formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on Jun 19, 2013 15:41:50 GMT -5
I think affirmative action played a role, getting enough people's feet in the door so that we're all used to the idea that certain jobs can be done by women and minorites just as well as by white males. But I would question whether or not it is still necessary.
A funny story about affirmative action. My dad had a government job working on designing the safety equipment for our soldiers. He had a Phd, programmed in several languages, did sophisticated statistical analysis --a very high level and specific skillset. When a new job opened up, he and a retired black schoolteacher applied for the job. Again, this was safety equipment for our soldiers. You screw up this job and people die. The only reason my dad got the job over this ridiculously unqualified person was because his boss at the time happened to be black. And even for him, picking my dad over someone whose obvious incompetence would kill people cost him a promotion.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Jun 19, 2013 15:44:19 GMT -5
How else would we fight racial inequality? I don't think affirmative action is a perfect system, but I'm drawing a blank at what could be fairer AND more effective. There are still a depressing number of people (many of them in hiring roles, and some of whom post on this forum) who believe that women and minorities simply aren't as good/capable as white men. Those are very valid points and I do think that in some circumstances it should be implemented. Like when decisions are made on in-person contact. But when you have a group of folks that underperform on a standard test then claim they should be moved ahead of those that scored better in the name of equality then something is out of whack (Chicago, Boston, and Philly firefighters exams come to mind - there was no way to know the race of the applicants by which circles they penciled in). Same for college entrance exams - the grading machine can't tell what race you are (at least before you were required to provide the information) so I'm not sure how that works...
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movingforward
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Post by movingforward on Jun 19, 2013 16:19:41 GMT -5
I believe there was a time when affirmative action was definitely warranted. I think it may have run it's course though. The younger generation entering the workforce has been exposed to females and minorities having various skills, talents and occupations. There are certainly still some close-minded good ole' boys clubs out there but I think it is a much smaller group than it once was (at least I HOPE so). I don't think race or gender is going to matter near as much in the future. I often wonder what younger people will be shocked by or think is funny 30 yrs or so when they look back on our current times. Like how I laugh at some of things said on Downton Abbey (of course, that was almost 100 yrs ago) and am often shocked by Mad Men. I just wonder what a show set in our time frame will look like to others many years from now. My guess is obamacare and the debate about it will go down in history, gay marriage will be a factor of the past (because seriously who is going to give a crap 30 yrs from now if gay people want to get married). Hell, marriage may be a thing of the past by then. Maybe TV will be too
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milee
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Post by milee on Jun 19, 2013 16:26:20 GMT -5
Women are also the new majority. Funny from one of my grandsons. He went to the doctor recently. Afterwards, he told his mother, "Mom, I didn't know that boys could be doctors, too!" Without really meaning to, it seems all of the doctors she uses are female. Happened to me, too. One of my sons actually asked if boys were "allowed to be" doctors. The only doc we used that was a man was our dentist who was black, so maybe my pasty white boys felt that only women and black men could aspire to be docs... Don't worry, I patted them on the hand, composed a very serious expression and explained to them that if they studied, worked hard and were generally awesome human beings that I was sure an exception could be made and they too could be a doctor when they grew up.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Jun 20, 2013 9:27:09 GMT -5
How else would we fight racial inequality? I don't think affirmative action is a perfect system, but I'm drawing a blank at what could be fairer AND more effective. There are still a depressing number of people (many of them in hiring roles, and some of whom post on this forum) who believe that women and minorities simply aren't as good/capable as white men. Those are very valid points and I do think that in some circumstances it should be implemented. Like when decisions are made on in-person contact. But when you have a group of folks that underperform on a standard test then claim they should be moved ahead of those that scored better in the name of equality then something is out of whack (Chicago, Boston, and Philly firefighters exams come to mind - there was no way to know the race of the applicants by which circles they penciled in). Same for college entrance exams - the grading machine can't tell what race you are (at least before you were required to provide the information) so I'm not sure how that works... The part of the exams that would make it biased isn't the grading it is the way the test is written. If someone doesn't learn the things on the test it is almost impossible for them to do well on it. Or if the questions are written in such a way that they have never heard before it would be incredibly hard in a short time given on the test to figure out what they menat. I could know something better than anyone else but if the test on it was half in English and half in Chinese I would test like an idiot in that subject. Everyone always rails against "teaching to the test" but there is a reason why billions are spent on SAT test prep. People who take SAT test prep courses do much better than the ones who don't. Of course rich kids are going to take thos course more than poor one since they cost thousands of dollars to take. IMO affirmative action for things like college entrance is about giving someone a chance to prove they can do something that they never had the chance to do before, as opposed to just accepting the people who have.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jun 20, 2013 9:32:15 GMT -5
But wouldn't the white male bias run through the entire education process? Sure, the white man writes the entrance exam, but also teaches the class, grades the papers and writes the final exam. So, if someone can't do well on the predictive test, the only way they are going to do well in the class is to "become more white." So, is affirmative action just a way to make black people less black and more white?
