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Houston's Gifted Education Program Biased Against Blacks and Latinos
tiberus sends an NPR report investigating the fairness of gifted and talented programs in Houston schools. Analysts believe black and hispanic students are at put at a disadvantage because of the way in which the program is run. Quoting:
Donna Ford, at Vanderbilt University, thinks that put Isaac at a disadvantage. She's been researching gifted education for decades, and when it comes to Houston's program she says, "I think it's a clear case of segregation, gifted education being segregated by race and income." Houston school leaders asked Ford to take a close look at their enrollment in the program, and she gave it a failing grade. "Racial bias has to be operating, inequities are rampant. Discrimination does exist whether intentional or unintentional," she told the school board in May of this year. Ford found that both Hispanic and black students are underrepresented in gifted programs and that black students are missing out the most. She also found that about half the seats in those programs go to higher-income students, even though the majority of the district is poor.
If the tests are too easy, the kids aren't "gifted."
If they don't pass the test, then they aren't "gifted."
If the test uses words they don't understand, then what words would the researcher suggest the tests use that aren't "culturally biased?" Using three letter words well isn't a sign of ability.
In other words she is so full of crap. Maybe the kids that are in the program are better than other kids because of things like their parents care enough to insure the kid is doing their homework, is responsible etc.
This whole institutional racism crap is just that crap. If she had evidence that a school or teacher blatantly excluded kids of a minority group that would be different but what she is spouting is SJW at its finest.
at put at: noun derisive term denoting an illiterate moron in an editorial position
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
I think all one needs to do is read up on the person quoted in the article. I'm sure she doesn't have an agenda:
http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/...
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
There is no way coming from a higher income home that can provide a healthy environment and extracurricular education tools and opportunites could have a bearing on the ability of the child to rate higher than those coming from poor households.
How is it unfair or racist by default if you only look at the demographic data. Only the test scores should matter.
Odd that the bias didn't extend to Asians or Indians or other minority groups. I wonder what can explain that?
>>>"Racial bias has to be operating, inequities are rampant. Discrimination does exist whether intentional or unintentional"
What if discrimination is genetic? That is, there are more gifted kids born to high-status high-income parents. If you want to re-define gifted to be more affirmative, then you will have to use different definitions of 'gifted' for each socioeconomic class.
Darwin taught us about selection for traits, why are we failing to notice obvious here?
Donna Ford immediately leaps to the conclusion that the issue is racism. More probing would probably indicate that the majority of the minority households in that area are probably single parent households, possibly with parents working low paying jobs, and\or working more than one job to make ends meet. This means that the parent is not fully invested in the upbringing of their child - probably not for lack of caring, but for lack of time or understanding about what education means to advancing yourself in society. The result is that the kid spends more time with friends and is heavily influenced by the dumb-assed decisions that all kids make.
If the tests are too easy, the kids aren't "gifted."
If they don't pass the test, then they aren't "gifted."
If the test uses words they don't understand, then what words would the researcher suggest the tests use that aren't "culturally biased?" Using three letter words well isn't a sign of ability.
A lot depends on how you're testing for giftedness.
Unfortunately if you don't have money or education yourself, your kids are much less likely to, so someone from a poverty-stricken background or with parents who aren't formally educated are on average going to do much worse on tests. They may also tend to be non-white. That's not racism, but it does create a systemic bias where you place people based on the money and education of their parents.
What we really need is enrichment programs designed to counteract that starting from a young age. A giftedness program isn't that unless we *make* it that.
But if we do use a giftedness program for that, we should be explicit about it--state whether the goal is to be representative of the population or to take the highest-scorers, for example.
The underlying assumption of this, and of "tech employee representation" being that any given subgroup retains all the demographics and characteristics of the larger group and any deviation from that is an anomaly.
Get back to me when there is outrage that men are only 10% of the population in teaching and nursing careers. Why aren't we channeling funding to make teaching and nursing careers appealing to male students? Oh, because male students get to choose careers while minorities and female students are weak and unable to pursue the repressed interests that statistics say they must secretly harbor.
"the local school tested Isaac in kindergarten for the gifted and talented program, he didn't qualify."
How are these tests carried out. Do the examination markers know the genetic background of the pupils. Who verifies the results?
The article does not provide sufficient information to support meaningful discussion or criticism. The article does not provide justification or data, only high-level conclusions. Those conclusions only apply to a particular implementation of a program in a particular state, so no generalizations are made. It does not provide any links to information about he program or the research. Unless someone wants to do that research and provide it in the summary, there is simply nothing to see here.
This is one of the problems with identifying true discrimination... in fact often identifying what is considered discrimination is a challenge.
I know these programs as I was in several as a youth. I didn't have much growing up but my parents took the time to research and find these programs and then enroll us and get us there. When I hear these kinds of reports I cringe and go... it's not a discrimination issue in the normal meaning. It's about families that make the time, provide the environmnet and find ways to get their kids enrolled and in these kinds of programs.
