
Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools - allenleein
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-asian-americans-feel-powerless-in-the-battle-over-new-yorks-elite-high-schools
======
dilap
Here's another, more critical take on the plan:

[https://quillette.com/2018/06/27/bill-de-blasios-plan-to-
pur...](https://quillette.com/2018/06/27/bill-de-blasios-plan-to-purge-asians-
from-new-yorks-top-schools/)

I think it's terrible. It's robbing poor kids of a rare opportunity to get a
first-rate education, to make elites feel better about themselves.

If you insist that the racial demographics of the schools match those of the
city, a much better way to do it is to keep the admissions test, but simply
take the top N% w/in each racial bucket, rather than globally.

Otherwise, if you get rid of the test completely and pulling evenly from every
school, you are guaranteed (1) you will not create an environment w/ the truly
elite (2) you are replacing standardized tests, which are fair, with the whole
teacher-grading-system, which is wildly inconsistent and generally a better
measure of who behaves and who sucks up than who is academically worthy.

~~~
gnicholas
> _simply take the top N% w /in each racial bucket, rather than globally_

This would benefit wealthy Black/Latino kids, whose parents can afford test
prep. If the goal is to have a more racially diverse student body, it
accomplishes that goal. But if the goal is to help disadvantaged kids get
ahead, then it's not useful.

~~~
ericdykstra
This is already what happens with the current policies. Affirmative Action
hasn't had any benefit to Black kids except those from affluent two-parent
families.

------
whiddershins
The elimination of standard testing as the only application criteria for New
York schools such as Stuyvesant is a travesty.

Opinion pieces on this topic consistently misrepresent the situation. Many,
many, elite High schools in Nyc are applied to on the basis of a wide variety
of criteria. Grades, essays, you name it. These schools have a wonderful mix
of admissions processes which allows each of them to capture a portion of
promising students that others may miss.

There are exactly 3 High Schools that exclusively use one standardized test.
Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech.

Even if these schools favor people who are “good at tests” that’s fine! The
other amazing high schools can grab the students who are talented in other
ways.

Removing those three disadvantages people who might be highly motivated and/or
intelligent but have trouble meeting other vague criteria. That’s terrible and
discriminatory. It favors conformity in the best case, and quota filling in
the worst.

------
confiscate
Test scores are race-blind and fair. Test instructors do not give more scores
to a test because they see it was completed by an Asian test-taker.

It's great that schools are looking for a better "mix" of ethnicities in the
incoming class, but they should encourage the underrepresented ethnicities to
do better, in tests or other race-blind admission standards.

They should not put an admission "cap" based on the color of your skin

~~~
icelancer
>> Test scores are race-blind and fair.

Kind of. There is a fair criticism to be made about tests being
unintentionally culturally slanted towards the people that make them, often
white Americans.

Of course, in this case, your point is correct, since the people that are
overindexing on the tests are Asian-Americans.

~~~
confiscate
Agree.

If a test contains questions that favor a particular race, then that is an
outright problem, and schools should stop that.

In this case, it's actually the opposite. When a test is in English, often
Asians have to learn English, which is often not their primary language at
home. So by default, an English-speaking race taking a test, has a HUGE
advantage over an Asian test taker.

Which is why the stereotype is that "asians are good at math". Asians are NOT
particularly good in math. It's just that in math tests, it's mostly numbers.
The language barrier becomes less of an issue, the playing field levels out,
so you suddenly notice Asians tend to get higher scores.

I suspect it would be the same for, say, geography tests, if the same test was
translated to an Asian language. Suddenly "Asians are good at geography". Not
really.

