It is a known that many left white persons believe that black people are children who are not to be held responsible for their own actions. In addition lefty white people believe that that black people are generally less intelligent and capable than white people and therefore
need white assistance in order to make it. This is in contrast to many on the right who also think that black people are children and are less intelligent than white people. While both parties believe the same things, the latter do not make excuses. Those on the right with the stated position, believe that black people need to stop behaving in such a manner if for no other reason that they do not want to pay taxes to support said behavior or be victims of crimes perpetrated by those persons. Similarly, in stark contrast to the left, righty types do not want to lower standards. Rather they are pretty much accepting (if not liking) of black people who can hold their own without artificial props. Again for no other reason that if you work a job, the presence of un or under qualified persons can in many cases be a life threatening situation. Indeed, being careless about you job in say space travel or vehicle development can result in many deaths. This brings us to the topic at hand.
Meet NYC Mayor De Blasio. He thinks that the post prestigious and most difficult NYC public schools to get into should "reflect the demographics of the city". And by that he doesn't mean the academic demographics.
In the face of growing pressure to tackle New York City’s widespread school segregation, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Saturday a proposal that would change how students are admitted to eight of the city’s specialized high schools, a group of highly sought-after institutions where students gain entry based on a single test.
Let me repeat for the hard of hearing: Segregation is not legal in the United States. There are no segregated schools in NYC. Schools are attended by students in a district. You live in a district you go to the local school unless you test into a different school. There are no laws on the books that says that black students cannot go to x, y or z schools. There is a
difference between separation and segregation. Learn it.
Black and Hispanic students, who make up 67 percent of the public school population, are grossly underrepresented at the specialized high schools, which include Stuyvesant High School and the Bronx High School of Science.
Who makes up the majority of students at these elite schools. If you said "white" you got the big X. Also, of the black students that make the grade, did you know that most of them are children of immigrants?
Mr. de Blasio campaigned on the issue when he first ran for mayor in 2013, saying the specialized schools should “reflect the city better,” but he has yet to make a dent in the problem. This year, black and Latino students received just 10 percent of the offered seats at specialized high schools, a percentage that has held essentially flat for years.
What does "reflect the city better" mean? Since admission offers are based on results of an exam open to any student, the schools do in fact "reflect the city". What they reflect is the academic performance of the various groups in NYC. For example, the above quote contains a link to another
NYT piece where it is stated:
At Stuyvesant, the most competitive of the schools, only 10 black students and 27 Latino students received offers this year; last year, the comparable numbers were 13 and 28.
There are 3,356 students in Stuyvesant. 13 black students? In a school that takes an exam to get into? The problem is not "segregation" people.
“The Specialized High School Admissions Test isn’t just flawed — it’s a roadblock to justice, progress and academic excellence,” Mr. de Blasio wrote in an op-ed published Saturday on the education website Chalkbeat.
Expecting black students to pass an exam that Asian and white students pass is an "injustice" and a roadblock. We have certainly moved on from the whole content of character thing haven't we?
In the linked ChalkBeat article we find the following:
There’s also a geographic problem. There are almost 600 middle schools citywide. Yet, half the students admitted to the specialized high schools last year came from just 21 of those schools. For a perfect illustration of disparity: Just 14 percent of students at Bronx Science come from the Bronx.
If only 21 of the 600 middle schools in NY are producing half the entrants to the elite high schools, then it means that a large number of the middle schools in NY have not too bright students in them.
Can anyone defend this? Can anyone look the parent of a Latino or black child in the eye and tell them their precious daughter or son has an equal chance to get into one of their city’s best high schools? Can anyone say this is the America we signed up for?
I didn't sign up for an America where the NYC Mayor can make speeches about how my people should not be expected to meet the standards that everyone else has to meet. Also, any parent who tells their kid that the reason they didn't get into any of the elite high schools is "racism" rather than that they failed to meet the standards is a failure of a parent.
Then we get the double talk:
So let me be clear. The new system we’re fighting for will raise the bar at the specialized high schools in every way. The pool of talent is going to expand widely and rapidly. That’s going to up the level of competition. The students who emerge from the new process will make these schools even stronger.
The city already messed with the test and saw no change in admissions. Now they want to set aside seats for students who cannot qualify under the exam that every other student must meet. Yet this is called "raising the bar". If you're dumb enough to believe that double talk, you deserve to have your fellow employees or fellow students look at you as an unqualified Affirmative Action case.
The most significant change Mr. de Blasio proposed was replacing the test, called the SHSAT, with a new method that would admit students based on their class rank at their middle school and their scores on statewide standardized tests.
After telling us that most of the 600 middle schools are basically shit when it comes to graduating students prepared to do elite level school work, we are to believe that the top students of all these shit schools are just as good as anyone who passed the test. Really.
Beginning in the fall of 2019, the city would set aside 20 percent of seats in each specialized school for low-income students who score just below the cutoff; those students would be able to earn their spot by attending a summer session called the Discovery program. Five percent of seats for this year’s ninth graders were awarded this way, the city said.
The only reason they are using the term "poor" is because if it was explicitly "black" the courts would be forced to strike it down. Did you know that Queens county has perhaps the largest high income black population in NYC? Yet there is no discussion of getting these relatively well off black students into this pool. Why not?
Let me close this post with a personal account. I took the test for the elite schools. I did not do well. I was and am brighter than most but I was not material for that group. I did test into another school and did well there. I graduated with a decent GPA. I was accepted to all colleges I applied for save Cornell. They gave me a deferred admission. So I went elsewhere for two years. I beat up all classes at that level except for calculus which kicked my entire ass. I transferred to Cornell and proceeded to have the worst academic year of my entire life. I can excuse some of it to the fact that I fell ill (hospitalized) for a good week during my first semester with a total two weeks where I couldn't do much of anything. But I'm grown enough to admit that I was in way over my head. I recognized almost immediately that I was with an entirely different level of student. I was simply not prepared to go at the rate and depth that they were. No shame in that. I would have done better to stay where I was.
This is what's going to happen to a lot of these students who get in because of the wish to "diversify" the schools. They will find themselves out of their depth. They will need tutoring. They will get low grades (or inflated grades). They will have a really hard time and not a few will fail out and have to transfer to a less advanced school. Luckily they won't have thousands in debt to pay off for this experiment.
These calls to "diversify" schools, businesses and whathaveyou where standards are lowered flies in the face of equality. Equality of outcome is not equality it is like segregation in that it forces an outcome regardless of what people can or want to do. The best way for black people to get respect is to stop asking for special favors and to buckle down and do the work. Get your kids off the phones.
Keep your kids off the TV and the internet equivalents[
2][
3]. Make 'em read. Stimulate the minds and hope they have the right genetics.