Unfortunately there is currently a correlation between lower income and black/hispanic families. That doesn't always mean the two are connected. You could do a similar comparison when looking at the food people eat. Lower income families don't eat as healthy due to a cost. Pure and simple.
If we back away from simply looking at gifted programs and look at the entire school experience, including English Language Learners (where English is a second language) or supplemental reading programs and even free and reduced price lunches, we find that all kids are getting their fair share of unbiased attention. Also, being in a gifted program is tough. Kids will shy away from the tough classes if they are concerned that it will negatively affect their GPA and possibly a scholarship. As a school board member, I just had a debate with middle and high school students about this very issue. GPA is king at college admissions and risking it just to say you were in a gifted class doesn't appeal to many students.
If there is one thing an intelligent being understands it is how to successfully survive in the culture in which it lives. With newspapers, television, and radio being ubiquitous there is no way any person in the US today can not know what the cultural norms are.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I have a very simple question. Is the selection in any way race based. Or is it that the merit based results end up segregated. If a critical step involves interviews or some such where otherwise high performing blacks are eliminated then this is very very bad. But if even slightly race identifying aspects such as name and school are anonymised during the selection process then I am 100% fine with whatever outcome results. The key is that they don't ruin the superior nature of the school by artificially promoting kids who are not ready. The key is to identify the poorer performing schools and improve them to the point where every kid in the school system has an equal opportunity to perform to the limits of their natural ability and then let the cards fall where they may.
If they force these kids into the program then the entire program's purpose will have changed from finding the best of the best to making pseudo intellectuals feel better about themselves.
This might be a controversial opinion, and I work in education so that's dangerous, but it's a purely mathematical one.
What if, the percentage of blacks, hispanics, and rich-kids that are able to achieve a particular set criteria (not based on anything but particular achievements to rigorously tested levels) is less than that of other groups?
Seriously. It doesn't have to be racism to show such a trend. In fact, the "rich-kid" portion is immensely telling in itself. Rich-kids are more likely to have a higher level of education than the average than poor kids? Really? Gosh, I'm shocked to my very core.
Now, I see nothing to suggest that any race is biologically intellectually inferior to any other, given the same set of circumstances (income, family support, encouragement from peers, etc.). If you draw a line, therefore, and the criteria aren't directly based on income, for example, the people who passed met a fair criteria and those that didn't couldn't meet that criteria. That there's a disproportionality in race, gender, sexual orientation, height, obesity or anything else doesn't warrant lowering the criteria piecemeal or case-by-case - if anything, it's a perfect social indicator of exactly what's going on.
But a program for gifted students WILL NOT reflect the perfect statistical averages that you desire. It won't. Nor will a driving test, or a test for astronauts ("Oh, no, we have had disproportionally less Chinese astronauts than Soviet, therefore we must be being racist! Quick, let's change the test so it doesn't matter if you spend your life throwing up in space, so long as the percentages are right!")/ It'll reflect those that are classed as - literally - above their peer average. That may only coincide with a perfect subsection through society in a completely perfect society.
Now, you could argue that we should adjust the gifted-program to take account of this. But that takes a specific set of levelled tests, not inherently biased against those groups, and modifies it based on the politics and economics of the day. It's that kind of shit that leads to immense watering down of qualifications. "Oh, because you had a cold on the exam day, you should be given higher marks than the guy who's better than you but didn't" - extreme exaggeration but that's basically the implication at play. Personally, I find "Oh, you are classed as gifted because although you did less well than this guy, you're black so we have to take that into account" INCREDIBLY offensive, to everyone and to common sense.
Or you could, you know, invest in programs specifically designed to get black, hispanic, poor, whatever kids the same quality of education and support as enjoyed by their peers. That's the goal, and that's what happens already, and that's the way forward. Not to single out groups and say "Aw, diddums, did we not pass the test? Okay, never mind, what's your skin colour, medical history, and all possible mitigating factors? We just fiddle the criteria so they don't apply to YOU."
If you set a fair criteria and someone doesn't meet it, you don't change the criteria, you identify the source problem (which may be as simple as economic disadvantage) and solve that instead if you want proportionality.
It's incredibly offensive to suggest that the next five presidents should be of Asian descent, or female, just because there haven't been any of those yet so we're "misrepresenting". No. You put it to a vote and the person with the most votes wins. No matter their colour. But if none of the CANDIDATES are Asian, say, you don't take that as inherent racism... maybe no Asian people applied! Through chance, or not being eligible or whatever other reason.
I hate FORCED equality. It's reverse racism and that doesn't make it right either. "Sorry, you couldn't get this job because we HAVE to hire X amount of disabled people and you're not disabled." That's NOT how you put society on an equal footing.
You want to fix the problem - find out why kids from thos
Talented & Gifted programs are specifically high-IQ (as they're based on the same rules that set up special education classes for low-IQ students).
IQ tests have been shown to be culturally biased (and thus indirectly racially biased), as there's an assumption that people will have certain cultural knowledge & norms.
Take for instance the question "What are the four seasons?". For someone in Alaska, when they hear 'seasons' they might not think about the winter/spring/summer/autumn cycle, but might instead respond with hunting/trapping periods (moose, fishing, etc.).
