3, he initially got an answer of 4 and a fraction. But he realized it had to be wrong. He knew that just 2 times 3 equals 6. He applied logic.

Logic, unfortunately, does not seem to be incorporated into the arguments of those seeking to dramatically increase the number of charter schools. A current Senate bill provides for lifting the cap on the number of schools universities can charter by 300 over the next 10 years.

What's the flaw in the logic?

Charter schools are fraught with problems. The problems were noted in research performed by Western Michigan University, Stanford University, Brookings Institute, Public Sector Consultants/Maximus, Michigan's Auditor General, the American Federation of Teachers, and former Gov. John Engler's initiated Commission on Charter Schools, chaired by Michigan State University President Peter McPherson.

Charter schools, initially designed to be incubators of innovative teaching, are not innovative at all. Public Sector Consultants/Maximus found that "Michigan's charter schools are more an experiment in organization than an innovation in curriculum."

Charter school students are not performing up to the level of their host public school districts, according to a Western Michigan University report. The Brookings Institute found that "charter schools score significantly below regular public schools on achievement tests," while also reporting that charter schools in Michigan were the lowest achieving schools in their 10-state study.

This being so even when charter schools may determine their size and limit enrollment, and when regular public schools must accept every student.

Charter schools serve a signficantly lower percentage of special education students and limited English students, the Commission on Charter Schools reported. Why? Because educating special education students is more expensive. That reason also applies to why most charters are elementary schools; the per-child cost is less, the commission reported.

The bottom line for 70 percent of charter schools is profit, as they are run by private-for-profit companies. That's right. Your tax money is supporting a corporation's profit margin. By the way, company-run charter schools spend $1,000 per pupil more on administrative costs and less on instruction than the regular school district, the American Federation of Teachers found.

Furthermore, there is a lack of oversight and, therefore, accountability over charter schools. Michigan's auditor general confirmed that the Department of Education is not able to perform its oversight responsibilities adequately because of the lack of financial resources. So while accountability may be a part of a charter school bill -- without proper funding for oversight -- they are words with no impact.

Moreover, since charter schools are funded out of the School Aid Fund, they take money away from traditional public schools and, therefore, from the students. Due to the commitment of their teachers and staff there are some successful charter schools. However, where is the logic to expand the number of charter schools?

Logic would say look at all of the positive things going on in our public schools, schools that educate 90 percent of the children in Michigan. Logic would say dedicate our limited resources to lowering class size, enhancing infrastructure, providing meaningful professional development and using research-based education programs proven to work so that every school is providing the education every child deserves.

As logic says that 2 5/6 times 3 2/3 has to be more than 4, logic also says there should not be an expansion of charter schools."

http://www.bridges4kids.org/articles/6-03/FREEP6-17-03.html

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2011375)

>> Racial preferences in admission to institutions of higher education are driven by the racial gap in academic achievement in the K-12 years. And until that gap is closed - until black and Latino students have much the same academic profiles as whites and Asians - colleges and universities, all of which want "diversity," will traffic in racial double standards in admitting applicants. <<

>> Cosby went where most educators would not even dream of going. They are terrified of demanding what are misleadingly called white, middle-class skills and values. But if we are to close the racial gap - if we truly want to leave no child behind - we will need to pull black and Latino kids into the norms of mainstream American society. With courage and commitment, it can surely be done. <<

>> And if it is, then perhaps Justice O'Connor's otherwise complacent optimism will not look totally irresponsible. And we will be on the road to true racial equality - which only truly excellent schools can create. <<

Going back to the OP's topic above:

Again, race based AA in elite colleges, by watering and "dumbing" down standards for preferred rich underachieving and underperforming blacks, worsens this problem and widens the gaps for the vast majority of academically deficient and underprepared poor blacks at the k-12 level. Flaming liberal advocates for race based AA have done more harm to blacks than the Jim Crow Laws of the South. This only serves as a feelgood measure for guilt-ridden whites and black victimologists who make a living on this.

Do you agree or disagree?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2011436)

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/Constit_CommWestlaw_thernstrom.pdf

Regarding Racial Double Standards in Admisions, but more importantly in outcomes in elite colleges and professional schools producing a racial gap in performance, achievement and failure.which hasn't changed in decades, since the use of race based AA, "dumbing down" standards of admissions with race preferences.

Your comments are appreciated

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2011613)

How are you gonna closed the K-12 gap? You can't just throw money at the problem. You can't just "No Child Left Behind" will do wonders to improve accountability. The legislation is so flawed that even middle-class districts are failing its arbitrary grading. You can't force kids to learn when their home environments are the pits.

you want to know how to fix the problem? you're gonna have to start in the community. Fix the neighborhoods. Provide jobs (not just service-oriented, fast food nonsense). Provide affordable housing for all. Provide early childhood health care so that children won't be labeled as special down the road. That's the only way you're gonna closed the gap in K-12 education.

The problem I have with Abigail is that she does not make these same conclusions. She believes in punishing public schools for not making the grade when teachers and administrators are doing the best they can. Parents and the community are the only way that children will change. Conservatives and Republicans will refuse to take the route above since it will take away their profits even if it's best for society.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2011860)

No one advocated for "throwing money at the problem", least of all Abigail Thernstrom. Money is not the problem, which was her MAIN POINT and you missed the point.

2. >> you want to know how to fix the problem? you're gonna have to start in the community. Fix the neighborhoods. Provide jobs (not just service-oriented, fast food nonsense). Provide affordable housing for all. Provide early childhood health care so that children won't be labeled as special down the road. That's the only way you're gonna closed the gap in K-12 education....The problem I have with Abigail is that she does not make these same conclusions. <<

You have completely spun her conclusions. Where in her writings did Thernstrom disagree? She goes further than you with "No Excuses"

3. >> The problem I have with Abigail is that she does not make these same conclusions. She believes in punishing public schools for not making the grade when teachers and administrators are doing the best they can. Parents and the community are the only way that children will change. Conservatives and Republicans will refuse to take the route above since it will take away their profits even if it's best for society. <<

That is YOUR PROBLEM. Who says that the public schools "are doing the best they can"? The teachers, principals or the teachers' unions who advocate for self-serving life-time job security without any accountability? Who are you kidding? There is no consensus of opinion agreeing with you from the left or the right. You do jest? This not a Republican or a Democratic issue. It may be a self-serving teacher's union issue.

4. Go back to the OP's topic above: Elite school needs to boost poor URMS over wealthy URMS. You have completely AVOIDED or sidestepped my question.

Again, race based AA in elite colleges, by watering and "dumbing" down standards for preferred rich underachieving and underperforming blacks, worsens this problem and widens the gaps for the vast majority of academically deficient and underprepared poor blacks at the k-12 level. Flaming liberal advocates for race based AA have done more harm to blacks than the Jim Crow Laws of the South. This only serves as a feelgood measure for guilt-ridden whites and black victimologists who make a living on this.

Do you agree or disagree?

5. Please address the following and answer my questions. They Racial Gaps can only be closed in testing (all of standardized testing) and more importantly, in ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT, once we find the answers to these politically incorrect questions.

THE MAIN POINTS (POLITICALLY INCORRECT POINTS)

Re: Standardized Testing resuts

A. This would show that blacks from the highest income levels of $100k/year or more score lower than Asian Americans and Whites from the lowest income levels of $40k/year or less. The real question is simply, "How do you explain this? What are the reasons for this?

B. This would also show that blacks from parents with a college degree or more score lower on the SAT I that Asian Americans and Whites from parents will a high school diploma or less. Again, the real question is simply, "How do you explain this? What are the reasons for this?

C. The College Board had released these figures up to 1995 (I had given you the source for these figures from the CB), and they stopped afterwards because these facts were politically incorrect and damning for the pro-race based AA people, because they could not explain the disparity of scoring based on income alone or with parental education. There are many other factors involved, including cultural, sociological, psychological, and possibly "innate differences", to use Pres. Summers' own words in this instance, that may explain the differences between the races in scoring. Obviously, more research needs to be done, but just the mere mention of this to highlight the aformentioned facts from these SAT I testing results, previously released from the College Board, would bring forth charges of racism, which will do nothing to close the racial gap in testing and academic achievement.

Here's a link to verify the facts above:

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm

STANDARDIZED TESTS: THE INTERPRETATION OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC GAPS

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2012665)

As someone who has worked with children on test preparation, I don't blame them if they just put their heads down and sleep through the test. The state and federal NCLB folks can scream all they want. What do these children have to gain? They are just tired of test after test after test. Hero, there are districts that are not even teaching students CURRICULUM, the basic tools towards citizenship and well-rounded education. What are they doing? That's right, teaching TO THE TEST. Teaching TO THE TEST so that the students can pass, but what does that mean to their health and minds? Nothing! I think that's a damn shame. And it's the struggling students from low-income backgrounds that must suffer through this shitty and monopolized testing mentality.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2012902)

This way you are attracting best qualified URMs coming from a poor environment. And please do not give them admission them but provide support for them in school, give them writing classes, give them tutoring to catch up. This will allow real achievers who have made it to the top college despite real odds and hardships. This way AA is not a race based admission but admission based on factors which are beyond the control of a URM who happens to be born in a poor family. If possible extend similar treatment to poor white as well as Asian kids.

I bet these kids when they will get out and get employment will eliminate the despair and helpless in downtowns. Other kids will perform in school as they see a way out of haleness and despair.

However, the biggest resistance I see is coming from Kid like wealthy URM kids, as they will loose out in this scheme.

Ltrovia why do you oppose this policy, as you are a poor URM? Do you belong to the category of wealthy URM and afraid of hard work? Please do not digress by labeling me a URM hater, which believe me I am not.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2012995)

There are many URMs at my university from the local area that were recruited from inner-city schools. I have also noticed they need more guidance and attention from advisors than URMs like myself who came in with AP/IB/college credits and the background curriculum to do well in college, despite if we came in with lower average test scores, as hero so anxiously quotes. But, also, the pool of URMs applying to college is so small that colleges cannot select only the "highest-scoring" URMs. They select those with potential and the means to achieve.