If anything, tests in English are culturally slanted away from Asians where
English is often not their primary language.

~~~
vixen99
"Asians not particularly good at math"? How does that square with what is well
known in published surveys as for instance:

"Singapore is routinely ranked at or near the top in global comparisons of
mathematical ability and boasts one of the most admired education systems in
the world. In a league table based on test scores from 76 countries published
by the OECD in May last year, Singapore came first, followed by Hong Kong,
South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. The rankings, based on testing 15-year-olds’
abilities in maths and science, reinforced a sense that western children were
slipping behind their Asian peers. The UK was in 20th place and the US 28th in
the table. "

------
icelancer
This is pretty standard and has been going on for decades. Asian-Americans are
the last race you can openly commit racist policies against without
dogwhistling. I don't know what it is, maybe it's because they are politically
underreprsented or it's because they are underrepresented in popular culture
in general, or their general attitude to be anti-political in nature, but it's
just totally fine to withhold educational resources and outcomes for an entire
race of people. It is particularly bad against Chinese-Americans, I've found.

I remember dealing with it as a young child growing up in the Midwest as a
Japanese-American whose grandparents were interned in California. I didn't
come to "appreciate" the level of systemic, acceptable racism baked into
society against Asian-Americans until much later in life.

My feelings on it now are kind of whatever. It is what it is and I don't see
it changing much. I sure don't see white activists taking up the Asian banner,
though.

~~~
jsoc815
> _This is pretty standard... I don 't know what it is..._

Mostly _the numbers._ The "Asian" population in America is relatively small,
and thus (perceived to be) easily managed. If one looks at demographic shifts,
immigration policy, etc., over the course of the European expansion in to what
is now America, the game should be pretty clear. Actually, Brazil is also a
good example, if you look at their post-slavery immigration plan/policy.[2]

Anyway, I'm linking to an old post of mine from the Harvard discussion.[1] I
highly recommend checking out _Prof. Frank Wu 's_ comments in the referenced
video.

Also, it's worth noting that generally speaking, public schools are not
considered to be _elite_. Elite schools are generally the exclusive ones where
politicians, captains of industry, and the like send their kids to help them
socialize with 'the right kind of people,' and maybe a smattering of _common
folk_. I've been to those (as one of the common folk) and to elite public
schools; the difference really _is_ night and day.

This whole thing is just more _divide and conquer_. It pains me to see people
continue to fall for it.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17335887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17335887)
[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/opinion/is-neymar-
black-b...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/opinion/is-neymar-black-brazil-
and-the-painful-relativity-of-race.html)

~~~
icelancer
>> Also, it's worth noting that generally speaking, public schools are not
considered to be elite.

That's typically true but not of the NY high schools. These schools are truly
elite high schools.

------
confiscate
If a student is not doing well in school, it makes no sense to just "give"
that student a higher grade, for "equality" with the rest of the class.

You need to help that student get better, so he/she can achieve the higher
grade on his/her own.

If a student can't do multiplication in a test, you don't just "give more
points" to that student, for "equality" in the classroom. You need to teach
that student to learn multiplication.

You need to bring that student "up" and not everyone else "down".

------
ericdykstra
The entire doctrine of Disparate Impact, and Affirmative Action which is borne
from it, is one of the most illiberal policies in America. I really hope a
constitutionalist Supreme Court can reverse this madness.

On Affirmative Action in specific, here's a great interview from Sowell about
the unintended consequences that arise from the awful policy:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvnTByzTmA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvnTByzTmA)

~~~
iosDrone
It will be ruled unconstitutional within two years. The way to stop
discrimination based on race is to stop discriminating based on race.

~~~
ericdykstra
I really hope so, as there is so much wrong with it. To begin with, the 80%
rule creates an impossible standard of "diversity" that doesn't match the
reality of how different groups of people have different tendencies and
preferences.

The impossible standard mixed with the conflicting doctrines of Disparate
Treatment and Disparate Impact mean that every major company has to settle
diversity lawsuits for hundreds of millions or into the billions of dollars,
no matter what their policy is.

------
mindvirus
I wonder how de Blasio's proposal would lead to different patterns of where
people live in the city - it seems that to play this game (and it sounds like
many parents are very motivated to), it makes sense to send your kids to an
underperforming school.