Questions about nature might be easy for someone who lives in a rural or suburban area, but more difficult for someone who lives in an inner-city.
Questions about place settings at a dinner table (eg, cup & saucer) might be easier for someone from a higher socio-economic group than for someone who is food-insecure.
These may not be direct racial bias, but they can negatively skew test scores for people of non-European descent.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
It could also be a question of cultural competence. Higher income people tend to have more education so they know how the educational system works. Thus they can position their kids to do well on the tests, as was suggested by the article.
A good example of this is jigsaw puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles were one of the first tests used to measure IQ. In response, middle class parents bought more jigsaw puzzles. Their kid’s IQ increased. So, does exposing children raise their IQ or does it just help in passing a test? If it is just the latter than there are issues that need to be addressed.
On a side note, the article made me chuckle a little. I went to a magnet school in Houston many years ago. Back then its criteria was explicitly racist. Houston was under a court order to integrate. All of the white rich kids went to private school leaving behind poor black kids, so there was nobody left to integrate. The magnet schools were created to lure white children into the system so some balance could be achieved.
One of the biggest issues in education is always going to be how to characterize the educational potential for the children who go into the program. There are challenges for every gifted program:
*Are the tests written in such a way that there is a cultural bias?
*Are parents able to truly critically assess their children's intelligence or learning capacity *relative to the child's peers'?
*Is the program supposed to be about advanced training for children who meet certain standards, or is its supposed to be a program that is supposed to confer equal opportunity by conferring special programs on children.
Let's take Johnny. He's a smart kid, probably has the neurochemical make-up to be some sort of a genius. The problem is, he's retained less knowledge that can be used to adequately assess his raw intelligence through a common battery of questions. Why? He has no books or educational material. His parents aren't home enough to read to him or attend to his learning. They don't have money to ensure that he attends schools. How does someone test him fairly?
Let's take Suzie, she's not necessarily at the same level as Johnny, but her parents have been able to ensure that she has obtained skills and knowledge that are considered to be desirable. It is not a requirement for Suzie's parent's to be rich or white or asian, but those backgrounds make it a lot easier for Suzie to be exposed to knowledge that will be on that test because there is a higher overall income for those families. The parents have better jobs, they can spend money and time on their kids, on average. In some cases, there is also a huge cultural value placed on education.
The reality is: poor kids are not always going to fail to be seen as gifted, but there are huge challenges. Kids are tested young for their intelligence, and so parental involvement is huge at that point. It doesn't matter if I have Einstein's brain if that brain potential is underdeveloped. Brains aren't CPUs that you can hook up a hard drive to and then they produce at their capability.
In other words, if you want to run a program for children seen as gifted, you have to define what gifted *is*, and then test for that. If you're testing children who are more advanced in their skills at a certain point, the fact is, you're going to have more rich and racial privileged kids in there. And you're *not* going to be able to change that by simply being more "inclusive". You need to raise the level of skills of the less skilled kids. And the only way to do that is extra work.
On the other hand, if you want to find people who have pure, raw potential, irrespective of background, you're probably going to have to start testing brain chemistry, even looking at DNA. That may work, insofar as ensuring that there is a purely "potential" based criteria. But even then, if you want those children to actually retain skills and knowledge, you're going to need to make up for their lack of opportunity in the home for extra learning and discipline.
"Racial bias has to be operating, inequities are rampant..."
To assume that gifted people should be scattered equally among all socio-economic demographics is absurd. To the extent that gifted children have gifted parents (which is reasonable), and to the extent that being gifted allows you to avoid poverty in adulthood (which is also reasonable), we should not be surprised at these results.
I guess a point could be made that gifted black parents who had gifted children were not historically given the chance to pull themselves or their children out of poverty, but inequities alone do not indicate any bias.
I find myself objecting to the word "gifted" as applied to students (or anyone). It seems to me the level of skill has less to do with the innate genetic makeup or god-given gifts than the advantages of the learning environment.
I didn't always feel this way: My daughter went to Montessori school and was always in the advanced or gifted programs in Public High School. I'm now convinced that she acquired these "gifts" as a result of hard work, great teachers, and good parental coaching and encouragement.
I also think the researcher had an agenda, but I think the main problem stems from two false premises:
First, I think it is false that you can manufacture "educated" citizens in the same way as you manufacture consumer goods. I suspect the whole concept of "Public" Education" is fundamentally flawed. http://www.amazon.com/Undergro...
Second, I think the assumption that a disparity in numbers between races or cultures in the USA reflects deliberate racism is flawed.
I also disagree strongly with many current arguments on "egalitarianism" and the war on "social differences," but that is obviously a discussion too big for a /. forum.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Keep in mind that Houston, TX is the most diverse city in the nation!!!