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Jun 20, 2013 9:45:22 GMT -5
ut wouldn't the white male bias run through the entire education process? Sure, the white man writes the entrance exam, but also teaches the class, grades the papers and writes the final exam. So, if someone can't do well on the predictive test, the only way they are going to do well in the class is to "become more white." So, is affirmative action just a way to make black people less black and more white? If we are talking about schools and standardized test I havent seen anything that says race is a factor on test scores, just money. Rich children do MUCH better than students from poorer house holds. Poorer students tend to go to poorer schools. If a student goes to a school that has a 50% dropout rate, I seriously doubt that that school is going to spend much of its resourses on improving SAT or other college admissions tests, scores. My DD has a friend who for a variety of reasons transferred to a HS that has a 50% dropout rate. She was put into all AP classes even though she had only ever taken regular classes before. She asked the counselor why, and he said that the regular college prep classes at her old HS were much harder than the AP classes at their HS. The work done in AP was just much harder than what was done in the regular classes there. How is a student supposed to know they need to work on something when they probably don't know that the classes they are taking aren't what they say they are?
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movingforward
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Post by movingforward on Jun 20, 2013 11:25:08 GMT -5
How is a student supposed to know they need to work on something when they probably don't know that the classes they are taking aren't what they say they are?
And if the kid from the poorer school who is receiving a poorer education does end up going on to college then they probably are not near as prepared as the kid who received a much better education; therefore, they have to work twice as hard to catch up or end up dropping out. I don't know... just speculating...
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haapai
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Post by haapai on Jun 20, 2013 11:30:48 GMT -5
If we are talking about schools and standardized test I havent seen anything that says race is a factor on test scores, just money. Rich children do MUCH better than students from poorer house holds. The relationship between family income and median test scores is lockstep. That is, if you group families by income and look at the median test scores it goes up with each increase in income. But that's not the only gap. If you separate everyone by racial category and sort them by income you get results that nobody finds easy to talk about. Bowen and Bok gave it a shot in The Shape of the River back in 2001. It's a truly unsettling read.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jun 20, 2013 11:34:14 GMT -5
How is a student supposed to know they need to work on something when they probably don't know that the classes they are taking aren't what they say they are?
And if the kid from the poorer school who is receiving a poorer education does end up going on to college then they probably are not near as prepared as the kid who received a much better education; therefore, they have to work twice as hard to catch up or end up dropping out. I don't know... just speculating... I know my husband's law school had a secret class that was held just for students who got in via affirmative action. They were behind, and were given considerable resources to help them catch up. As a result, my husband questions every applicant he gets that happens to be non-white. (Yes, I know, my husband is a racist. He feels bad about it. He is trying to change. But his current situation is not helping any.)
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on Jun 20, 2013 11:45:02 GMT -5
I ran into that as a TA in lilly white West Virginia. I was teaching a class that mostly covered the stuff I learned before I took precalculus in high school. I had students in there who were failing who claimed they had gotten A's and B's in high school all the way through pre-calculus. Thankfully, the school had enough sense to have a learning center staffed by very good tutors that was open 12 hours a day. I had students who would spend 10+ hours a week in the learning center trying to catch up. They not only had one semester to learn 3 years worth of material, they had to learn how to learn.
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michelyn8
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Post by michelyn8 on Jun 20, 2013 11:58:10 GMT -5
How is a student supposed to know they need to work on something when they probably don't know that the classes they are taking aren't what they say they are?
And if the kid from the poorer school who is receiving a poorer education does end up going on to college then they probably are not near as prepared as the kid who received a much better education; therefore, they have to work twice as hard to catch up or end up dropping out. I don't know... just speculating... This was exactly the case with a young man in a neighboring city back in the 90's. His high school is in a city that is probably 98% black on top of being financially distressed since its largest employer left in the early 1980's. He graduated with honors and above average SAT scores and was accepted to George Mason University. I think he was also awarded some scholarships from local contests.Once he got there, he was lost and had to take some remedial classes just to get on par with his fellow students. He wrote a very articulate letter to the editor detailing all of this to make the general public aware of just how underserved the children were in that school system and appealing to the city to do what was necessary to provide a better quality education. Sadly, from what I've read in the papers recently, his pleas have gone unheeded and that system still has as bad a repuatation and is failing NCLB accredidation requirements.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Jun 20, 2013 12:19:55 GMT -5
well - tests are not perfect measurements and yet so many assume that they are and that decisions should be based on the numbers as if the numbers are perfect representations of the person's knowledge or ability. ... ...Test scores for college admission aren't Olympic medals, they are a predictive tool. But to get the best prediction, you have to put in all the variables. Rukh - I didn't want to re-post your whole detail but let me say I've heard this alluded to but never had anyone take the time to explain it so well, thanks. If I understand, we now know that how a test is written can be biased. Do we know enough to write tests that are not biased? If we have this capability and still test using biased means then that should be fixed. As far as test scores being a predictive tool and not measuring all the variables I understand that as well. However as it's almost impossible to be able to gather and analyze every variable, some criteria has to be developed to measure probablity of success. If not a test, then what can be used?