~~~
dmurray
Yes. I expect the author's mother would seek out school districts with the
lowest test scores (perhaps the lowest population of Asian-Americans) and send
her daughter there instead. So if what the policy makers really want is to
equally distribute Asian immigrants among the city's middle schools, perhaps
they've hit on the policy that will do that.

~~~
otoburb
> _Yes. I expect the author 's mother would seek out school districts with the
> lowest test scores (perhaps the lowest population of Asian-Americans) and
> send her daughter there instead._

In that situation, the parents of a child who might be considered academically
bright will need to contend with the additional burden of trying to motivate
their child to be _different_ (i.e. higher test scores) than the rest of their
peers who, for various reasons, don't test as well.

Peer pressure is a thing, and is sometimes seen by parents as a blessing if it
gives their child an incentive to study.

------
marris
Yup. It's especially disheartening that most of the discussion centers around
"privilege" and the supposed ease of coasting into one of these schools if
parents pay for test prep. Anyone can get test prep books from the New York
Public library and practice, practice, practice. The fact that so few members
from some groups attend the school says far more about the importance of
education in their homes than it does about lack of "endowment."

~~~
guard0g
Sadly, there is little discussion of the importance of effort, hard work,
persistence, and grit in the success of Asian American students...

------
guard0g
First Stuy, then UofC goes test-optional, and now CMU eliminating demonstrated
interest in their application process...the race to mediocrity.

~~~
tylerhou
Why does CMU admit more mediocre candidates if they eliminate demonstrated
interest? Visiting campus doesn't really say anything about how talented/hard
working a candidate is -- all it does is signal that they have enough money
and time to visit.

~~~
desu_
You are right that visiting the campus is a weak signal.

However, the decision came with a plethora of other decisions, some probably
fair, some more reminiscent of the _Asians-have-bad-personalities_ trick à la
Harvard.

 _We 're eliminating demonstrated interest as a consideration in our admission
paradigm. We'll no longer encourage supplementary submission of materials,
including resumes, research abstracts, writing samples, multimedia
demonstrations of talents, and maker portfolios._

[https://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/eliminating-
demon...](https://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/eliminating-demonstrated-
interest)

------
wb36
Instead of debating the criteria for entrance into these elite schools, why
not look at what makes them such great schools and replicate that elsewhere?
Sure, in so far as being surrounded by top students who study all the time
improves the environment, the current elite is likely to remain the elite and
the admissions criteria should still be discussed. But if the gap between the
quality of those schools and the others wasn't so vast, it would no longer
feel like the difference between being guaranteed success in life vs. being
doomed to failure.

~~~
whiddershins
Nyc is full of amazing public high schools, as I mentioned in another comment.
Moreover you can apply to virtually any public high school in NYC and be
admitted based on whatever criteria they set up, meaning you aren’t forced in
that case to go to your zoned (regional) school.

These articles misrepresent the situation. There are only three schools that
use this test, and they often get the “I studied really hard but I was bad at
homework and class participation” student. Luckily there is a mechanism (for
now) to catch some of the potential of these students.

------
antoncohen
San Francisco went through a similar thing. The best public high schools in SF
(namely Lowell) per predominantly Chinese-American. The NAACP sued the school
district (NAACP v. San Francisco Unified School District), resulting in race-
based admissions in 1983 to reduce the number of Chinese-Americans at the best
schools

Then in 1994 Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District happened, and race-
based admissions got thrown out.

If you look at the racial demographics of public high schools in San Francisco
it is pretty interesting. Of the 10 major schools only two of them have over
10% white students. Those are the only two that only admit students that meet
special requirements. One is Lowell (academically the best) with 15.2% white,
the other is SOTA (an arts school that requires auditions) with 41.3% white.
Lowell is 56.7% Asian, while SOTA is 19.0% Asian.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_High_School_(San_Franci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_High_School_\(San_Francisco\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Asawa_San_Francisco_Schoo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Asawa_San_Francisco_School_of_the_Arts)

------
camdenlock
This is some bullshit. Trying to exert such rigid control over educational
outcomes by favoring people based on their race? Talk about unfair
discrimination. It’s 2018 (aka $CURRENT_YEAR), haven’t we grown beyond this
fruitless social engineering wheel-spinning?

In a sane world, this kind of legislation would be shot down with cogent
arguments from smart and knowledgeable lawmakers. The only reason such ill-
conceived ideas become law is because our republic is essentially a popularity
contest, and people will apparently vote for a politician who, without
thinking things through (or indeed thinking at all), will gladly push
legislation rife with feel-good buzzwords and catchphrases of the moment. All
that matters is getting (re-)elected, fairness and justice be damned.

It’s no wonder these folks are marching. This is naked social control from
ideologues. Fight against it!