The problem isn't racial, it's cultural all that it entails in raising children to reach their maximum potential. Now you can argue that certain groups of poor and underclass people are generationally stuck in a vicious circle, sure. But, it's not like certain people far abstracted from the individual are going "hmm gee, that person is black, and that person is hispanic...denied!!!" No, it doesn't work that way. It's all metric driven; and if the children of these two groups don't meet the qualifications in terms of grades and score count, what else do you think is going to happen?
link text
Life is not for the lazy.
The program is likely more accelerated or "deep diving" into subjects than "gifted" for students that would otherwise get bored in a program because it is going too slowly. The problem is likely less to do with the program and more to do with the children's home life and parents. If you have parents that have a generally higher education, or interact more with their children at a younger age.... then the child is likely to be more likely to be suited for the accelerated programs later. Therefore targeting the program as the source of the problem is likely targeting the symptom rather than the problem.
The amount of those scholarships shows clearly that intelligence is not evenly distributed among the human races. Some are more intelligent than others.
There is another factor which is completely left out, the parents and their culture. Note the article says whites and asians. I would argue a white or asian parent is more likely to push their kids towards getting good grades. My parents were pretty low income and yet we were expected to bring home good grades. No excuses. I certainly see higher incomes as having an advantage, but cultural norms are a factor as well. I don't know how you would fix cultural norms except by taking the kids away from the parents and adopt them into families with high educational expectations.
Ford found that both Hispanic and black students are underrepresented in gifted programs and that black students are missing out the most.
That is NOT the same as saying the program is "biased against Hispanic and black students" or discriminatory.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I attended elementary school in HISD and middle/high in SBISD. The article doesn't quite get to the root of the issue. The issue is that the programs tend to be targeted towards long time residents with a lot of cultural and political capital. These are the people that can make or break the career of a school administrator, so they get deference. This can happen because information about the programs are not publicized much. It's also expensive to run GT programs and the system doesn't want too many kids qualifying. As a result, the kids who end up in GT programs are those whose parents know all about the program (from knowing other parents with kids in the program) and have the wherewithal to lobby teachers to recommend their kids for testing and advocate that the kid get put in the appropriate program.
To illustrate how this works: my parents were not from Houston, but settled in the town shortly before I was born. They knew to get me tested, and I scored at a level that qualified me for any of HISD's gifted programs. However, what my parents were not told (and what could not easily be found out in a pre-internet age), was that there were actually multiple levels of gifted program. While I qualified for the higher tier program, nobody told my parents about it, and I ended up in the lower-tier program by default. My local school wanted it that way because I was a guaranteed pass on state standardized tests and the higher-tier program would have involved a transfer to a gifted magnet school. By the time my parents figured it out, we were moving to a nearby district that had a completely different system.
As far as the test being biased, it may be, but only to the extent IQ tests are biased. As far as I know, they are still using a version of an IQ test for selection, with certain additional diversity points available for kids on the margin. For a young child, providing some familiarity with the test could be helpful, so there's probably some benefit to savvy parents prepping. But I doubt any tweaks to testing procedures would make up for the cultural capital factor.
Obviously all the questions you posed are culturally biased because they all ask for knowledge (partially even of cultural norms).
IQ test do not ask for knowledge but the ability to process knowledge. I.e. they normally provide all the information you need. See e.g. http://www.intelligencetest.co... .
Surely, one can train to be good at such test (simply doing them once or twice will probably enormously help as one then has some basic understanding on how they work). So there will be a bias towards parents who care enough to run their child through them at least once, which tend to be the middle-class and up.
But it has nothing to do with your made up questions.
A concerto composed by Antonio Vivaldi. Bonus points if you can actually play it.
And if you ask Ben Carson, it isn't about race so much as the foresight and will of the parent(s).
The "analysts" quoted in TFA believe, the intelligence is spread equally among all income-groups and races — it is their axiom. Therefore, when they see any disproportion, they treat it as evidence of bias — case closed:
A completely different result can be obtained from a different axiom: that tests are blind to the testee's color and background, and test simply for the actual ability. From this follows a different result — poor and Black children are less able — whether it is due to genes or upbringing is irrelevant.
Obviously, the second result is politically incorrect and that's why NPR is carrying the article. But, despite being politically incorrect, it may still be correct — and any attempts to force a change would be very wrong.
I say, any proponents of a change in the rules must positively identify what specifically is leading to the discrimination they allege to happen. The burden of proof is on them.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If you want a quick science-based tour of the same issues, but with some pointers to actual studies, and written by a very smart woman, then I recommend this:
http://mitadmissions.org/blogs...
Look up Donna Ford's bio at Vanderbilt and you get this as her "Research Area":
Gifted with emphasis on minority children and youth; recruitment and retention of diverse students in gifted education; underachievement among diverse students; equity issues in testing and assessment; multicultural education; issues in urban education.
So basically Ford's entire area of expertise depends on FINDING bias in these programs. Perhaps she should acquaint herself with Confirmation Bias. If you look hard enough for anything, you'll find it whether it's there or not.