I think more poor URMs should apply to college. However, at selective universities? I'm dunno. I think they will be better off at public universities where cost and transportation won't be a huge factor. Now if they are gifted and show potential, I have no problem with selective universities admitting them.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2013120)

I don't think you understood the facts which I presented. Even children of affluent African or Caribbean immigrants NEEDED HELP in admissions to the elite colleges because the AFFLUENT BLACKS, were admitted with race preferences and lower standards for testing and achievement DESPITE their affluence and privileged economic circumstance. This was done because the AFFLUENT BLACKS were ALSO underperforming when compared to Asian Ams and whites in the same economic class. That's the crux of the problem for blacks. If race preferences with the "dumbing down" of standards were not given to all blacks, rich and poor, there would be only about 1% to 2% blacks in our most selective 100 schools. THe rich blacks consist of about 70% of of all blacks in the most selective colleges, admitted with race-based AA because they are underperforming and underacheiving as well as poor blacks, despite their affluence. The lower class blacks are in such dire shape, that the majority of them do not even qualify for a college, not to mention a highly selective college. The vast majority of them don't even graduate from high school.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016737)

This way you are attracting best qualified URMs coming from a poor environment. And please do not give them admission them but provide support for them in school, give them writing classes, give them tutoring to catch up. This will allow real achievers who have made it to the top college despite real odds and hardships. This way AA is not a race based admission but admission based on factors which are beyond the control of a URM who happens to be born in a poor family. If possible extend similar treatment to poor white as well as Asian kids.

I bet these kids when they will get out and get employment will eliminate the despair and helpless in downtowns. Other kids will perform in school as they see a way out of haleness and despair.

However, the biggest resistance I see is coming from Kid like wealthy URM kids, as they will loose out in this scheme.

Ltrovia why do you oppose this policy, as you are a poor URM? Do you belong to the category of wealthy URM and afraid of hard work? Please do not digress by labeling me a URM hater, which believe me I am not.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2012997)

I agree with you it is not the government job to take care of people, government is to protect people. Somehow politicians think that government should spend whatever necessary money to raise a kid whose parent are not willing to provide the support for the kid.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017805)

Really, you do jest?

Try getting a lawyer or a physician in the United States of America. You can't if there are no exams, especially HIGH STAKES exams such as the USMLE (United States Medical Licencing Exams, Parts I, II, and III) or the State Bar Exams. Try getting an accountant (CPA) or an architect without a certfying high stakes exam, which one has to PASS with a minimun grade.

YOUR BS AND THE BUCK STOP HERE. WHO ARE YOU KIDDING? YOU HAVE NOT ADDRESSED ANY OF MY PREVIOUS POINTS. INSTEAD, YOU DANCE AROUND THEM WITH GIBBERISH AND FLUFF.

Please kindly go back and read my posts and answer my questions.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2015778)

Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2005

By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com

This would be the right thing to do – if it wasn’t being done in the wrong place.

In Georgia right now, corrections officials are pushing laws that would allow private industries to build factories on prison grounds so that inmates can work in them. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the inmates would earn wages to help pay the cost of room and board, as well as court-ordered victim restitution and child support. On top of that, they would get to keep at least 20 percent of their earnings.

Such a program, called the federal Prison Enhancement Program, is already in place in 39 states, according to the Journal-Constitution. Supporters say that the program helps prisoners learn skills and work ethics, and it gives them the chance to save money to start over once they are released.

I don’t doubt that prisoners learn skills from the program. I also don’t have a problem with prisoners earning money as they pay their debt to society – and keeping a little for themselves.

All of that seems fair.

What isn’t fair, however, is that fact that now, businesses and governments are finding ways to get cheap work out of a number of black people while they are on the inside without feeling obligated to deal with the joblessness that besets them – or their communities - once they are on the outside.

That troubles me.

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/bawcommenta ry/weathersbee126

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2011890)

You said and asked, "(where stable homes correlate to higher test scores), why are the test scores among blacks and hispanics such a surprise to you?"

Here is the crux of the problem again:

Please address the following and answer my questions. The Racial Gaps can only be closed in testing (all of standardized testing) and more importantly, in ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT, once we find the answers to these politically incorrect questions.

THE MAIN POINTS (POLITICALLY INCORRECT POINTS)

Re: Standardized Testing resuts

A. This would show that blacks from the highest income levels of $100k/year or more, score lower than Asian Americans and Whites from the lowest income levels of $40k/year or less. The real question is simply, "How do you explain this? What are the reasons for this?

B. This would also show that blacks from parents with a college degree or more, score lower on the SAT I that Asian Americans and Whites from parents will a high school diploma or less. Again, the real question is simply, "How do you explain this? What are the reasons for this?

C. The College Board had released these figures up to 1995 (I had given you the source for these figures from the CB), and they stopped afterwards because these facts were politically incorrect and damning for the pro-race based AA people, because they could not explain the disparity of scoring based on income alone or with parental education when disaggregated by race and ethnicity. There are many other factors involved, including cultural, sociological, psychological, and possibly "innate differences", to use Pres. Summers' own words in this instance, that may explain the differences between the races in scoring. Obviously, more research needs to be done, but just the mere mention of this to highlight the aformentioned facts from these SAT I testing results, previously released from the College Board, would bring forth charges of racism, which will do nothing to close the racial gap in testing and academic achievement.

Here's a link to verify the facts above:

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm

STANDARDIZED TESTS: THE INTERPRETATION OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC GAPS

I FIND THESE FACTS ABOVE GLARING AND SHOCKING, NOT ONLY SURPRISING!!

How do you explain this? What are the reasons for this? It is obviously not all about money or its infusion by the government, by wasting it in a bottomless money pit. Newark, NJ and Washington DC have the highest expenditures per student, yet they have the lowest performance and academic achievement per student. That's for the lower class blacks. Now, what about affluent middle and upper class blacks? What about the underperformance and underachievement of black children from families with incomes of more than $100k per year and parents with a college degree or more. The children of Asians and whites from from families with incomes of less than $40k per year and parents with less than a high school diploma OUTPERFORM these AFFLUENT PRIVILEGED BLACKS, in the SAT and standardized testing and academic achievement, with all their economic advantages, excellent well funded public schools or private prep schools, foreign travel and test prep.

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS??? WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE CAUSES FOR THIS??? The answer is obviously not about the lack of money, good schools and services and resources for these affluent blacks.

WHAT IS IT THEN????

Please check out the link I gave you, if you have not done so yet.

Please adhere to the subject of the thread, and not go into tangents.

Thank you.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016566)

The only way you're gonna close the achievement gap is pushing community development, community values and of course eradicate racism (the solution to everything since blacks and hispanics have a long and tormented history of hostility and oppresion in this country that is socially and economically rooted). But since the federal government AND you do not care about these proposals, you're gonna see the results above and the black-white school gap will continue to be large. I mean, look at the link below. As long as foolishness like that continues to occur by white people who think it's a joke, we will always have problems:

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/5843/36733.gif

Black web forums and chat rooms were buzzing earlier this week about the Arrest Black Babies t-shirt, created by TshirtHell.com. The shirt, which depicts a black, pacifier-sucking infant in handcuffs, reads:

“Arrest Black Babies Before They Become Criminals.”

The company, which calls itself an “equal opportunity offender,” maintains in a disclaimer on its homepage that the shirts are "comedy," and “anyone who takes them seriously or thinks we are racist is ignorant.”

“Are Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle the only ones allowed to do stereotype humor?" the disclaimer continued. "There is no difference between what we do and what they do.”

However, some black scholars feel the shirt is an example of how desensitized many whites are to the stereotypes of black criminality and the current incarceration crisis in the black community.

“This goes to show that many white folk have no problem with denigrating black folks,” said Dr. Safisha Nzingha Hill, a Dallas, Texas-based educator and author told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “And to think, this we will not even address. To spoof on Rick James is one thing, but he’s not a baby.”

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/blackbabies126

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016641)

i'm sure they'll appreciate kyle's business.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016812)

Dumb and dumber answer.

Whatever label you may put on these facts, which have not disappeared for decades, since the inception of race-based AA, they are glaring and shocking. Until we find answers for this and the questions I asked, the Racial Gaps will NEVER BE NARROWED or closed. It is obvious that the solution is not only the infusion of more government money into a bottomless pit.

Again, there are many other factors involved, including cultural, sociological, psychological, and possibly "innate differences", to use Pres. Summers' own words in this instance, that may explain the differences between the races in scoring and acdemic achievement. Obviously, more research needs to be done, but just the mere mention of this to highlight the aformentioned facts from these SAT I testing results, previously released from the College Board, would bring forth charges of racism, which will do nothing to close the racial gap in testing and academic achievement.

Please address my points and questions by the order and number which I posted them in my previous post. This is a simple exercise. You don't need to be rocket scientist to do this.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016819)

FUROR OVER HARVARD PRESIDENT'S OPINION OF WOMEN ACADEMICS MAY HAVE RELEVANCE TO HIS VIEWS ON RACE

Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, provoked a furor recently by suggesting that perhaps men outperform women in mathematics and science because of innate biological differences. He also suggested that sex discrimination may not explain differences in career attainments for female academics. Summers' critics point out that during his administration the percentage of women academics at Harvard who have been offered tenure has dropped from 36 percent to 13 percent. In 2004, despite the unanimous recommendation of the African and African-American studies department, Summers denied tenure to Marcyliena Morgan. This prompted Morgan and her husband, black sociologist Lawrence Bobo, to take positions at Stanford University.

Summers' recent remarks on women inevitably lead to speculation about President Summers' opinion about the competency of blacks. Are they, in his view, hampered by biological or genetic defects that make them underperform whites in mathematics and science? Also, in President Summers' view, is the low level of blacks on university faculties — particularly the faculty of Harvard University where blacks are less than 3 percent of the total — unrelated to race discrimination?