~~~
Fomite
The suggestion is that educational outcomes are already favoring people by
race, just with a veneer laid over it, and we're revisiting the question as to
whether or not that's working.

~~~
manfredo
I may be reading too much into your use of the word "favoring", but I think
it's not safe to assume that any disparate outcome is the effect of favoring
certain races. Certainly, educational outcomes differ by race but there are
non-discriminatory factors that can play a large role, such as time dedicated
towards academics [1]. In other words, I think it's worth asking whether it's
the education system that's favoring certain groups, or if it's certain groups
that are favoring academic achievement. I don't think it's right to use
discriminatory policies to ensure equity of outcome if it's the latter.

1\.
[https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012026/tables/table_35.asp](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012026/tables/table_35.asp)

~~~
Fomite
I agree - all I'm saying is that claiming the old system doesn't favor people
by race (in the way you're meaning, where it tilts the scales in particular
direction) isn't trivially demonstrable.

Higher Ed has been struggling with this for awhile. It's not clear that a
major emphasis on test scores isn't just putting a quantitative spackle on a
biased system, and then declaring the job done.

Especially in a system with such a complicated background as public schooling.

------
imbokodo
There is a class if people who do not work, whose parents did not work, who
themselves have parents who do not work. The type seen in the documentary
"Born Rich". They get into the best universities as legacies.

You never hear talk of this idle class ensconced in inherited privilege and
luxury. However, a few decades after Americans were lynching those of African
descent, blowing up their little girls while they're going to church,
executing them for voter registration drives etc. - a few decades after that
if an attempt is made to push blacks at Stuyvesant above the 1 in 45 mark, in
a city where 1 in 4 are black - then, only then do we hear about the need for
meritocracy and so on. From the mouth of a man who got a "small loan of a
million dollars" from his father, with his son-in-law who, according to Daniel
Golden, bought his way into Harvard.

When am I going to see the articles about legacy admissions to the top
colleges? I won't hold my breath.

Luxury for the idle class at the top, the rat race (with some national
oppression of Africans, Lakota etc. thrown in) for everyone else. No thanks,
I'll keep my sickle sharpened for a higher target.

~~~
mrchicity
Some rich heir being a shoe in at Harvard where he skips half his classes and
takes a spot from someone with academic interests bothers me too. It's not
fair.

But I'm a bit less skeeved out by a school administrator judging someone as an
individual, even if it's for a crappy reason like dad being a donor, than
having them admit or deny someone just based on the color of their skin.

Just as I would rather work for a boss who hired his buddy from the country
club, but harbored no prejudice, than one who refused to hire blacks, Jews,
Asians, etc. who met the job requirements.

------
zBard
It's interesting to see the HN responses in the GPA thread
-[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17441601](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17441601)
when compared to this one, although both boil down to the measure of
scholastic tests as a ingress criteria.

------
otoburb
The mayor, de Blasio, is trying to institute a similar system that was in
place for NYC kindergarten admissions over a decade ago.

Prior to 2007, gifted and talented classes were skewed towards white and
asians and the admissions process was criticized for allowing "favoritism and
discrimination"[1]. A standardized test was then implemented for 4 year olds
going forward, but over subsequent years people realized that this resulted in
even lower hispanic and black enrollment into the coveted G&T programs[2].

de Blasio is pushing for a more ethnically diverse mix across all schools.
Based on the K G&T admissions changes made in 2007, he is fairly sure this
change will achieve his objective. He firmly subscribes to the idea that while
certain elite schools will be by definition diluted in terms of academic
achievement and excellence, the _overall_ NYC school system will benefit. He
fervently believes that trying to increase the global median achievement at
the expense of a lower academic peak achieved by a tiny minority of students
_is worth it_ (aka YCMAOWBE[3] or TANSTAAFL[4]).

While I agree with the sentiment that one should try to fix the entire
pipeline and not focus on the end product (too little too late), critics
lambasting de Blasio's plan need to understand that he's simply making
different trade-offs during his last term in office as mayor.

[1]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/nyregion/26gifted.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/nyregion/26gifted.html)

[2] [https://hechingerreport.org/as-new-york-struggles-to-make-
gi...](https://hechingerreport.org/as-new-york-struggles-to-make-gifted-
admissions-equitable-one-bronx-family-searches-for-a-way-in/)

[3]
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you_can%27t_make_an_omelette_...](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you_can%27t_make_an_omelette_without_breaking_eggs)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch)