Further, the bias is explained by Ford as a fault of the gifted program, but she completely neglects CULTURAL FACTORS that also bias gifted involvement. There is, generally speaking, a cultural bias in the black community AGAINST academic excellence. It even has a name: "acting white." Blacks who use proper spelling and grammar are called "Oreo's," a derogatory term indicating they're "black on the outside but white on the inside." This is especially bad in poorer neighborhoods where "leaving the hood" is considered akin to being a racial traitor. Act like a thug, dress like a thug, eschew education in favor of "hanging out" and you're accepted. Anything else and you're ostracized.
Don't believe it? Ask around. It's common knowledge. Nobody wants to say it but everyone knows it's going on.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Build the wall and kick the undocumented immigrant kids out that will free up some slots.
People have this fetish for tests because they are under the delusion that they were created by people who know what and how to measure what they think is important for scoring people's ability of a certain skill or aptitude.
No, it's because they want an objective measurement, rather than subjective one.
Even a test that asks kids about rappers and ebonics is still objective, even if it is biased.
You may not like the tests or think they are testing the right things, but you still need tests. The alternative is to allow a system of favoritism.
So black culture makes sure its members know that getting an education and trying to do well in school is "acting white" and should be frowned upon and it's the gifted student program that's racist. That makes perfect sense.
Race, income/socieoconomic status, language/English-proficiency, what culture or sub-culture you are raised in, and other factors that are (for now at least) correlated with each other make it hard to say "X is biased against [racial/ethnic group]" with certainty.
Yes, maybe racial bias exists.
Or maybe the bias is a purely economic one.
Or maybe it's a bias against people whose parents are not college graduates/parents who do not demonstrate "we value our kid's education" in the way that the school system "expects" them to.
Or maybe it's a language-barrier bias against kids who don't enter Kindergarten with the same English-speaking and ready-to-learn-to-read-English skills that the "average white middle class kid" has.
But none of those are racial/ethnic bias.
On the other hand, it COULD be a sign of either "racial bias due to 'blindness'" or, insidious but unlikely, "deliberate racial bias" under the guise of socioeconomic discrimination or some other factor that isn't quite as socially frowned upon/outright-illegal.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So we have standardized testing and test results in Texas so you can see the raw scores -- and the economic/racial demographic breakdowns of every public school. Remember the No child left behind stuff?
So the measuring stick is out there plain for anyone to see. Problem is no one seems to want to change anything or do anything about it.
There is systematic economic segregation (which is correlated with race). In our instance in Austin we had a great neighborhood, but with a bad school.
A big public apartment complex -- transplants from Katrina disaster brought the level of our elementary down, and had a downward spiral effect with anyone with the means to get out of there. If you look at the test scores compared with the neighborhood across the street huge differences. Less than 10% of the elementary were in accelerated or GT programs. Vs across the street it was 50% of the students were GT / accelerated. I don't thing 50% of rich kids are Gifted and Talented but they perform better on the tests and get to go to better schools.
So what's the difference between across the street -- just the price of houses. You pay to be in a good school by your neighborhood you live in. It made me sick to do it but we moved so we could have our daughter in an environment where she wouldn't be the oddball if she did good in school.
The only way to give equal opportunity would be to break this economic segregation and do intentional economic integration. If you mix in the poor performers with the good ones I think that would give the poor performers with some natural ability but bad circumstances a fighting chance. As it stands now the home and school environment are pitted against them.
It's obvious that the criminal justice system is prejudiced against them. Therefore enough men should be released from the prisons until equality is achieved!
The population there is overwhelmingly male, so it's obvious there is a serious gender bias in the criminal justice system. Release enough male prisoners until there's equality of numbers...
I was invited and attended a gifted program as a high schooler. This school was in a "poor" area of the city and predominantly black and Latin students attended. This high school program was very difficult compared to the average honers program. The program was "racist" then in the early 90's because it was mostly white kids, me, and some Asians, and of course there were Latin and black students in the program but not many. I am of the opinion the education begets education. My parents were both educated and so I came at school from at advantage and it served me well. I think this is Houston in this case.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What problem does the so-called "gifted" solve?
Without knowing the exact problem, it is hard to tell whether the solution is working, right?
A problem exists when either:
1. there is a discrepancy between what you want and what you get, or
2. there is an opportunity being missed and something desirable is not being acquired/achieved.
Now, in my little universe, I operate under a few assumptions:
DATA is everywhere
DATA classified becomes INFORMATION
INFORMATION that describes how the world works becomes KNOWLEDGE
KNOWLEDGE helps us make better DECISIONS
DECISIONS precede ACTIONS
In order to transform DATA into DECISIONS, we learn certain SKILLS
So, in my little universe, the ideal education system would be one that increasingly improved a person's ability to turn DATA into DECISIONS and produce people capable of executing appropriate ACTIONS under a variety of common conditions. This means a continuous system of introducing DATA and new SKILLS to transform that DATA appropriately. It has nothing to do with race, religion, or ideology, but has everything to do to with the individuals' current knowledge level, cultural desires and skill-set. In my little universe, each individual would be moved along the line according to their level of interest and ability. (Darned if that doesn't sound a lot like a Montessori school!)