A tenured woman faculty member at Harvard told JBHE that it "may be difficult for outsiders to comprehend, but it is readily apparent to those of us at Harvard that Larry Summers actually believes that women and minorities are less capable than white men. This was no slip of the tongue."

Evidence suggests that President Summers does not have a high opinion of blacks' competence. There is a long litany of events suggesting that Summers' heart is not behind the black studies effort at Harvard. When he first came to Harvard, Summers snubbed the black studies department by his failure to make the obligatory courtesy call to its offices. He later made a hasty and largely unsubstantiated reprimand of Professor Cornel West resulting in Professor West's leaving Harvard for Princeton University. Summers also unfairly targeted black studies as a culpable agent in grade inflation when other departments were equally at fault. Then, too, there was President Summers' oblique and later withdrawn statements in support of affirmative action, his failure to even mention black studies in his academic report to the Harvard Corporation, and his statement in 2002 that under his presidency black studies would no longer receive a blank check.

Summers' thoughtless gender remarks may have serious effects on the university. Are highly qualified black female academics likely to be attracted to Harvard? Are young black women likely to perceive Harvard as a place where it is unlikely to receive tenure? Will Harvard continue, as in the past, to attract the most highly qualified black students, particularly black women students? Could Summers' insensitive remarks about the connection between biology and human competence finally persuade Harvard's black studies chair, Henry Louis Gates Jr., to carry out his earlier threats of leaving Harvard? This would devastate the already deeply distressed African and African-American studies department at Harvard.

SOURCE: JBHE

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016854)

City Journal

The Mau-Mauing at Harvard

John H. McWhorter

Spring 2002

“Dignity is all a black person in America has,” Harvard professor Cornel West solemnly told listeners during the kick-off episode of black pundit Tavis Smiley’s new NPR radio show. Just then, West was feeling bereft of his dignity, after a much-publicized meeting with new Harvard president Lawrence Summers. West’s new boss had questioned the worth of some of his celebrity prof’s recent career moves—writing and editing several lightweight non-academic books, recording a rap CD, and assisting Al Sharpton on his presidential bid. Perhaps, Summers suggested, it might be time to get back to serious scholarly work.

West quickly ran to the press, complaining that Summers had “disrespected” and “dishonored” him, and threatening to bolt to Princeton, which had made a generous offer. West’s high-powered Afro-American studies department colleagues Kwame Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and William Julius Wilson immediately chimed in that if he went, they’d follow—Princeton having courted them, too. So far, Appiah is the only one of the four to leave, but the word is that West will go soon, despite Summers’s public apology.

The dustup between Summers and Harvard’s black superstars provoked a flurry of articles and op-eds earlier this year, but most of the coverage missed its true import. In how it played out, the controversy cast a cold light on how today’s black academic experience—for students and teachers alike—remains faithful to two destructive orthodoxies: that for blacks, victimhood is a moral duty; and that, because of their history of oppression, blacks should get an exemption from the standards that apply to others. If Summers really intends to stand down these truly disrespectful and insulting notions, he’s Doing the Right Thing.

To see what the Harvard imbroglio reveals about black intellectual life in 2002, take a close look at the substance of Summers’s criticisms. What’s clear is that West had no grounds to feel “dissed”—unless, that is, black professors shouldn’t have to do, or can’t be expected to do, what the university requires of its other scholars.

Consider Summers’s advice that West do real academic work. Some West supporters, such as Harvard Medical School associate dean Alvin F. Poussaint, argued that the black prof had conclusively “established” his scholarly reputation. But while West has written several academic volumes in philosophy, it has been more than a decade since the last one appeared. His recent books have been edited anthologies, collections of pieces written for the press, and co-authored mass-market efforts. Serious universities expect scholars to produce a steady stream of substantial academic work. A compilation of mini-profiles of black Americans like West and Gates’s recent Our African-American Century, researched by student assistants, doesn’t meet this standard.

West’s advocates retort that such books represent an alternative, engaged form of scholarship, and champion the author as both “brilliant” and “on the ground,” as novelist Toni Morrison describes him. But to pretend that West’s puff pieces and coffee-table books are real scholarship is not only disingenuous, it verges on reviving racist stereotypes. After all, no one would argue that Stephen Ambrose’s pop histories qualify him as a leading academic historian. Why then do West’s pop books make him a scholar? The implication is that, for blacks, motivational musings qualify as deep thought. Surely this isn’t what West’s patron saint, W. E. B. Du Bois, had in mind in elevating his ideal of an “activist-scholar.”

Isn’t it a good thing that West can reach a big audience? “I think universities would prefer that people were able to do high-level specialized scholarship while also speaking to a broader audience,” Washington University’s Gerald Early says in West’s defense. “Very few people can do that.” True enough. But many other academics switch-hit successfully between the scholarly and the popular. West’s biologist colleague Stephen Jay Gould, for example, writes breezy scientific bestsellers and op-eds attacking scientific illiteracy, but he also continues his academic research on snails and has just produced a massive summa, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, which few will be taking to the beach. Yet West feels insulted that Summers asked him to follow a similar career trajectory.

Not all academics are up to this kind of balancing act, of course. But West holds one of only 20 prestigious “university professor” appointments at Harvard—a high honor indeed. To assume that members of this elite group don’t have to engage in serious academic debate if they’re black is, well, racist.

Then there’s the notorious rap CD, Sketches of My Culture. In itself, it’s no big deal that West made the recording—not a high-decibel screed but a collection of homiletic appeals to black “consciousness” in free verse, set to rhythm tracks. The problem is that West seems to think that such endeavors are, as he implied in the NPR interview, a “more robust, wide-ranging inquiry” and a “visionary,” “ennobling” alternative to old-fashioned scholarship—and he praised Princeton provost Amy Guttman for endorsing this view. However you square it, though, rap is not Heidegger, and to give West a pass on this is to come dangerously close to affirming the old canard that blacks are, above all, entertainers and can’t really be serious thinkers. Summers was right to raise an eyebrow.

As for advising Sharpton in his presidential bid, West apparently sees nothing amiss in a university professor at Harvard lending support to a mendacious charlatan and racial demagogue, and he even implies that to question this action is a “silencing of dissidence.” Yet isn’t a scholar supposed to seek the truth? By hooking up with Rev. Al, West lends Harvard’s imprimatur to the dangerous notion that blacks, because of their tragic past and imperfect present, shouldn’t be constrained by the same moral strictures that apply to everybody else, including the responsibility to tell the truth. It’s sadly fitting that Sharpton in turn jumped into the Harvard mess, threatening to sue Summers for jeopardizing his presidential chances by criticizing his prized academic consultant. Summers was correct here, too, in asking whether West might not find better uses for his talents.

The “disrespect” shown West wasn’t the only thing troubling the professor and his colleagues in Afro-American studies about Summers. The new president also seemed insufficiently gung ho about “diversity”—i.e., racial preferences. And for most of today’s black intellectuals, there can be only one legitimate stance on racial preferences: unqualified support, now and forever. Reportedly, a group of black professors met with Summers and asked him twice about his stance on affirmative action in recruiting black students and faculty. They found his answers “unclear.”

What may first have raised the antennae of the university’s black professors was Summers’s inaugural address as Harvard’s president. On the face of it, the talk included a ringing endorsement of racial equality. “A century ago this was an institution where New England gentlemen taught other New England gentlemen,” Summers intoned. “Today, Harvard is open to men and women of all faiths, all races, all classes, all states, all nations. As a result we offer a better education to better students who make us a better university.” Summers urged that the university offer full scholarships to all students who needed them, as opposed to the more selective current policy—a change that would help many black students.

But Summers committed a big no-no in the eyes of diversity fans: he strongly defended the ideal of educational excellence. “We will also need to assure that we do not compromise our high standards,” Summers said. “Our goal will be to extend excellence without ever diluting it.” According to the diversity paradigm, any such talk of standards and excellence is elitist—and thus anti-black. The tacit belief underlying the racial preferences regime is that blacks just can’t compete, regardless of class or circumstances.

Some of the university’s black stars began to grouse that Summers—and by extension Harvard University itself, since it appointed him—must have an animus against the entire Afro-American studies department. West got downright conspiratorial in his NPR interview, insinuating that Harvard’s “old-boy network,” acting through Summers, had decided to embarrass him and the department because it feared that “the Negroes are taking over.”

Utter nonsense. Summers’s meeting with West was one of many he scheduled with professors throughout the university, and pointed questions were common. He queried Richard Chait of the Graduate School of Education as to whether he thought his school was even necessary, and he asked the Kennedy School of Government what it offered that the law and business schools do not.

What’s more, West’s “old-boy network” was responsible, little more than a decade ago, for transforming Harvard’s Afro-American studies program from a tiny operation, housed over a drugstore and with just a single tenured professor (who was white), into today’s lavishly funded enterprise, which boasts a fat $40 million endowment and more than a dozen professors, some of them, like Gates and West, remunerated as well as any academics in the country. These days, the department’s home is in Harvard’s Barker Center, a magnificent building designed by Stanford White, located on the humanities quad. The folks worried about “Negroes taking over” moved the department into the fancy digs after spending $25 million on renovations. Harvard has showered this largesse on a department with a mere 26 undergraduate majors, out of a campus-wide total of 4,800 or so undergrads with majors. Summers did say he was going to be less free with the money than his predecessors Neil Rudenstine and Derek Bok (co-author of the most comprehensive brief for affirmative action ever written), but nobody is talking about putting the department on a diet.

Since the notion that Afro-American studies labors under a permanent racist threat is obviously absurd, what were West and his colleagues really up to in crying “disrespect” and threatening to quit? Simple: making Summers do the “I’m not a racist” shuffle not only serves to deflect criticism and ensure that there’s no backtracking on racial preferences; it also scares the university into keeping up its generous level of support for Af-Am studies or even increasing it. And who knows, maybe it’ll get Princeton officials to come up with an even better deal if they think we’re really serious about quitting Harvard.