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jun 20, 2013 12:21:40 GMT -5
Isn't it a combination of performance in high school, SAT scores, recommendations and the application essay?
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Jun 20, 2013 12:34:34 GMT -5
<quote>Isn't it a combination of performance in high school, SAT scores, recommendations and the application essay?</quote>
I wouldn't know since it's been a century or so since I went to school.
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haapai
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Post by haapai on Jun 20, 2013 12:46:48 GMT -5
The schools will tell you what criteria are used but not necessarily how they are weighted. To get a feeling for how the elements are weighted and where the cutoffs are, I would recommend looking up old, leaked, and superceded admissions scoring systems.
You might be surprised how little weight test scores carry these days. The difficulty of the high school cirricula and difficulty of high school scores are rapidly growing in importance.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Jun 20, 2013 12:48:42 GMT -5
Rukh O'Rorke - @tbird just curious - is this the area you're persuing your Master's in? You seem to be well versed in it... wait, is it rukh or tbird?
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on Jun 20, 2013 13:00:29 GMT -5
well - tests are not perfect measurements and yet so many assume that they are and that decisions should be based on the numbers as if the numbers are perfect representations of the person's knowledge or ability. ... ...Test scores for college admission aren't Olympic medals, they are a predictive tool. But to get the best prediction, you have to put in all the variables. Rukh - I didn't want to re-post your whole detail but let me say I've heard this alluded to but never had anyone take the time to explain it so well, thanks. If I understand, we now know that how a test is written can be biased. Do we know enough to write tests that are not biased? If we have this capability and still test using biased means then that should be fixed. As far as test scores being a predictive tool and not measuring all the variables I understand that as well. However as it's almost impossible to be able to gather and analyze every variable, some criteria has to be developed to measure probablity of success. If not a test, then what can be used? The test doesn't need to be biased to have such different results. If you have two groups of students with equal education and ability, and most of the kids in one group do professional test prep while most of the kids in another do not, then the two groups will have very different test results but will do the same in college.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Jun 20, 2013 13:16:31 GMT -5
Rukh - I didn't want to re-post your whole detail but let me say I've heard this alluded to but never had anyone take the time to explain it so well, thanks. If I understand, we now know that how a test is written can be biased. Do we know enough to write tests that are not biased? If we have this capability and still test using biased means then that should be fixed. As far as test scores being a predictive tool and not measuring all the variables I understand that as well. However as it's almost impossible to be able to gather and analyze every variable, some criteria has to be developed to measure probablity of success. If not a test, then what can be used? The test doesn't need to be biased to have such different results. If you have two groups of students with equal education and ability, and most of the kids in one group do professional test prep while most of the kids in another do not, then the two groups will have very different test results but will do the same in college. 100% agree! Prof test prep classes around here start at $1000. I also wonder how many students whose parents didn't go to college know how important the test prep classes are.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jun 20, 2013 13:21:30 GMT -5
Even if they know, they might not support it. I think my husband's parents don't like the idea of college educations. They offered to pay for bible college for each of their sons, because faith is more important than anything. But, outside of that, absolutely no help on college. And not "no help" meaning no financial help, I mean "no help" as in, not discussing it, not helping a 16 year old figure out how to sign up for the SAT, not encouraging any research on different colleges, just nothing. If he wants to go to college so bad, he should figure it out himself.
It takes a lot of work to get to college. I didn't realize how much until I met people whose parents were not supportive at all. There are a lot of people out there who don't want their kids to get educated. A lot of people hate college educated people.