Labels don't count. "Gifted" has absolutely no objective referent; it is only an arbitrary comparison.
Since I see the problem so differently from people who are trying to tweak the current so-called "solution," I have no place in my little universe for evaluationg your alternatives.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Let me begin by clearly stating that if you PREJUDGE someone on the basis of ethnicity, then that's prejudiced and wrong. For example, if you believe that Latinos are dumb, and you prevent someone named Fernandez from entering a gifted program (or getting hired to a job they're qualified for, etc.), then that's immoral and also not supported by any science. Although there MAY be some differences in mean IQ between ethnic groups, as one scientist said, the world's greatest mathematician might come out of the poorest slums of India. According to some, Neanderthal DNA that is found in Europeans and Asians MAY give them a statistical advantage over Africans who do not carry those genes, but this is only a statistical advantage, which you cannot use to make a priori judgements about an individual. (In other words, any facts about ethnicity and IQ statistics are interesting to anthropologists but not managers or school administrators.)
However, once you eliminate the prejudices, are there any genetic features that may make one group have a slightly lower probability of generating geniuses than another? I've read scholarly papers that showed, for instance, that Africans have a slightly lower mean IQ than Europeans, who have a slightly lower mean than Asians. (Note that the gap between whites and blacks in America is much smaller because of a lot of mixing.) Mind you, this doesn't account for the variance, where we find that the groups have vastly more overlap than they do difference. It also doesn't account for other adaptations, like how Africans have been shown to have superior social ability, and although it doesn't show up in IQ, it does show up on other measurements that any decent intelligence test should include. We have to keep in mind that we are a single species, and although there are some geographically separated groups, each group is very well adapted to their environments.
Then there are social factors. Parents that aggressively educate their young children before preschool will give those kids an advantage, rightfully pushing many of them into gifted status, regardless of what their IQ might have measured as if other factors had been equal. Regardless of genetics, the human brain is very flexible, and early education can have a profound effect on later intelligence. So your black and hispanic families who whip their kids into doing their homework and learn their ABCs early will outperform kids of lazy white parents, and they should be judged on performance, not probabilities.
It'a also interesting to see how measured intelligence is biased by socioeconomic status. It doesn't matter what color you are -- if you're poor, you're very likely to score lower on intelligence tests. Now, there is surely some interaction between socioeconomic status and gene transfer, and that's interesting once again to anthropologists. But what it really tells us is that people with lower incomes are disadvantaged by more limited educational opportunities (and/or educational aggression from parents), and to improve our society, we need to improve education among the poor. And education is the great equalizer.
Maybe this is because the parents of minority race and the poor are, generally speaking, relatively uninformed about opportunities to enroll their children in "gifted" programs. Or perhaps they are aware of it but don't believe they would do well. You have to consider the background and culture.
It's one thing for some Ph.D to sit comfortably in his office running statistics on enrollment. It's entirely different if he were to go to the homes of the minority and poor students and ask them about their opinions of "gifted" programs.
Chances are he would chicken out at the doorstep. So how do you think those parents feel about special education offers?
- Father has 5 kids. In a western country, that's a lot.
- Father has a job and also studies, that leaves very little time to care about his kids.
- What about the mother?
- What about the 4 other kids, which are presumably girls, why aren't they smart like that boy?
- Finishing a college degree and having a 8 year old son is quite uncommon.
Taken separately, there is absolutely nothing wrong with these points, but taken together, it starts to smell. I suspect his kids are not in the best environment at home (although it certainly could be worse).
Now, the father complains that his kid isn't "gifted". First, who doesn't think his son is special? Then, the point of "gifted" programs is to put the kids in a more challenging environment. The test here is to make sure that the kids won't drop out, and if parents can help them pass the test, they are also more likely to help them pass the "gifted" classes. It may be a bit unfair but affirmative action won't help in this case, if the kids can't follow, whatever the reason is, it is better to put them in a less challenging class.
Since this story seems to be a regular feature now (with different details here and there), I really need to create a standard response post. Until I do, please ponder the following:
This graph should explain the racial differences in gifted programs, for any rational definition of "gifted".
To see it in gruesome detail, go here, and read, and read, and read. If anything on that page is over your head, you should consider keeping a polite silence until you can get around to taking some stats classes at your local university.
See that "Preview" button?
Poverty causes tremendous disadvantages in learning in US cultures. It does not relate to intelligence at all but rather activities and items available to people who have more money. Worse yet the damage done by limited stimulation and behavior modeling in the first three years of life largely sets the stage for what will take place for the rest of a child's life. Overcoming that poor start the first three years is usually impossible. testing really measures the ability of the person taking the test to achieve the tasks presented on the test. one either knows or does not know the answers.After all the area of a circle is just that. A young person either knows how to calculate that area or he does not. When it is cold the poor get colder. When it is hot the poor get hotter. The only way to make that untrue is to put money in the hands of the poor and it must be quite a bit of money and one must expect really bad decisions as it may take several years for people to re- pattern their lives. The problem gets worse as most low end jobs really are aimed at making people wage slaves rather than providing a living and if those wage slaves do not need those low end jobs people simply will not take them or perform them well.