Because real racist bigotry is vanishingly rare on campuses, where the race police are out in almost totalitarian force, black academics have become talented at manufacturing racist insult out of encounters innocent of racism. Nervous white administrators usually play along. When Yale president Richard Levin recently joshed at a dinner honoring Gates that he was jealous of Harvard’s Afro-American studies department, Hazel Carby, chair of Yale’s Afro-American studies program, resigned, saying that she felt—you guessed it—“disrespected.” One week later, she was back on board, with Yale in the meantime elevating her program to full department status. At Berkeley, where I teach, African-American studies department chair Percy Hintzen has repeatedly claimed a racist “lack of support” from university officials for, among other things, “allowing” two of his professors to transfer to other departments. As one of those professors (I once had a half-time appointment), I find the idea laughable that my disenchantment with the African-American studies department was a moral lapse that my administration bosses should have prevented. But Hintzen’s racial grandstanding over the years has resulted in his department getting a graduate program, despite low undergraduate enrollments and long-standing indications of a lack of scholarly gravitas.

The campus race game has largely prevented any sustained investigation into what—if anything—Afro-American studies programs actually accomplish academically. The assumption in the mainstream press during the West-Summers contretemps was that the intellectual quality of Harvard’s Afro-American studies was unassailable.

Unfortunately, that’s far from true. Survey the department’s undergraduate curriculum, and you find that most of the courses express the pernicious belief that victimhood defines what it means to be African-American—that to be black in America has always been a story of betrayal, disappointment, passivity, and tragedy, and that when things seem to be improving, it’s only an illusion.

It’s not that students receive an unalloyed diet of anti-establishment rage; some of the course offerings are worthy. Werner Sollors, for example, is currently teaching a subtle course on biracialism, a useful topic in a society where blacks and whites intermarry in increasing numbers. Ingrid Monson’s lectures on jazz illuminate one of blacks’ most complex and vibrant contributions to American culture—and happily, she’s not taking the line that whites’ adoption of jazz was cultural theft. Susan O’Donovan’s “African Americans in the Civil War Era” keys in on blacks’ contributions to abolitionism and their self-help efforts at the time.

Even Gates and West have offered sensible courses in recent years. Gates’s overview of black literature is entirely sober, with no evident bias toward “protest” literature. And West’s “Introduction to African-American Studies” straightforwardly presents the best that has been thought and written by black Americans through the centuries—Du Bois, Paula Giddings’s magisterial survey of black women in history When and Where I Enter, Ellison, Baldwin, William Julius Wilson’s The Declining Significance of Race, and so on.

But if some of the department’s courses are fine, most of them are victimology in its Sunday best; some even verge on fantasy. Tommie Shelby’s “Marxist Theories of Racism” unpacks “the role of capitalist development and expansion in perpetuating racial inequality” and boasts a reading list that can serve as a primer on how to rage (articulately) against the machine: Caste, Class, and Race; Sexism, Power and Ideology; and, simply, Racism. Lawrence Bobo’s “Race, Segregation and Inequality” obsesses over racial inequality, too. Bobo teaches his students that African Americans’ problems are permanent, short of a revolutionary rending of the national fabric. Other courses mine the history of cinema, language, and hip-hop music, mainly to stoke eternal indignation at the Man. Note that the hip-hop survey has 74 students, while O’Donovan’s abolitionism course has just two.

One course—Karen McCarthy Brown’s “Haiti and Haitian Vodou”—descends into the fantastic. You might think that a Harvard class on Haitian voodoo would simply instruct students about a common cultural trait of African-descended peoples, but

McCarthy Brown recruits the topic to counsel blacks to reject Western Enlightenment rationalism as corrupt and to embrace voodoo spirits as real. “What is known,” the course syllabus reads, “is that the Vodou spirits have been active in Haitian politics” and, it goes on to say, “have even been sighted in cyberspace.”

Notably missing from any of this spring’s 13 departmental offerings is a single text by a black conservative. Thomas Sowell has written important academic books and countless substantial essays on race over the past three decades, and Shelby Steele’s work is unquestionably weighty enough to merit the attention of young black minds, but Harvard’s Afro-American studies program ignores such thinkers, as if the invalidity of their ideas were self-evident (under a paradigm that assumes that indignation against the Man is the only legitimate way to be black, it probably is). Voodoo god Legba, yes; Sowell, no.

The fixation on victimhood evident throughout the Afro-American studies program contrasts markedly with what goes at Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies. No one can deny that Jews have suffered merciless oppression during their history. Yet one searches the offerings of the Center for Jewish Studies in vain for any emphasis on victimhood as a permanent condition. This difference is not accidental. Jews in America have long had an orientation toward their history that stresses the positive, even in the greatest suffering, and that highlights strength, not fragility.

Such an approach characterized African-American culture too until the 1960s, when black leaders and thinkers got caught in the groundswell of anti-establishment ideology and, bruised by centuries of degradation, drank in the new message. The result was the illusion that to claim injury, even to seek it where few would find it, represents wisdom and strength.

A group for whom permanent grievance has come to be a defining trait naturally feels any criticism to be wounding. That’s why someone like West, whom Harvard is rumored to pay over $300,000 a year, can feel stripped of dignity by Summers’s entirely reasonable advice. That’s why his colleagues threaten to quit when a new president doesn’t play the race game in exactly the accustomed way. And that’s why West is still considering leaving for Princeton even though Summers (wrongly) apologized: to engage in constructive reconciliation would be to stray from the scripted indignation.

Nothing better illustrates this mindset of perpetual grievance than the fact that, according to Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, West’s spokesperson during the controversy, West is indeed working on three academic books. Why didn’t he tell Summers? Why didn’t he mention this to the papers he talked to or in his interview with “Brother” Tavis? Clearly, he felt that airing his sense of insult at Summers’s responsible managerial prodding was a more urgent message to get out than announcing that he was already doing what the new president was asking of him. Playing victim trumped all. Du Bois must be turning in his grave.

“I weep for Harvard,” West told Smiley. But in truth, we could only weep for a Harvard that subjected other departments to serious supervision while condescendingly accepting that, for black academics alone, “taking it to the streets” is serious thought. Harvard’s “old-boy network” deserves kudos for installing a president who operates on the assumption that black students and faculty are capable of competing on the same level as everyone else. The person exempted from serious evaluation, after all, is someone considered incapable of significant achievement.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016892)

Give me some real sources. Not some right-wing Heritage-Manhattan "let's-screw-up-the-data-to-fit-our-agenda" sites.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016918)

Heed the message, but don't kill the messenger with your name calling. Argue and debate his points of view if you can.

I don't really don't care what side of the political spectrum he comes from.

He addresses your JBHE article.

If I am "Honey", then you must be "Baby Doll".

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016989)

BRIAN MCGRORY

Chill sets in at Harvard

By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist | January 21, 2005

When I made a rare trip yesterday into the deepest, darkest depths of Cambridge, a place where most rational people rarely dare to go, I fully expected that Harvard Square had been reduced to a smoldering mass of burned-out buildings.

The world as we know it had ended, right? Reason had been kicked on its side. I mean, the president of Harvard University dared to say something that wasn't completely beaten with a boring stick, pasteurized, then homogenized, vetted through nine various committees to assure that his words didn't carry a scintilla of interesting thought.

But, no, everything was fine. The only thing that was different were all the women grumbling about their male oppressors, but maybe that wasn't anything different at all.

Poor Larry Summers. I mean that in all sincerity. When he raises a somewhat delicate question that was begging to be asked before a group of supposedly brilliant people last week, he ends up being portrayed as a crimson-tinted Jimmy the Greek, prejudiced to his immoral core.

Because that's what it's come to in the knee-jerk America of the 21st century, even within institutions that are expected to foster the freewheeling exchange and thoughtful analysis of controversial ideas: Don't ever, under any circumstances, stray across the razor wire of political correctness. Those who do end up shredded into bloodied little bits.

What did Summers do? He addressed the obvious, that women have a harder time achieving success in math and science careers than men. And he posed a thorny question: Are women somehow innately, meaning biologically, inferior to men in these fields?

He wrapped this question in a blanket of caveats: that more research needed to be done, that it wasn't his own hypothesis, that his intention was to be provocative, and that he hoped to be proven wrong. He also sandwiched this hypothesis in two distinctly different takes: that women, facing myriad family pressures, are placed at a societal disadvantage because of the long hours required for success and because they confront discrimination that men don't.

Didn't matter. One distinguished MIT professor shut down her laptop and walked out in the middle of his talk, telling the Globe that if she stayed, she might have ''either blacked out or vomited." A university dean described Summers's remarks as ''an intellectual tsunami."

To the former I'd recommend medical treatment, to the latter a little bit of tact.

It's been more than 20 years since I roamed a college campus, but I've always assumed that the strength of the academy is its ability to encourage difficult questions, to synthesize unconventional thought, rather than rant over it.

No longer does that seem to be the case, at least in Cambridge.

It's important to note that in the initial Globe story on the remarks and resulting furor, reporter Marcella Bombardieri exhaustively talked to 10 attendees, four of whom said they were not offended by Summers's remarks.

But a central tenet of political correctness is that those who shout the loudest get the most attention, which is what's been going on. The result is that Summers, not by nature a particularly penitent human being, has offered a new apology just about every day this week.

All of which creates a sorry state of affairs at Harvard, one that will undoubtedly spill over to other campuses across the nation. Our most brilliant educators will feel the need to appease instead of prod. They will be required to think within conventions rather than probe at fresh and controversial ground. They will have the inherent understanding that to deviate from popular thought is to risk destroying their own careers. In Cambridge, we'll be left with a vanilla-flavored university president.

And what of the initial question of whether women do or don't have the same innate ability as men in the sciences and math? Most certainly they do, but we'll never conclusively know, because now we're not allowed to ask.