~~~
imbokodo
The parents of "gifted" white 4 year olds trying to keep black kids out due to
their "gifted" 4 year olds hard work and their grind and the meritocracy...I
mean it sounds like a parody.

"It's not due to racism or the to the manor born gift of idleness - these
'gifted' 4 year olds are high achievers"

~~~
otoburb
I'm having trouble understanding the sentiment of your comment, but it seems
you are deriding the "gifted" label bestowed by the NYC Department of
Education. I agree that the label is unfortunate. From what I understand so
far, the "gifted" curriculum is comparable to other high-achieving schools
without the need for a "gifted" designation outside of the city and across the
country.

~~~
imbokodo
The whole thing is so absurd it seems beyond explanation. The concept that
there exists a subset of gifted, "high-achieving" 4 year olds is so ridiculous
on the face of it I wouldn't even know how to dissuade someone who thought
their little munchkin was part of such a 4 year old elect. Maybe the toddlers
should be awarded Nobel and Pulitzer prizes for their high achieving finger
paintings and playdough sculptures, alongside the more typical gold stars.

------
iosDrone
Most Hacker News readers are liberal (judging by the comments). And it seems
like most Hacker News readers are disgusted by this news.

What every liberal person who read this article with disgust needs to realize
is that THIS IS THE LIBERAL END-GAME AND THIS IS WHAT A MAJORITY OF LEFT-
LEANING DECISION-MAKERS SUPPORT.

They don't care about merit, or fairness, or making the most out of a scarce
resource. All that they care about is enforced "equality," no matter how many
people suffer as a consequence.

------
httpz
We can argue what is "fair" all we want but what policy makers really care
about is votes not "fairness". "fairness" is a moving definition that is
associated with the political climate.

Not that we should completely give up on fairness and let political power
decide everything but I feel a bit exhausted reading these arguments going in
circles for years..

------
guard0g
Around the country, there's a concerted effort to eliminate magnet schools for
much the same rationale. Wealthy NY folks send their kids to private schools
like Dalton, Trinity, Packer, etc... Why not make a system that seeks economic
parity rather racial parity, and eliminate the moats around private schools?

~~~
cardplayer
How about we just improve the quality of public school education with a large
tax on weapon sales?

Better schools and maybe fewer school shootings...maybe. America has never
much cared for its children so yeah. _shrugs_

------
akhilcacharya
I don't agree with taking top N% as the only admittance criteria but the
constant pearl clutching about this and the Harvard case really bothers me.

The idea that this one school can make or break one's future is either absurd
or terrifying, and I'm not sure which is actually true.

------
cardplayer
More than 50% of the global population lives in Asia and less than 5% live in
North America.

It makes complete sense that wealthy-to-middle class Asians would displace
white students to a lesser degree and other communities of color to a higher
degree in closely located Western countries with strong schools and favorable
immigration policies.

By 2050, would it be so strange that the majority of applicants and students
of elite western schools would be Asian?

Other communities will be forced to attend less prestigious institutions until
Asian schools hold stronger apppeal with the wealthier citizens in their
countries.

------
iosDrone
I can't wait for affirmative action to become unconstitutional.

------
mabbo
Call me crazy, but what if you just funded all public schools sufficiently
that the advantage of going to the "good" school was lessened? Is that too
socialist?

~~~
mrchicity
Good schools are mostly good because of their student bodies.