Poor students have poor parents. Poor parents typically either do not have the interest or the time to be squeaky wheels and advocate for their children. Most children in GT are there because their parents demanded it, not because of some objective criteria.
Intrinsic bias exists in gifted programs. Period.
They are biased towards gifted students, and biased against students that are not gifted.
We may argue about of the definition of the word "gifted", but the most commonly accepted definition throughout the history of gifted programs has been "of most future economic or strategic benefit to society".
They are not aimed at producing more Pablo Picassos, Walt Whitmanns, or Maya Angelous, they are aimed at producing more John Glenns, Albert Einsteins, Robert Goddards, and so on. They are aimed at providing adults who would be of most benefit to winning the Cold War, and any similar future conflicts which may arise, in order to ensure the continued existence of the larger society.
What constitutes "gifted" is "more naturally inclined to further the goals of society as a whole". In other words, what society values is what we then term as "gifted", when it is evinced at an earlier age.
If you want to change the definition of "gifted", then first change what society values. You can get a rough idea of current valuations by comparing a two axis graph of "economic reward" vs. "job category", and then look at the top earners in each category. Thus, you get that society values functional plumbing (plumbers), but values substantially less correct grammar and spelling (english majors).
The old "Nature vs Nurture" debate again. Nature sets boundaries on certain attributes. Nurture determines where you fall between your min and max potential values. Take height for an example. A person may have the potential to be between 5'6" and 6' tall due to genetics/nature. Nurture/nutrition will determine where a person falls between these potential values. The same is true for many attributes.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
"Racial bias has to be operating, inequities are rampant."
There must be MASSIVE racial bias in the NBA. Those are extremely well-paying jobs and African Americans make up 76% of the NBA even though they are only 10% of the population. This MUST be proof that the NBA has set up a massive racial bias operation.
I wonder if they teach "Correlation does not imply causation" in the Houston gifted program. I wonder if they teach it at Vanderbilt University.
Potential things I see as being problematic:
1. The test they use. If it truly does show a cultural bias relative to some other objective test then use that other test instead. That doesn't imply making the test "easier" or adding more students to the program; the qualifying score can be tweaked such that the number of students remains the same.
2. Teacher recommendations. Its possible the teachers at poor and/or majority-minority schools are shafting their students by not being as gung ho about recommending them. If so, then that's hardly fair to the kids at those schools.
3. The ability of families to "game" the qualifying test. To some extent this will always be a problem, but there are probably ways to mitigate it. Maybe use a test for which no practice materials exist. Or, potentially, one that is more resistant to improvement-through-practice.
They went into a little more detail, it sounded like not every kid is tested, so only parents who know about the test to start with have their kids take it. Another thing they mentioned was a recommendation from the teacher, I suppose that would involve the parent getting on the teacher's good side. Then the part of the parents buying study material.
"Racial bias has to be operating, inequities are rampant."
Anyone who utters such garbage shouldn't be taken seriously.
> "Racial bias has to be operating, inequities are rampant. Discrimination does exist whether intentional or unintentional,"
Asserting doesn't make it so. If she had proof she wouldn't have needed the mealy-mouth phrase "has to be operating".
> she told the school board in May of this year. Ford found that both Hispanic and black students are underrepresented in gifted programs
> She also found that about half the seats in those programs go to higher-income students, even though the majority of the district is poor.
Because a program truly oriented toward "gifted" children should be color-blind, and because white and/or higher-income households have a greater emphasis on school and success, especially compared with blacks and latinos, who are, by policy in most schools, advanced far beyond their competence by the myth that all outcomes must be equal, even when they aren't. What will happen is this program will be gutted, the money diverted in the name of "fairness", the gifted children will continue to be bored out of their minds at school, the blacks and latinos will still be told the system is rigged against them, and most of the diverted money will be donated to Democrats, 'cause, that's the way these things work..
How many times do we have to see this movie?
Tell me, people, when was the last time a white neighborhood erupted in violence, attacking and robbing local, white-owned businesses, because some black cop gunned down an unarmed white kid? The shootings happen, why not the violence? Why not the outrage? Why aren't Democrats defending the poor, downtrodden, white people being systematically murdered by "da man?"
To take just the first few results from Google:
http://mrconservative.com/2014...
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/06/...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://www.westernjournalism.c...
If it really is a meritocracy based program, say on IQ scores or some other marker of brighter than your average bear students, then unless the measures of brightness are not applied evenly or the measures themselves are somehow racist the complaint has no basis. It is not at all correct to claim that because fewer Caucasian than Asian folks on average have a particular GPA or because some Jewish sub-population has on average a 15 points greater IQ that the measure itself is racist. There is nothing in reality that says all particular groups should have a proportionally exactly the same incidence of gifted students. So to simply count percentages of different groups present and claim racism and bias if they aren't perfect by the general population is absurd.
You first.