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017093)

I should also say that by government in the previous post, I meant federal. State and local can be more involved, though I still would prefer to err on the side of less government.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016852)

Think about a poor Chinese or Bangladeshi or Caribbean or African immigrants who works hard to provide for their kid while working on minimum wage and they are trying to make their life better. There are majority of AA who do it too. But somehow the wealthy URMs are twisting facts to get their underperforming kids to get the benefits.

People like Bill Cosby when they speak the truth, currnet URM leadership try to silence him rather than discuss and exchange views and sort the problem out. It is sad.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017809)

I agree with you, despite your poor English, probably because it was not your first language. I completely understand you and the others here also understand what you are saying. You make excellent and insightful points, which the flaming white guilt-ridden liberals and career black victimologists, refuse to acknowledge.

It is indeed SAD!!

Again, are you the poster named "Chinaman" on the College Confidential discussion forums?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017820)

Hero I think even if we have no qualified AA, we must pick up the best qualified and provide him immense support and get away of this current policy which does not serve its purpose to uplift the moral in poor URMs. If we can say bring 20 or 30 poor and less qualifies URMS and make them successful, at least we are trying the best rather than just satisfy the quotas system and assume that somehow the problem in poor urban America will disappear magically. It is not leadership to ignore the poor URMs and pander to wealthy URMs. I find it pathetic.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017828)

Good for you. You are learning fast and doing well. My parents did not speak a word of English to their dying days. I also had to learn out necessity for survival.

Anyone, what you say is good and noble, but this does not solve the problem. You solve it at its root causes. Like a cancer, you excise or take out the tumor at its original site, before it spreads, not afterwards. Otherwise, you will never solve the problem or cure the disease, as evidenced by the outcomes of race based AA with race preferences and the dumbing down of standards for underprepared, underperforming and academic deficient URMS, especially for blacks in the elie colleges and professional schools, who co-incidentally are affluent blacks, by en large.

What is wrong with the other 3500 other colleges which do not use race preferences, from which 98% of America's college degree holders attended. What's wrong with this? What about correcting the problem at the k-12 level. Race preferences in elie colleges solves absolutely nothing in closing the racial gaps in education. In fact, these gaps are widening.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2018035)

BTW, what school do you go to?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016909)

I'm an URM whom 'hero' despises. hahahaha!

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016925)

Despise you? I am your "Honey", remember?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017036)

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016923)

It's not my fault you continue to ignore the history of this country when it comes to race, gender and class.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2016957)

How do you explain this? What are the reasons for this? It is obviously not all about money or its infusion by the government, by wasting it in a bottomless money pit. Newark, NJ and Washington DC have the highest expenditures per student, yet they have the lowest performance and academic achievement per student. That's for the lower class blacks. Now, what about affluent middle and upper class blacks? What about the underperformance and underachievement of black children from families with incomes of more than $100k per year and parents with a college degree or more. The children of Asians and whites from from families with incomes of less than $40k per year and parents with less than a high school diploma OUTPERFORM these AFFLUENT PRIVILEGED BLACKS, in the SAT and standardized testing and academic achievement, with all their economic advantages, excellent well funded public schools or private prep schools, foreign travel and test prep.

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS??? WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE CAUSES FOR THIS??? The answer is obviously not about the lack of money, good schools and services and resources for these affluent blacks.

WHAT IS IT THEN????

Please check out the link I gave you, if you have not done so yet.

Please adhere to the subject of the thread, and not go into tangents.

Thank you.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017165)

Check out some Tim Wise:

Not-So-Little White Lies: Education and the Myth of Black Anti-Intellectualism

By Tim Wise

Cherished myths die hard, especially when those myths serve the interests of the more powerful members of a society at the expense of the less powerful. For generations, slaveowners ignored their chattels’ humanity, to say nothing of their desire for freedom, even coming up with a name for the presumed mental illness that “explained” the urge on the part of their property to run away. Drapetomania, it was called: a powerful disorder that afflicted the brains of slaves, rendering them incapable of recognizing how good they had it.

The subordination of persons of color has regularly been rationalized with absurd racist stereotypes, even when evidence flatly contradicted the illogic of those assumptions. So, for example, segregation was needed to allow blacks to develop to the “limit of their capacities,” and to hear some tell it, blacks actually preferred separate schools, housing, water fountains, and lunch counters. Japanese Americans had to be interned for “national security” purposes because they were disloyal to America. Filipinos were incapable of self-government; Hawaiians were heathens in need of Christian discipline, and so on and so forth.

It mattered little, of course, that persons of color were actually quite loyal to the U.S. (indeed, more so than probably justified); or that non-white nations had long exercised self-government before being “discovered” by Europeans. And the myths would linger even after social movements forced changes in the society that had nurtured them. Although the more extreme versions of these beliefs are less often heard than in years past, newer variations are common: so instead of claims that blacks are a separate species or genetically inferior (which of course are still articulated, as with best-selling books like The Bell Curve), new and more palatable claims of cultural inferiority have come to predominate.

According to those pushing this type of analysis, it is not that blacks and other people of color have defective DNA, but rather, that their families are dysfunctional, their values counterproductive and their behaviors pathological.

Starting with Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 treatise on the “crisis” of the black family—which he characterized as a metastasizing matriarchal mass of antisocial tendencies—and extending through Dinesh D’Souza’s argument that blacks suffer a “civilizational deficit” relative to whites and Asians, dissing black culture and families has become a favorite political pastime. And as with genetic theories of racial superiority, the cultural theories hang on, impervious to logic or hard data.

Take, for instance, the oft-repeated claim by conservatives that lower black achievement in schools reflects the lower value placed on education by the black community, compared to whites or Asians.

Denying that racial discrimination might be implicated in different educational outcomes between African Americans and others, such commentators insist that different cultural attachments to education explain why whites and Asians score higher on achievement tests, tend to get higher grades, and are more likely to go on to college than their black counterparts. Some claim that blacks have adopted the attitude that doing well in school is “acting white,” and have sabotaged their own futures by way of downgrading intellectual pursuits.

Black families come in for special condemnation under such an analysis, criticized for not reinforcing the educational work done in the classroom, and thereby undercutting whatever success teachers might otherwise have in educating their children.

But although the right would have us believe that black underperformance in school is due to cultural value differences, the evidence suggests that such an excuse is flimsy at best. While D’Souza insists that black students do worse in school because they do less homework on average than whites and Asians, existing data points to a different conclusion.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 43% of black fourth-graders do one hour or more of homework per night, as do 45% of whites and 47% of Hispanics. Although Asian fourth-graders are more likely than any other group to study one or more hours per night (56% do so), the differences between whites, blacks and Hispanics are too small to explain performance differences, and certainly contradict the notion that blacks or Latinos devalue education relative to whites.

In fact, black and Hispanic fourth-graders are both more likely than whites that age to do more than one hour of homework, with 18% of Hispanics, 17% of blacks, but only 15% of whites putting in this amount of study time daily. Although Asians demonstrate more study time at this level, the differences between them and other students of color are not substantial: about 21% of Asian students in fourth grade study more than one hour.

There is also no evidence that black parents take less interest in their children’s education, or fail to reinforce the learning that takes place in the classroom once their children are home. Once again, NCES statistics indicate that black children are more likely than whites to often spend time with their parents on homework.

Black students are twice as likely as white students to get help from their parents on homework every day of the school week (twenty percent compared to ten percent), and while roughly half of black students get help from parents on homework at least three times each week, approximately two-thirds of whites get such help two times or less, with whites a third more likely than blacks to work with parents rarely if ever on their homework.

Likewise, and counteringcommonly held class biases, the poorest students (those from families with less than $5,000 in annual income) are actually the most likely to get substantial homework help from their parents, while those from families with incomes of $75,000 or more annually are the least likely to do so. Half of the poorest students work with their parents on lessons three or more times weekly, while only a third of the wealthiest students do.

Likewise, evidence indicates there is no substantial difference between white and black students in terms of whether their parents attend parent-teacher conferences or school meetings. Black parents and their children are also equally likely as their white counterparts to visit a library, art gallery, zoo, aquarium, museum or historic site, as well as a community or religious event—further countering the notion that black parents take less interest in providing educational opportunities for their kids.

Furthermore, and contrary to popular belief, three of four black children are read to by their parents when they are young, and black youth are equally or more likely than whites to be taught letters, numbers and words by their parents between the ages of three and five.

Of all the evidence rebutting the notion that blacks place less value on education than whites, nothing makes the point more clearly than attendance information. Black twelfth graders are more than twice as likely as whites to have perfect attendance (16% versus 7.4%), and are even more likely than Asians to have perfect attendance.

Whites are more likely than blacks to have missed seven or more days during the last semester, while blacks are less likely than members of any racial group to have missed that many days of school. There is also no significant difference between whites, Asians and blacks in terms of their likelihood to skip classes.

Of course, it shouldn’t be necessary to recite any of these statistics to make the point that blacks value education as much as anyone else. The entire history of African Americans has been one of constant struggle to obtain scholarly credentials: from learning to read English even when it was illegal to do so, to establishing their own colleges and universities when white schools blocked their access, to setting up freedom schools in places like Mississippi, with the intention of providing the comprehensive learning opportunities that the state routinely denied to blacks.

Since that time, there have been any number of studies on black youth attitudes towards education, and while there are surely some such youth who sadly de-emphasize scholarly pursuits, there is little or no evidence that this phenomenon is unique to the black community. A recent opinion poll of black youth, ages 11-17, found that the biggest hope for these youth was to go to college, and additional studies have found that black youth value academic success every bit as much as white students and often place an even higher priority on educational achievement than whites.

Despite claims by many on the right that blacks—especially youth—lack a connection to “mainstream values,” evidence contradicts this notion. One mid-1990’s questionnaire of black high school seniors found that black seniors were just as likely as white seniors to say that a good marriage and family life were “extremely important” life goals; 32% more likely than whites to say that professional success and accomplishment were “extremely important” life goals; 26% more likely than whites to say “making a contribution to society” was extremely important; and 75% more likely than whites to say “being a leader in their community” was an extremely important life goal.

