"... and experience factors, including students who are economically disadvantaged, English language learners, special education students, or students who are currently attending underrepresented middle schools."
I would think this would be the more problematic part. It's not based on achievement/performance but based on status. It sounds as if they give preference points for people with low income, from underrepresented schools, etc.
"Either way, the policy was race-blind, at least in language."
That can be said about the old policy too, right?
"Disallowing progress..."
Here is the real meat of the debate. How do the parties define progress? Is it progress to add subjective measures that favor some groups? And should be we be striving for equality or equity?
So, equity or equality, and why? What is the definition of progress and how do you measure that in the scope of education?
Yes, the old policy was also race-blind in language, no question about that. But, it had decades of results that were extremely race-biased.
Equality vs equity - I'd prefer we removed the sources of inequity. Do that and equality works itself out (in theory, anyways). The admissions fee removal seems like an easy win - paying for access to a public high school strikes me as extremely inequitable and I can't think of a good reason to require a fee here. The admissions test could be inequitable - the county decided it was, so removed it. The question, in my mind, is what replaces the test? GPA, essay, and portfolio seem reasonable. I'm not sure about language and income policies, but at the same time, fixing those sources of inequity are massively complex and outside the scope of the school board.
I wish I could find the actual policy WRT language/income/school, implementation is key here. And the language used by people on both sides isn't helpful - too much emotion, not enough facts.
"I'd prefer we removed the sources of inequity. Do that and equality works itself out (in theory, anyways).
...
I'm not sure about language and income policies, but at the same time, fixing those sources of inequity are massively complex and outside the scope of the school board."
I agree that the main drivers of inequity in education are huge and mostly driven outside the schools. I think the schools need to act mostly on equal treatment and stay out of equity. We can remove things like admission fees (which I also think is wrong for public schools the charge) without adding equity focused subjective measures. After all, the simple fact of having advanced placement or high achievement courses is inequitable (and I don't think there's anything wrong with that).
Why not start by removing the fees and standardized tests, then see how that works before implementing the more controversial subjective and class based changes? This sort of change would retain equality while reducing inequity. That's what I would like to see more of.
"I wish I could find the actual policy WRT language/income/school, implementation is key here."
I agree that we are lacking some details here. It seems the court ruled that the steps were illegal, and that the school doesn't even hide that the changes made were to adjust racial balance. That's pretty damning, but I would like to see the actual contents.
“Emails and text messages between Board members and high-ranking [Fairfax school] officials leave no material dispute that, at least in part, the purpose of the Board’s admissions overhaul was to change the racial makeup to TJ to the detriment of Asian-Americans.”
Why not start by removing the fees and standardized tests, then see how that works before implementing the more controversial subjective and class based changes? This sort of change would retain equality while reducing inequity.
Agree - a less contentious approach to solving the problem would have been better. I would like to see how removing the fee and removing the test altered the composition of incoming classes, without the extra poor-school, ESOL, etc policies.
“Emails and text messages between Board members and high-ranking [Fairfax school] officials leave no material dispute that, at least in part, the purpose of the Board’s admissions overhaul was to change the racial makeup to TJ to the detriment of Asian-Americans.”
Even that language is open to interpretation (lacking the text of the emails). Did somebody explicitly say "we need fewer Asians"? Or was it "the racial balance at TJ nowhere near represents the racial composition of the county"? At the end of the day, for whatever reason, Asians are disproportionately over-represented at TJ and that is a problem (if nothing else, it's a perception problem, but I suspect it's a lot more complicated than that).
"At the end of the day, for whatever reason, Asians are disproportionately over-represented at TJ and that is a problem"
What do you mean? Just because representation varies from the population doesn't automatically mean there's a problem. Just as an example, I remember seeing a paper about why African American college graduates made less than white graduates. The major finding was that African Americans were more likely to choose careers that provide societal benefits, like social workers or teachers. But those jobs tend to be lower paid relative to college level jobs in the private sector. We could investigate if those jobs are adequately paid, but it isn't defacto evidence of system having a problem. It seems these aggregate measures tend to have problems with interpretation, just like the gender wage gap.
My guess would be that Asians are over-represented due mostly to cultural differences pertaining to parental expectations. Even with the recent changes designed to increase diversity and give preference to undeserved students and racial balancing, Asians make up about 50% of the student population. That's still over-represented. That's part of why I think there must be a home-life influence related to culture.
That's just my guess and my anecdotal experience, but some info does hint at support for this. Such as immigration rules implicitly selecting for intelligent/successful people and that the culture in many Asian countries highly values educational achievement. In the US we see almost 50% of Asian Americans have a BS or higher compared to around 28% in the general population. Yet I have not seen any policies explicitly favoring Asian Americans. This suggests to me a likelihood that it's culturally related and not directly a problem. The "problem" would be with other demographics not showing the same cultural emphasis on education.
My guess would be that Asians are over-represented due mostly to cultural differences pertaining to parental expectations.
But that also hints a problem, albeit not one caused by the admissions process. The problem might just be "some parents suck", but I'd hope we can mitigate that impact somehow. Students underachieving (relatively) solely because their parents are mediocre (or worse) isn't ideal.
The solution to this might be enhancing primary school and related enrichment so kids with crap parents can also succeed. But that doesn't mean the admissions process isn't contributing by ignoring other measures of student potential.
I would think this would be the more problematic part. It's not based on achievement/performance but based on status. It sounds as if they give preference points for people with low income, from underrepresented schools, etc.
"Either way, the policy was race-blind, at least in language."
That can be said about the old policy too, right?
"Disallowing progress..."
Here is the real meat of the debate. How do the parties define progress? Is it progress to add subjective measures that favor some groups? And should be we be striving for equality or equity?
So, equity or equality, and why? What is the definition of progress and how do you measure that in the scope of education?