At a basic level you need teachers who care, books and decent accommodations.
If those basics aren't being met, then spending will help. And if those needs
are met, it certainly helps to have really great, special teachers who push
students a little further.

But I believe if you took the kids from a selective school and swapped them
with kids from a school with frequent violence and truancy, the kids from the
selective school would still have far better life outcomes, and find ways to
succeed despite run down classrooms, less inspiring teachers, and dated books.
They would succeed if you put them in an 1800s one-room schoolhouse, or didn't
even send them to school at all. They had to pass a high bar for intellectual
ability and their parents care about education.

~~~
dokein
100% agree. 100 years ago, if you didn't have access to a textbook or a
teacher, you were largely shit outta luck. Today, with adequately motivated
parents / students (and a moderate amount of resources, i.e. access to the
internet and/or public library and the knowledge to seek things there), one
can bypass these issues. One can even gain knowledge and skill that is far
beyond the high-school level.

I actually wonder if the internet will magnify cultural differences over time.
So the children who are motivated (whether intrinsic, parents, or culture)
will get even further ahead by taking online courses, while the children who
are not will fall even further behind.

------
graycat
Gee, all this terrible struggle over what can and can't get from some K-12
school. What a WASTE. Huge misunderstanding.

Bronx High School of Science? How about instead Stanford, MIT, Harvard,
Princeton?

How to do that? Well, big secret (don't tell anyone!): How do professors at
research universities stay up to date so that they can do leading edge
research? Do they take refresher courses at the Bronx High School of Science?
Not likely! Do they take courses at all? Essentially no.

So, what the professors do is just study the best materials and go to some
seminars. In simple terms, students can do much the same starting with, say,
high school ninth grade material and continuing on. If get very far in
academics, then just MUST work and learn fully independently or nearly so, so
might as well just start doing that ASAP, especially to get around all the
terrible struggles of K-12.

Bluntly, nearly no US K-12 teacher knows any material that is worth any
student struggling over. So, get THROUGH the K-12 material and get on to
college level material, ASAP.

So, for a student who wants the best education in K-12 and later, first, get
the basics, the prerequisites for college material, and then study the best
college material. "The basics" are just high school math and science together
with good skills reading and writing English. History, _belle lettre_
literature, music, etc., maybe fun and nice but for academic success close to
irrelevant.

So, in K-12 years, ASAP get into fractions, exponents, compound interest,
areas and volumes. Then do first year algebra, plane geometry, second year
algebra, trigonometry, solid geometry. Do general science, chemistry, biology,
physics. For the science, will do it all again and much more thoroughly again
anyway, essentially several times more, so don't get all perfectionistic for
the first pass.

Then start on college material -- first up, calculus of one independent
variable and then several independent variables, heavy on intuition, light on
proofs. Watch the best Internet lectures -- IMHO, Khan Academy is NOT good
enough. Use several of the best regarded texts; to find those, ask some
college students, TAs, or profs or look at the Web sites of calculus courses
at the best universities and see what texts they are using. Likely buy the
texts used -- calculus hasn't much changed in decades, highly recommended old
texts should be fine and cheap! Do the homework problems and check answers in
the back of the book.

Maybe wander onto a college campus or have a family friend who is a college
prof and get the tests for the calculus course, take those, and beg a calculus
TA or prof to grade the results.

Continue with math and science the same way -- best materials, with some
informal contact with a college.

Once get to college junior level material, at some research universities,
start attending public research seminars. Typically won't understand more than
10% of the material but WILL get lots of keywords that can motivate and direct
studies. Maybe meet a prof or two who will volunteer to grade some homework,
say, in math, physics, maybe let you have some copies of tests and grade your
solutions. Also many graduate school departments publish their qualifying
exams -- they are good and important sources of exercises.