Black seniors were also 21% more likely than whites to attend weekly religious services and almost twice as likely as whites to say that religion played a “very important role in their lives.” Considering the right’s call for more religiosity in American life, such figures seem to indicate that blacks are well ahead of others in this regard, and by the standards of conservative moralists, should be considered paragons of virtue.

But in spite of having a comparable base of values, blacks continue to lag behind whites in terms of income, educational accomplishment, and professional success. Even black students from families with $70,000 or more in annual income score lower, on average, on the SAT, than whites from families earning less than $20,000 annually; and blacks from families with $50,000 or more in annual income score lower than whites from families with $6,000 or less in annual earnings.

Since the families from which these black students come are successful under the typical standards of evaluation, they cannot be scoring lower than whites for either genetic or cultural reasons: after all, their parents are “making it,” and are not likely to be the kind of folks claimed to exhibit “pathological underclass” values.

So what is left? Unfortunately for those who would prefer not to admit the salience of institutionalized racism in the U.S., the answer is clear: substantially unequal outcomes are the result of substantially unequal opportunities.

Black students are only half as likely as whites to be placed in high-tracked English or math classes, and 2.4 times more likely than whites to be placed in remedial classes. Even when blacks demonstrate equal ability with their white counterparts, they are less likely to be placed in accelerated classes.

When kids from lower-income families—who are disproportionately of color—correctly answer all math questions on a standardized test, they are no more likely to be placed in advanced or college tracks than children from upper-income families who missed a fourth of the questions, and they are 26% less likely to be placed in advanced tracks than upper-income persons with comparably perfect scores. Even the President of the College Board has acknowledged that black 8th graders with test scores comparable to whites are disproportionately placed in remedial high school classes.

The impact of being tracked low in school has been shown to be profound. One of the nation’s leading experts on tracking, Jeannie Oakes, reports that according to her own studies and those of others, being tracked low fosters reductions in student feelings of their own abilities and helps depress aspirations for the future among low-tracked students.

It is this context that must be considered when evaluating the tendency for some blacks to claim that getting good grades is “acting white.” If one’s schools have repeatedly given the impression that indeed education is a white thing; that the white kids are the bright kids; that everything worth knowing about sprang out of the forehead of white Europe, and that one’s own aspirations are unrealistic, it ought not be surprising that some children exposed to such racist mentalities—and teachers who assume from the outset that not all groups are equally capable of learning—might develop a bad attitude about school. But as with most things, blaming the victims of this process will neither improve their opportunities nor alter the mechanisms by which their disempowerment is perpetuated.

It will, however, continue to offer a pseudo-intellectual lifeline to right-wing pundits whose careers have been built on bashing society’s have-nots.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017822)

By Tim Wise

Ever noticed how expensive restaurants go out of their way to fill the air of their bathrooms with the refreshing scents of a pine forest after a gentle rain? Hoping to cover up the smells that would otherwise predominate in such an environment, the keepers of luxury lavatories bombard their patrons with diversionary scents, presumably to make one’s overall dining experience more pleasant.

Frankly, I’ve always perceived such efforts as more than a little inadequate to the task at hand. Shit, after all, even on a pinecone, is still shit. Likewise, there’s a good reason why the makers of incense don’t market a patchouli and crap stick. As we say in the south, you can “pretty up” a pig by slapping a dress on it, but in the end, it’s still a pig.

Such is a lesson we would do well to remember in the wake of the recent announcement that the Educational Testing Service is going to “revamp” the SAT, ostensibly to make it more fair and relevant for a 21st century educational system.

Despite their insistence that the new SAT will better predict student ability while reducing unfairness by eliminating culture-bound items like analogies, the announced changes actually overlook the largest problems with standardized tests.

Although eliminating analogies is an admirable first step since studies have found these to be biased against those from non-white, non-middle-class backgrounds—what with questions involving words like “regatta”—the problems with the SAT were always deeper than that.

In fact, whatever cultural bias the ETS has eliminated with the ban on analogies will likely be re-triggered with the addition of a “writing” section, whose graders no doubt will emphasize stylistically and grammatically Standard English, marking students down whose writing style employs idioms, phrases, or merely word patterns more common to communities of color. Poetic license will have no place, one suspects, on the SAT writing test.

Though internal cultural bias is a real phenomenon, and one that has been observed in testing for many years, the bigger issue is that supporters of the SAT presuppose that administering a standardized test to profoundly unstandardized students, from unstandardized schools, and then using results on that test to determine college placement can ever be fair.

The fact is, even if such biased items are removed from the SAT, the unequal educational experience of the students taking the test—especially in terms of class and race—all but guarantees a persistent scoring gap between whites on the one hand, and blacks, American Indians or Latinos on the other.

Furthermore, the announcement that Algebra II will be added to the test can only cause alarm for those concerned about the racial score gaps; after all, tracking in schools is so pernicious that blacks, even when they score at the top of 8th grade achievement test distributions, are about 40% less likely than whites whose scores are merely average to be placed in upper-level math courses in high school. As such, they won’t even get around to Algebra II by the time the SAT is taken.

But indeed, even tracking isn’t the biggest issue here. Oh sure, it matters. On the one hand it means that certain students of color will be underexposed to the kind of material found on a test like the SAT; and on the other hand it means that certain students—especially whites and many Asians who are presumed to be “good at math” early on, and thus tracked accordingly—will have an edge going in to the test. But still, tracking is not the clincher that makes the SAT inherently problematic.

The two biggest issues are of a different nature altogether and incapable of being fixed with piecemeal reforms.

The first is what Claude Steele, Chair of the Psychology department at Stanford University has called “stereotype threat.” As Steele and his colleagues have noted in a number of ingenious experiments, black students take standardized tests under a cloud of group suspicion that hinders performance—suspicion on the part of the larger society that they are less intelligent and capable than others.

Black students are well aware of the negative stereotypes held about them by members of the larger society. As such, when blacks who are highly motivated and value educational achievement take a standardized test and expect the results to be used to indicate cognitive ability, the fear of living down to the stereotype negatively impacts their performance. These students may rush through the test—so as to seem more confident than they truly are—or alternately take too much time, trying desperately not to make mistakes. The self-doubt engendered by the racist beliefs of the larger culture is added to the general anxiety that all test-takers feel, to produce, for black students, a unique disadvantage.

As proof that it is stereotype threat and not inherent ability differences that explain racial gaps on standardized admissions tests, Steele notes that when the same test questions are given to whites and blacks in experimental settings, and yet the students are told that the results are not indicative of ability, and will not be graded, the stereotype threat dissipates and they perform as well as their white counterparts.

In other words, so long as racist beliefs about black ability are common, those stigmatized by these beliefs will often underperform as a function of the anxiety generated by the stereotype itself. Certainly there is nothing that ETS can do to the structure of the test that can alleviate this problem.

And finally, racial gaps are ultimately a function of the way that tests like the SAT are developed. Indeed, the gaps are all but built-in.

As anyone who has taken the SAT or a similar test remembers, there is an experimental section on the exam—either an extra verbal or extra math section—which contains questions that are not counted toward a student’s score. The section exists so as to “pre-test” questions for use on future versions of the test.

But as ETS concedes, questions chosen for future use must produce (in the pre-test phase) similar gaps between test-takers as existed in the overall test taken at that time. In other words, questions are rarely if ever selected for future use if students who received lower scores overall answer that particular question correctly as often or more often than those who scored higher overall.

The racial implications of such a policy should be clear. Because blacks, Latinos, and American Indian students tend to score lower on these exams than whites and Asians, any question in the pre-test phase that black students answer correctly as often as (or more often than) whites would be virtually guaranteed never to appear on an actual standardized exam!

In practice, questions answered correctly by blacks more than whites have been routinely excluded from future use on the SAT. Although questions that whites answer correctly 30% more often than blacks are allowed to remain on the test, questions answered correctly even 7% more often by blacks than whites have been thrown out.

Although the rationale for this practice is not overtly racist—the testing company, for example, does not intentionally seek to maintain lower scores for blacks—the thinking has a racist impact.

Essentially, the company’s position is that for any question to have “predictive validity,” it should be answered correctly or incorrectly in rough proportion to the overall number of correct or incorrect answers given by test-takers. But since the general scores have tended to exhibit a racial gap, such logic results in the virtual guarantee of maintaining that gap, as a function of test development itself.

If test questions were made less culturally biased, so that the racial gap shrunk or disappeared in the pre-test phase, those questions would likely be thrown out, simply because—being less culturally biased—they failed to replicate the racial gaps produced by the rest of the exam.

Interestingly, as testing expert Jay Rosner has demonstrated, the makers of the SAT could reduce the racial gap between whites and blacks while still maintaining the same level of overall test difficulty by choosing questions that, although equally tough, produce less differentiation between white and black test-takers. That instead they maximize these differences by way of the questions they choose, and that reforms of this nature are not being offered by ETS indicates how unconcerned they truly are about test fairness.

Instead of trying to pretty up this pig, persons concerned about educational equity, true opportunity and fairness should be calling for colleges and Universities to either eliminate the use of the SAT in admissions decisions, or at least to massively downplay its importance, given its irrelevance in predicting actual academic ability.

SAT gaps of as many as 300 points between two students (or groups of students) can be completely insignificant in terms of indicating actual ability differences, and gaps of 125 points between students are considered random by the test-makers themselves, and say nothing about the different abilities of the students in question.

That SAT scores have little to do with one’s ability is borne out by a number of studies and even data provided by the test-makers themselves, which indicate that only ten percent (at most) of the difference between students in terms of freshman grades can be explained by results on the SAT. Further, the correlation between SAT scores and overall four-year college grades or graduation rates, has been so low as to be essentially nonexistent, explaining no more than 3% of the difference between any two students.