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movingforward
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Post by movingforward on Jun 20, 2013 13:25:27 GMT -5
Even if they know, they might not support it. I think my husband's parents don't like the idea of college educations. They offered to pay for bible college for each of their sons, because faith is more important than anything. But, outside of that, absolutely no help on college. And not "no help" meaning no financial help, I mean "no help" as in, not discussing it, not helping a 16 year old figure out how to sign up for the SAT, not encouraging any research on different colleges, just nothing. If he wants to go to college so bad, he should figure it out himself. It takes a lot of work to get to college. I didn't realize how much until I met people whose parents were not supportive at all. There are a lot of people out there who don't want their kids to get educated. A lot of people hate college educated people.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Jun 20, 2013 13:34:28 GMT -5
Even if they know, they might not support it. I think my husband's parents don't like the idea of college educations. They offered to pay for bible college for each of their sons, because faith is more important than anything. But, outside of that, absolutely no help on college. And not "no help" meaning no financial help, I mean "no help" as in, not discussing it, not helping a 16 year old figure out how to sign up for the SAT, not encouraging any research on different colleges, just nothing. If he wants to go to college so bad, he should figure it out himself. It takes a lot of work to get to college. I didn't realize how much until I met people whose parents were not supportive at all. There are a lot of people out there who don't want their kids to get educated. A lot of people hate college educated people. DH always said his family had a love hate relationship with education. they would say going to college is good, but in the next breath mention that, name a profession like mechanics, were "honest professions" or "worked for a living" or some other thing that meant the people were better people. His dream was to be an engineer, but until he actually went to college he had never heard someone say the word without putting the words "God damned fucking" in front of it.
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on Jun 20, 2013 13:37:01 GMT -5
Or they see college as a waste of time because they 'did just fine without one thank you very much'. Not everyone runs in circles of people who are college educated and for whom the degree was necessary and worth the cost. I'm not sure if this is the case now, but in high school and college, the black kids absolutely shunned the hard sciences, even though connections and mentoring are generally a lot less important in those fields.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 20, 2013 13:41:20 GMT -5
I took no college prep SAT classes. I scored very well. I also went to a POS high school where anyone who went to college went to the local CC which was then referred to as high school with smoking. The difference was my Dad who was self taught and used the same tricks on me including the Readers Digest word power inserts. Or paying me a nickel for every big word I used, could spell, and tell him the meaning of.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jun 20, 2013 13:41:42 GMT -5
LOL beachbum. With the exception of breaking a commandment and cursing, my husband's parents are like that. Last Christmas I was talking to my niece about college. She was going, and working and stopped taking classes. She has a really good job, but she is lukewarm on it, and was expressing that. My FIL jumped all over me. That she didn't need to go to college because she had a good job and was doing great and not everyone needed to go to college. Meanwhile, my MIL took all the credit when my husband got his degree and his law degree - not even acknowledging that I was the one who bankrolled it and picked up the slack at home. WTF??
So, 18 years into this family, I guess I get to be the uppity bitch who thinks no one is good enough unless they go to college, yet they are the ones that raised and educated such a smart boy that he could be so successful. Whatever.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 20, 2013 13:42:43 GMT -5
My kids took no SAT prep courses, either. I couldn't afford them. DSs SAT scores were almost perfect. DDs were close enough to it. Perhaps all three of us were just good test takers.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jun 20, 2013 13:45:20 GMT -5
Maybe your whiteness transcends your ability to pay for the prep course.
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haapai
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Post by haapai on Jun 20, 2013 13:46:15 GMT -5
I took no college prep SAT classes. I scored very well. I also went to a POS high school where anyone who went to college went to the local CC which was then referred to as high school with smoking. The difference was my Dad who was self taught and used the same tricks on me including the Readers Digest word power inserts. Or paying me a nickel for every big word I used, could spell, and tell him the meaning of. Zib, you had 17 years of test prep. It just wasn't called that.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Jun 20, 2013 13:47:16 GMT -5
LOL beachbum. With the exception of breaking a commandment and cursing, my husband's parents are like that. Last Christmas I was talking to my niece about college. She was going, and working and stopped taking classes. She has a really good job, but she is lukewarm on it, and was expressing that. My FIL jumped all over me. That she didn't need to go to college because she had a good job and was doing great and not everyone needed to go to college. Meanwhile, my MIL took all the credit when my husband got his degree and his law degree - not even acknowledging that I was the one who bankrolled it and picked up the slack at home. WTF??
So, 18 years into this family, I guess I get to be the uppity bitch who thinks no one is good enough unless they go to college, yet they are the ones that raised and educated such a smart boy that he could be so successful. Whatever. That's exactly how it worked when DH went back to college in his thirties! DH's family still brings up how proud they are that their boy got a masters. Every now and then I want to ask if they are the same people who told him he was not allowed to go to college when he was graduating HS?
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movingforward
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Post by movingforward on Jun 20, 2013 13:48:07 GMT -5
I took the SAT prep course but it counted as part of an elective at my school. It didn't cost anything. Did I just luck out
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