When have good reason to feel confident, take the SAT aptitude tests and the
STEM field subject matter tests AND then the same for the GREs. Right, still
in K-12 but taking the GRE to show that you are ready for graduate school.

If really want to seal the deal, blow away the college admissions committees,
publish some papers, a few should do, in good quality peer reviewed journals.

Then apply to college, maybe using some of the contacts you got from attending
the research seminars. So, a friendly prof might just contact the college
admissions committee and ask that you be admitted with full scholarship.

So, you enter as a college freshman but start on your Master's and maybe are a
TA or research assistant for a prof.

Look, for academics, the real goal is likely not very visible at the Bronx
High School of Science or any K-12 place. The real goal is in three words,
research, research, and research. For that, get into a good research
university, do well learning the prerequisites, attend seminars to see what
some of the current research topics are, work with good profs, and do publish
some good research.

If want some additional concentration on bio-medical and get an MD, fine. It's
also possible to go for a law degree. Or can continue in main line STEM field
academics and be a professor at a research university. Or, sure, can do what,
say, A. Viterbi did and go for entrepreneurship and, then, get your name on an
engineering school!

Does independent study work? It certainly did for me: I got a Ph.D. in applied
math and was a college prof. Starting with first year algebra, class time was
mostly a waste of time, and I learned nearly all the material, especially the
good material I learned well, from independent study. My preparation for the
graduate school qualifying exams, my Ph.D. research, my other, published
research -- all from essentially just independent study. That's what research
professors do -- learn what they need to know and then do their research, both
essentially independently.

At least at one time, the math department at Princeton stated on their Web
site that no courses were offered for preparation for the qualifying exams,
that the courses were introductions to research by experts in their fields,
and that students were expected to prepare for the qualifying exams on their
own. So, the Princeton math department regards independent study as essential.

One of the best lessons I learned in math was in high school plane geometry:
The teacher was the most offensive human I ever saw. So, in class, I just put
my head down and slept. Then after school, I read the lesson material quickly
and then looked at the exercises. I started with the last, most difficult ones
and did them all until I got to the trivial ones. Then I turned to the back of
the book for the more difficult supplementary exercises and did ALL of them,
never let even one go. So, on the state test, I did well!

I continued to learn math that way: E.g., I never took freshman calculus,
instead, got a good text and taught myself, much as I learned high school
plane geometry and for a course started on sophomore calculus and did well.

E.g., as a senior, I got a famous, challenging text in topology and gave a
prof a lecture a week, for each chapter, one lecture on the material and one
more with solutions to the exercises.

It's not just me: Bluntly, if go very far in academics, just MUST be good at
independent study. So, might as well get started in high school material, and
if do that then can f'get about all the struggles with Bronx High School of
Science, Dalton School, etc. Again, the K-12 teachers don't know anything
worth struggle. Want to struggle a little? Okay, on YouTube, watch the
lectures on quantum mechanics from MIT. Or, for a mathematician giving an
introduction to bio-medical research, watch the Eric Lander lectures -- on
YouTube, from MIT.

Bronx High School of Science? F'get about it. Again, get the good stuff from,
say, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, etc. Done. Any questions?

------
Reactionary_
1\. I believe black and hispanic students could do just as well as asian
students if their cultures were similar to that of the asian students.

Let's not kid ourselves. The asian students doing well on these tests are born
into cultures that value academic achievement more than the average black or
hispanic family. There's nothing inherently different about the different
groups aside from their cultures.

Keep the tests, and encourage a culture of academic excellent to take root in
different communities where it may not currently exist.

2\. Let's stop being so obsessed with race. Racial quotas make people think
more about race when our goal should be to make people think less about race
and more about individuals apart from the color of their skin.