If ETS wants to promote fairness—and indeed they insist that they are committed to changing the unequal educational system that helps produce scoring gaps—they must first stop promoting a test battery that replicates and reinforces that inequity. If they wish to provide tests purely for the purpose of gauging how much is being taught and learned in K-12 schools, so be it.

But so long as they release test scores prior to college admission, knowing that such scores will be used to dole out opportunities that themselves result in still more opportunities upon graduation, ETS can only be seen as complicit in the maintenance of racial and economic stratification. They are not reformers, but merely gatekeepers for the status quo. And that smells the same, no matter how one tries to cover it up.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017829)

Con-fusion Ethic: How Whites Use Asians to Further Anti-Black Racism

By Tim Wise

It happened again, for what seems like the millionth time. Once again, in response to something I said about ongoing racism in the United States, someone (a white male, naturally) pulled out the all-too-common conservative race card (oh yes, they have one), which they believe disproves the existence of racial injustice. It sounds a bit like this:

"If racism is such a big deal in America, then why have Asians done so well? Why is Asian income higher than white income? Doesn't this prove that the problem with blacks is simply a lack of effort?"

Offered this challenge most recently by a disgruntled county employee in Minneapolis who resented having to sit through a speech I had given, I rolled my eyes, took a deep breath and considered the irony of the query (ironic because it always comes from whites who insist on their "color-blindness") before issuing my reply.

As I pondered my response, I thought about the Asian women working twelve hours a day in garment sweatshops both abroad and in places like Los Angeles to make clothes for people like this guy's kids; and I wondered, in what sense were they "doing so well?"

I thought about the Vietnamese youth in California who are profiled as potential gang members by police, for wearing the wrong clothes or driving in the "wrong" neighborhoods; and I wondered, in what sense were they "doing so well?"

I thought about the Asian families whose members have to put in 80 hours a week just to keep their heads above water; and I wondered, in what sense were they "doing so well?"

I thought about the Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi taxi drivers who endure crappy working conditions, customers who get pissy about their accents or "attitudes," and cops who are responsible for nearly eighty percent of all anti-South Asian attacks-often against hack drivers in places like New York; and I wondered, in what sense were they "doing so well?"

I thought about the demonization of Wen Ho Lee, and of Chinese American political contributors during the Clinton Administration; and the beating death of Vincent Chin; and the persistent refrain that the Japanese are "buying up America;" and I wondered, in what sense were they "doing so well?"

But instead of getting into all of those things, which likely wouldn't have been seen as responsive by my detractor, I offered the following.

First, I noted that the Asian "model minority" myth has long been a staple of white conservative race commentary, though rarely have members of the various Asian communities in the U.S. pushed the notion themselves. The genesis of this argumentation goes back to the 1950's and '60's, when prominent magazines ran articles lauding the "hard-working" Chinese or Japanese, and explicitly contrasting their "success" with the "failure" of African Americans.

Of course, none of these ever editorialized in favor of lifting the immigration restrictions that had kept Asian populations small in the U.S. from the 1880's until 1965, despite their respect for their favored persons of color. Neither they nor any adherent to the model minority image spoke out against internment of "hard-working" Japanese Americans during World War Two, or the killing of hard-working Southeast Asians during the Vietnam War.

Secondly, I explained that comparisons between blacks and Asian Americans overlook a number of differences between them. Whereas the African American population represents a cross-section of background and experience, the APA community is highly self-selected. Voluntary migrants from nations that are not contiguous to their country of destination tend to be those with the skills and money needed to leave their home country in the first place. As many scholars have found, Asian immigrants are largely drawn from an occupational and educational elite in their countries of origin.

Indeed, Asian "success" in the U.S. relative to others is largely due to immigration policies that have favored immigrants with pre-existing skills and education. As the Glass Ceiling Commission discovered in 1995, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the highly-educated APA community in the U.S. already had college degrees or were in college upon their arrival.

Thanks to preferences for educated immigrants, Asian Americans are two-thirds more likely than whites and three times more likely than blacks to have a college degree. More than eight in ten Indian immigrants from 1966-1977 had advanced degrees and training in such areas as science, medicine or as engineers.

Pre-existing educational advantages are implicated in Asian success once here; but they hardly indicate genetic or cultural superiority. After all, to claim superior Asian genes or culture as the reasons for achievement in the U.S. requires one to ignore the rampant poverty and lack of success for persons from the same genetic or cultural backgrounds in their countries of origin. There is no shortage, after all, of desperately poor Asians in the slums of Manila, Calcutta and Hong Kong: testament to the absurdity of cultural superiority claims for Asians as a group.

Indeed, ethnic Koreans in Japan, as well as the Burakumin there-a minority treated similarly to the Dalits in India-consistently underperform economically and educationally, compared to dominant Japanese. They are both the targets of discrimination, and although they are culturally and genetically indistinguishable from other Koreans or Japanese, they are consistently found at the bottom of Japanese society, and do worse than others in Japan, or than Koreans in Korea.

Not only does this debunk the notion of pan-Asian superiority in genes or culture, but it also suggests that a group's caste status influences group outcomes: much as with blacks in the U.S., whose position has been similar to the Burakumin and ethnic Koreans in Japan.

The primary argument put forth by those who push the model minority myth is that APA income in the U.S. is higher than the average for other people of color and even whites. As such, it is suggested, racial discrimination cannot be a significant problem any longer.

But the data that shows Asians doing better in terms of income than whites, is family and/or household data, not per capita income data. This is important because APA households and families tend to have more family members (thus, slightly higher incomes are made to stretch over more persons), and more earners per family (thus, it takes more family members in the workforce in order to earn only slightly more than whites, with fewer income earners).

The average Asian household size, for example, is 3.3 persons, compared to only 2.5 per household for whites. Likewise, Asian American families are more likely than white families to have two income earners, and nearly twice as likely to have three earners. So while Asian household and family income is higher than that for whites, the median income per person is lower for Asians: as much as $2000 less annually.

An additional reason why the average income of Asian families is higher than that of whites is because Asians are concentrated in parts of the country that have higher average incomes and costs of living. The three states with the largest Asian populations and a disproportionate share of the overall Asian population (California, New York and Hawaii), rank 13th, 4th, and 16th in terms of average income: all within the top third of states. Whereas 76% of all Asian Americans live in the higher-income regions of the West and Northeast, only 41% of whites and 28% of blacks are in these regions.

Over half of all APA's in the U.S. live in just five major U.S. cities (Honolulu, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City): all of which have higher than average household incomes, and much higher costs of living than most of the U.S.

According to the Census Bureau, in 1996, median household income was about $35,500. But in states with disproportionate shares of Asians (NY and Hawaii, for example), median household income was $39,000 and $42,000 respectively. This means that APA median income will be skewed upward, relative to the rest of the country, but given cost of living differences, actual disposable income and living standards will be no better and often worse.

More importantly, claims of Asian success obscure the fact that the Asian American child poverty rate is nearly double the white rate, and according to a New York Times report in May of 1996, Southeast Asians as a whole have the highest rates of welfare dependence of any racial or ethnic group in the United States.

Nearly half of all Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees in the U.S. live in poverty, with annual incomes in 1990 of less than $10,000 per year. Amazingly, even those Southeast Asians with college degrees face obstacles. Two-thirds of Lao and Hmong-American college grads live below the poverty level, as do nearly half of Cambodian Americans and over a third of Vietnamese Americans with degrees.

Indeed, Asian "success" rhetoric ignores the persistent barriers to advancement faced by Asians relative to whites. On average, Asian Americans with a college degree earn 11% less than comparable whites; and APA's with only a high school diploma earn, on average, 26% less than their white counterparts.

When Asian American men have qualifications that are comparable to those of white men, they still receive fewer high-ranking positions than those same white men. Asian American male engineers and scientists are twenty percent less likely than white men to move into management positions in their respective companies, despite no differences in ambition or desire for such positions.

Of course, beyond the statistics, there are obvious points to be made. First, if whites truly believe that Asians are culturally superior and add to the quality of schools and workplaces, then why aren't these folks clamoring for a massive increase in immigration from Asian nations? Why not flood the borders, since we could all benefit from a little more Asian genius? Why not have white CEO's step down from their positions and let Japanese managers take their place?

Secondly, the whites who trumpet the model minority concept would be the first to object if Asian Americans began to bump their own white children from college slots, even if they did so by way of higher test scores and "merit" indicators. Just ask yourself what would happen if next year the top 3500 applicants to U.C.-Berkeley, in terms of SAT score and grades, happened to be Asian Americans, especially since there are only 3500 slots in the freshman class.

Would the regents allow the freshman class at the state's flagship school to become 100% Asian? Or for that matter even 80% or 70%? How would white Californians react to such a development, including those who praise hard-working Asian kids for their educational excellence and scholarly achievements?

How would white alums react if their favorite "model minorities" were suddenly seen as taking slots not from black and Latino youth, but from their own white children? To ask the question is to answer it.

And finally, to argue-as supporters of the model minority myth do-that Asians "have made it, so why can't blacks," is to misunderstand the issue of moral and ethical responsibility to correct the harm of wrongful actions.

Even if we accept the notion that groups victimized by racism can "make it" without assistance, affirmative action, or reparations, that would not deny (or indeed speak to in any way) the fact that society has an obligation to compensate the victims of injustice. After all, if my leg is blown off in an industrial accident, it hardly matters that many people with only one leg go on to succeed. The issue of compensatory justice remains, irrespective of what gains one can make without compensation.

I have little reason to believe that any of this made much difference to the individual who chose that day to trumpet Asian success as a way to denigrate African Americans. Given some of his other comments-that African sexual promiscuity was to blame for AIDS on the continent, and that he resented the "fact" that his black son (presumably adopted) has more opportunity in life than his white son (despite the fact that the former is unemployed and the latter in college)-his ability to rationally decipher much of anything seems doubtful.

Nonetheless, challenging the model minority myth is a worthwhile enterprise, especially when one considers how many decent, well-meaning individuals often fall for it.