See above, RE obvious prejudice. Look, this isn't hard: the #1 correlation between a student and academic performance is not race, but the wealth of the parents. Do you really think that no poor white kid has been sneered at by peers for wanting to get a masters or a doctorate? Do you really think that the Obama girls have been told "they're acting white" a day in their lives?
GTFO with your race-based prejudice. There's a term for that, BTW.
I'm Asian and my parents neither pushed nor helped me in schooling. In fact, they were downright unhelpful. By the complaints of people saying that programs are racist, I should have been an underperformer in school. I was not. Without even trying, I was put into the gifted programs and such.
Why can't people just acknowledge that intelligence is very heavily influenced by heredity (hence the preponderance of Ashkenazy Jews in most fields) instead of playing the tiresome racist card?
At least with blacks, I can see how they could have a legitimate claim of generational racism. But Hispanics? Are Asians somehow "whiter" than Hispanics despite the fact that Hispanics (meaning from the Ibernian peninsula) have European blood in them? Why didn't the racist policies of this country put Asians at the bottom of the economic and academic ladder?
As a college educated Hispanic (a term whole fabricated in the US to fit into their statistics pigeonholes), I could tell you the number of things I've saw and experienced that were extremely racist and detrimental. Even from some college professors, the mocking, the sneers, the unbelievable open suggestions again certain groups of people (black and hispanics) from pursuing graduate studies, etc, etc.
And then even when you complete and try to savor the fruits of your achievements, you get typecasted - how could he graduate? Are his skills legit? Affirmative action? Hand-out? My tests were the same as everyone else, my work the same, but that never matters? There is always the inference, the nefarious inference (think of it as a generalized birther movement.) Intelligence and effort is forever questioned. That is just how it is.
I've worked at times counseling kids, and it has been, not once, but several times that I've run into kids who have been told not to go to college by their HS professors for being Puerto Rican or whatever. You tell a kid that shit since elementary, that kid will believe it regardless of potential.
Or imagine living in a world when even when you are dressed with an impeccable business suit and expensive briefcase, that old lady still holds her purse a bit tighter, just in case I mug her. Or imagine, as in my case, that many cases I have to dress business casual when shopping for a home or condo in an affluent residential area (while any Asia or White person can just show up with flip-flops) because that is the only way to avoid someone telling me there are no more units to show (even though they are.)
Do you even get to grasp what that constant stream of shit does to a community's sense of self? To kids' sense of worth and capabilities?
I applaud you for being able to progress on your own. Welcome to the club, you are neither the only one, nor your personal anecdotes, however praiseworthy they might be) deny the reality of race in this country. Obviously, African-American and Hispanic communities have their own social problems when it comes to family dynamics and education, but that does not even start to take into account the subtle and yet rampant
Take it for what it is, believe it or dismiss it. It takes someone to walk on someone's shoes I guess.
replying to myself...
WITH THAT SAID:
I do not agree that TFA makes a good point of the discrepancy being racial in nature. it is not race as the primary factor, not even discrimination (as in willful discrimination). It's economics. Economic classes in this country are, not always ,but in general, proxies to race, but the underlying factor is just that, economics.
I can afford my wife to stay home and help my kids with their homework, then KUMON and extra curricular activities. And on summer, I can afford to send them to Japan to study there (my wife is from Japan). And most of my buddies at the same middle/upper-midddle income bracket can do the same (wife at home, or hire a tutor, throw money at summer activities, etc.)
My kids are at a significant advantage over that kid whose parents are working multiple part-time jobs just to meet ends, who are trying their best, but with a system rigged against those at the lower end of the economic spectrum.
It would be the same disadvantage for a poor black kid in Oakland, or a poor hispanic kid in Austin, or a poor white kid in West Virginia or a poor Hmong kid in St. Paul. As I said, it just happens that economic classes tend to map to race in many regions.
And this points to the fundamental problem of public education in the US - there isn't. There is a policy of sending kids to a specific place, not to a school where means of education are guaranteed, as in Germany, Japan or Argentina, but a just a place with walls typically funded by real state taxes.
With a system such as this, more in common with a 3rd world country than with a 1st world country, there should not be any surprise in the educational discrepancies (in terms of fundamental subjects) that we see across economic groups.
But I rarely find those who accuse people of being bleeding hearts to be full of wisdom, or of having any intention other than protecting their profits or the status quo.
Gifted education isn't some benefit. It is part of "special needs" as gifted students more likely to fail when put into class with lower intellectual age students, and often have more special needs. And it isn't determined just by genetics, but by early growing environment. If a child comes from background where education isn't valued, intellectual abilities are not challenged, or parents have no clue or time to get involved, it is less likely he will need or benefit from gifted education. It would be just a big psychological trauma for her/him to be thrown into environment where he/she will fail and feel inferior.
Now some dumb people would suggest that "gifted" tags would be distributed by some racial quotas as it is some benefit. Please get a clue first what is "gifted education". Different racial distribution here is consequence, not reason and not some bias.
When referring to people - even Mexican ones - you should probably use "who", not "that".
Also, I'd have thought that it would make more sense to preferentially evict the non-slot-freeing ones?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."