~~~
dqpb
Best comment in this thread!

------
blueprint
Hey look it's my high school

------
keepper
So lets say you have a really big balancing scale[1]....

And there's a chute that's been feeding twice as much sand to one side, for
hundreds of years....

What do you do to balance it?

    
    
      a) Distribute sand equally to each side
      b) Distribute substantially more sand to one side
      c) Make like the imbalance did not happen and ignore it.
    

If the answer is obvious to the above, then why is leveling the field for
historically disenfranchised people an issue? I am referring to Black
Americans and Native Americans.

Nigerian Americans are some of the most successful immigrants[2]. Asian
Immigrants, Hispanic Immigrants, Indian Immigrants, Eastern European
immigrants, all tend to do decent well. What do they all have in common? They
are immigrants! Immigrants that don't have the baggage of hundreds of years of
oppression in their new country. They used to be disadvantaged in their own
country. But coming to a new country does something... a new start.

    
    
      I should know, my parents where such immigrants.
    

But Native Americans[3], and Native Blacks (as in not recently immigrated)
continue to do the worst in the achievement scale. Maybe, just maybe... we
start realizing that they both share the same initial crutch.. the scale was
tipped way against them, until quite recently.[4]

 _And yes, nitpick my points away, the underlying issue is still valid..
immigrants tend to do well in a new country, imbalances can 't be corrected by
neutrality going forward, and historically disenfranchised people tend to do
bad in the country they are disenfranchised... see poor asians in asia or in
india..._

    
    
      [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=balancing+scale
      [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-12/africa-is-sending-us-its-best-and-brightest
      [3] http://indianyouth.org/american-indian-life/poverty-cycle
      [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Ethnic_Placement_Act

~~~
zeth___
Yes, we should punish children for the sins of their fathers.

Especially the immigrants, who had nothing to do with any of it.

~~~
keepper
What is the "punishment" you refer to? Removing an unfair advantage that is so
innate, it's almost invisible to those that benefit it?

PS: Not that I should be indulging your vague references... but actually, we
do it quite often. Did Bernie Madoff's kids/wife get the spoils of his crime?
Has not pretty much every war had a form of "reparations"?

------
zeth___
This is an very good example of why 'people of color' is red herring no one
believes. Asians, both yellow and brown, are out performing whites. Blacks are
under performing everyone and 'latinos' are doing either ok or pretty badly,
depending on if you split them according to skin color.

The issue in America has been and still is why are blacks doing so poorly?

Dressing it up as anything else does no one any favors.

~~~
justinpombrio
> The issue in America has been and still is why are blacks doing so poorly?

If nothing else, enormous income differences? See the top graph here:

[https://www.financialsamurai.com/income-by-race-why-is-
asian...](https://www.financialsamurai.com/income-by-race-why-is-asian-income-
so-high/)

It's hard to educate yourself well if your family is poor, I hear.

~~~
zeth___
>It's hard to educate yourself well if your family is poor, I hear.

Have a look at the incomes of immigrants to the US:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income)

The top 20: Ethnic Group Income in US Home country GDP PPP Ratio

Indian American $110026 $7,174.00 15.3367716754948

Taiwanese American $90221 $49,827.00 1.81068496999619

Filipino American $88745 $8,229.00 10.7844209502977

Australian American $81452 $49,882.00 1.63289362896436

Israeli American $79736 $36,250.00 2.19961379310345

Russian American $77349 $27,890.00 2.77335962710649

Greek American $77342 $27,776.00 2.78449020737327

Lebanese American $74757 $19,486.00 3.83644667966745

Sri Lankan American $73856 $13,001.00 5.68079378509346

Croatian American $73196 $24,095.00 3.03780867399875

Latvian American $72690 $27,291.00 2.66351544465208

Lithuanian American $72605 $31,935.00 2.27352434632848

Austrian American $72478 $49,247.00 1.47172416593904

Iranian American $72345 $20,030.00 3.61183225162257

Slovene American $72272 $34,063.00 2.121715644541

Swiss American $71418 $61,360.00 1.16391786179922

Bulgarian American $71331 $21,578.00 3.30572805635369

Romanian American $71230 $23,991.00 2.96903005293652

Scandinavian American $71190 $70,590.00 1.00849978750531

Italian American $70726 $37,970.00 1.86268106399789

How do you explain the differences in income when you have some groups earning
15 and 10 times (!!!) what they did before emigrating and others between 2 to
5? These people were poor, not just "I can't afford an iphone poor", "I can't
afford antibiotics for my children" poor, yet are now the richest ethnic
groups in the US, out earning local Americans by 40-100%.

~~~
guard0g
It's called hard work, persistence, and grit. It's called postponing video
game or stick ball time to focus on studies, not hanging out at the mall or
Friday night football games. You don't have to be wealthy to wait for
marshmellows.