Those who trumpet "Asian values and culture" (based on stereotypical understandings of both, not unlike the white guys who covet mail-order Asian brides for their anticipated "docility"), do Asians no favors. If anything, they set them up in a way that not only harms the groups against which they are contrasted, but in a way that harms Asians as well.

To be considered a group filled with math and science geniuses and passive, sensual, and willing female companions, not only objectifies Asian Pacific Americans, but results in a special stigma for those in the various Asian groups who aren't good in school, don't know how to fix your computer nor care to do so, or who don't fit the sexist stereotypes that are so comforting to Western male tastes.

The model minority myth, in other words, is a setup: a carrot offered to certain groups so long as they don't get out of line, assert their rights, strike for better wages, or try to determine their own sexuality. And as with all carrots, there is an even bigger stick, ready to throttle those who don't go along with the game.

Ultimately, justice and equity will remain elusive so long as whites feel no compunction about using one group of color against another group of color, in an attempt to make fools of both.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017830)

Racism. Typical knee-jerk reaction from a black victimologist.

The SAT I does have its flaws, but instead of correcting them, the CB now chooses to "dumb down" the exam with subjective grading and changing its format because of political correctness. Remember political correctness? There are no passing scores for these exams.

How is the SAT II Math racist?

Let's go to the HIGH STAKES exams such as the USMLE, the State Bar Exams, the CPA or Architecture certifying exams, and other exams necessary for entrance into the professions of America. Your BS stops right here, anyone, regardlesss of one's race, must pass with a specified grade. The bucks stops right here.

Why do blacks pass the State Bar Exams at the rate of 40%, nationwide, compared to the pass rate of 90% for whites and Asian Ams.

Why do blacks pass the USMLE Part I at the rate of less than 50%, when compared to the pass rate of 90% for whites and Asian Ams. This racial gap persists even when blacks are given additional support by repeating extra years in medical school with additional support with tutors and financial aid. Racism? These medical schools bend over backwards for underprepared blacks at this level, because they were admitted with lower standards from the undergraduate level. How do you solve this problem? What would you do to close this racial gap. Yell racism?

Racism?? You do jest. This is the outcome or the result of admitting underprepared and academically deficient blacks with lower GPAs and MCAT scores than the rest of the admitted Asian Ams and whites in the medical school class from the undergraduate level with race preferences for blacks by dumbing down the standards for admission for them.

This has absoutely nothing to do with SAT I testing or racism.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017880)

How is the new SAT 2005 a "dumbing down" test?!?! It's actually worse on students, IMO. Not that I couldn't do well on it, but I know plenty of students in rural and urban low-performing schools who cannot.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2018101)

And once again, read my article above on the "stereotype factor" against minority youth on testing exams.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2018128)

Of course, you are disbelief, because you are in denial of the facts which were given with references. Again, click on stats directly from the College Board, given on this site.

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm

I read everything you have posted, NONE OF THEM ADDRESSED THE FACTS.

Your attitude sucks, by stating that you refuse to read anything which you disagreed with. Bullshit, and you attend Northwestern? God help us all!!

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2018171)

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2018214)

Need a Lawyer?

In 1988, New York State's Chief Judge established a committee, The New York State Judicial Commission on Minorities. Its purpose was to study the presence and effects of racism in the state's courts. Buried in its final 2000-page report was the finding that minorities passed the New York bar exam at significantly lower rates than whites. The commission found that for the period spanning 1985 through 1988, first-attempt pass rates were 31.1 percent for blacks and 73.1 percent for whites. Applying the methods of Appendix A, we translated these pass rates to a corresponding black-white mean difference of 1.11 SD.

Several years later, commenting on the Commission's findings, Edna Wells Handy wrote in The New York Law Journal of April 1996, "Determining whether those pass rates have remained constant since the Commission's report must await the completion and dissemination of the national bar exam study presently being conducted by the Law School Admission Council." Ms. Handy was referring to the most ambitious study of law students ever attempted. The Law School Admission Council is the organization that administers the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). At the time Handy's article appeared, it was tracking 27,000 students who enrolled in U.S. law schools in the fall of 1991. The students were followed from law school entry to the bar exam. The Council issued its report in 1998, finding that 92 percent of white law-school graduates passed the bar exam on the first attempt, as did 61 percent of black graduates. This implies a black-white mean difference of 1.13 SD.

The Council also reported the results of repeated attempts at the bar exam. It found that eventually 97 percent of white and 78 percent of black law graduates passed, corresponding to a black-white mean difference of 1.11 SD.

The one-plus SD gap between black and white lawyers stubbornly refused to go away. Others, however, viewed the Council's findings differently. "This study strongly refutes the myth that affirmative action policies tend to set students up for failure on the bar exam," hallucinated Henry Ramsey Jr., a retired California state judge and member of the committee that oversaw the study.

Tamar Lewin, covering the Council's report for the New York Times, characterized the Commission's findings as "likely to provide important support for advocates of affirmative action." Her column appeared under the headline: "Minorities Achieve High Success Rate in Bar Exams, Study Says."

The fact is that affirmative action has stratified the bar by race and ability. Black lawyers lag behind their white colleagues in measured ability by about 1.1 SD. Affirmative action creates a racial gap at law-school entry that never goes away. When entrance credentials are controlled, racial differences mostly vanish. More than 20,000 adult blacks in the U.S. have an IQ of 130 or more, but because of affirmative action, the chance that your black lawyer will be one of them is vanishingly small.

Need a Doctor?

Medical school admission is uncommonly competitive, there being many more applicants than slots. The competition is so intense that if black applicants were held to the same admission standards as whites and Asians, we would turn out almost no black physicians.

We now have a double standard for admission to medical school brought about by affirmative action. As a result, two tiers of American physicians have emerged separated by race and ability.

We have seen that law students admitted under affirmative action do not measure up to their white and Asian peers as law-school graduates. Can we say the same for doctors? We will quantify the performance gap for physicians.

A benchmark for medical competence is the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Exam Part I. Every medical student in the US must pass it to become a physician. Students take the exam two years before graduation. It is one of several ways the profession keeps itself honest. The most comprehensive study of NBME pass rates was published in 1994 by Beth Dawson et al (JAMA 1994 272:9 674-9). The authors examined the performance of every medical student in the US taking the June exam for the first time over the years 1986, 1987 and 1988. Dawson and her colleagues found that white medical students passed the NBME test at a rate of 87.7 percent and blacks at 48.9 percent. Again, using methods described in Appendix A, we found these pass rates equivalent to a black-white mean difference of 1.19 SD. Mean differences for the bar and NBME exams are conspicuously similar. The one-plus SD gap does not yield easily.

Notably, when Dawson's study looked at entering students with similar academic credentials, the pass rates on the NBME exam were independent of race, pointing an accusing finger directly at affirmative action. For all its good intentions, affirmative action has created two levels of competence in American medicine, separated by a bit more than one standard deviation. When you are wheeled into the ER at 2:00 a.m., if you pray, pray that the black doctor who greets you entered medical school through the front door.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2017884)

What about the underperformance and underachievement of black children from families with incomes of more than $100k per year and parents with a college degree or more. The children of Asians and whites from from families with incomes of less than $40k per year and parents with less than a high school diploma OUTPERFORM these AFFLUENT PRIVILEGED BLACKS, in the SAT and standardized testing and academic achievement, with all their economic advantages, excellent well funded public schools or private prep schools, foreign travel and test prep.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2018072)

Since the families from which these black students come are successful under the typical standards of evaluation, they cannot be scoring lower than whites for either genetic or cultural reasons: after all, their parents are “making it,” and are not likely to be the kind of folks claimed to exhibit “pathological underclass” values.

So what is left? Unfortunately for those who would prefer not to admit the salience of institutionalized racism in the U.S., the answer is clear: substantially unequal outcomes are the result of substantially unequal opportunities.

Black students are only half as likely as whites to be placed in high-tracked English or math classes, and 2.4 times more likely than whites to be placed in remedial classes. Even when blacks demonstrate equal ability with their white counterparts, they are less likely to be placed in accelerated classes.

There is your answer, hero.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2018172)

Another factor, and which my research project will cover, is the high proportion of African-Americans in remedial and special education classes. I think it's a conspiracy that the number of African-Americans, especially males, are in special education when they are clearly not learning disabled.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2018200)

Do you have any evidence that clearly non-learning impaired blacks were put in special ed? Perhaps blacks just have a higher proportion of learning impaired people.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=128621&forum_id=1#2019638)

By Tim Wise

Cherished myths die hard, especially when those myths serve the interests of the more powerful members of a society at the expense of the less powerful. For generations, slaveowners ignored their chattels’ humanity, to say nothing of their desire for freedom, even coming up with a name for the presumed mental illness that “explained” the urge on the part of their property to run away. Drapetomania, it was called: a powerful disorder that afflicted the brains of slaves, rendering them incapable of recognizing how good they had it.

The subordination of persons of color has regularly been rationalized with absurd racist stereotypes, even when evidence flatly contradicted the illogic of those assumptions. So, for example, segregation was needed to allow blacks to develop to the “limit of their capacities,” and to hear some tell it, blacks actually preferred separate schools, housing, water fountains, and lunch counters. Japanese Americans had to be interned for “national security” purposes because they were disloyal to America. Filipinos were incapable of self-government; Hawaiians were heathens in need of Christian discipline, and so on and so forth.

It mattered little, of course, that persons of color were actually quite loyal to the U.S. (indeed, more so than probably justified); or that non-white nations had long exercised self-government before being “discovered” by Europeans. And the myths would linger even after social movements forced changes in the society that had nurtured them. Although the more extreme versions of these beliefs are less often heard than in years past, newer variations are common: so instead of claims that blacks are a separate species or genetically inferior (which of course are still articulated, as with best-selling books like The Bell Curve), new and more palatable claims of cultural inferiority have come to predominate.

According to those pushing this type of analysis, it is not that blacks and other people of color have defective DNA, but rather, that their families are dysfunctional, their values counterproductive and their behaviors pathological.