Even if you think the School Board's decision to use a lottery for admission to Lowell is a thoughtless solution to a complex problem, you should acknowledge that there is value in having racial diversity in schools, and there is value in a society that tries to help hard working and motivated kids to break out of long cycles of poverty and oppression. Colleges and workplaces don't select applicants purely on scores and grades, and neither should Lowell.
I suppose merit is defined by some as the highest test scores and grades. End of story. However, if you ever want to change inequities that exist in society, you have to challenge these deceptively simple assumptions of fairness. The fact that some students can achieve higher grades or higher scores on a test does not necessarily mean that they have merited admission to Lowell. For starters, who said that anyone deserves entrance to Lowell based solely on those two criteria? Of course we want students who are up to the task of succeeding in the most academically rigorous classes at Lowell, but we also want to consider what obstacles that student may have faced and the qualities that make him or her exceptional.
As the New Yorker recently reported, "Blacks are much more likely than whites, Latinos, or Asian Americans to live in ethnically segregated neighborhoods. Black students are much more likely than white students to attend segregated schools and schools with a high percentage of students from poor families, even though Black students perform better, on average, in integrated schools—largely because those schools usually have better resources. Black neighborhoods have far less access to employment. They are often less safe, and subject to police violence. Because homeownership is the main asset for most Americans and real-estate values in Black neighborhoods are low, residential segregation is a major factor in the substantial Black-white wealth gap."
When we speak about having a level playing field for admissions to Lowell or Harvard, we need to consider that there was never an even playing field to begin with in the United States. This country was built on slavery, which was protected in the original Constitution. While slavery is a thing of the past, unfortunately racial oppression and vast inequality of condition and wealth are still with us. The United Nations Human Rights Council condemned the United States as having the most economic inequality of any nation in the Western world.
There is benefit in having diversity on campus. Numerous studies have supported this claim. "In 2004 Anthony Lising Antonio, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, collaborated with five colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, and other institutions to examine the influence of racial and opinion composition in small group discussions. More than 350 students from three universities participated in the study. Group members were asked to discuss a prevailing social issue (either child labor practices or the death penalty) for 15 minutes. The researchers wrote dissenting opinions and had both Black and white members deliver them to their groups. When a Black person presented a dissenting perspective to a group of white people, the perspective was perceived as more novel and led to broader thinking and consideration of alternatives than when a white person introduced that same dissenting perspective. The lesson: when we hear dissent from someone who is different from us, it provokes more thought than when it comes from someone who looks like us."
Lowell should continue to have a multi-tier system of admissions, but those tiers should be modified, so that fewer students are admitted solely on grades and test scores and more students are admitted based on potential that is exhibited in other ways. We don't want to stop Lowell from being a serious place for academic study, but we do want to make it more welcoming to people from different backgrounds in San Francisco.
Lowell has a finite number of students who can be admitted each year. By decreasing the number of students admitted primarily on grades and test scores you are effectively advocating an increase in the number of points required for that portion of applicants. You are advocating to make it even more competitive to get into Lowell on points while other students get in on some other basis, one which you have only described as “potential exhibited in other ways”. Please describe what this “potential” is and how you would determine which student have it?
Whatever solution may be provided to rationalize an increase in diversity as a matter of policy for Lowell does not solve the fundamental problem of entrants who lack the prerequisite knowledge to flourish and succeed at Lowell. Moreover, creating diversity at Lowell without increasing high school readiness may inadvertently do these students more harm than good, academically as well as sociallly and emotionally. The last few years under the changed assignment policy are living proof of that with minority students significantly underperforming at Lowell when analyzed through the lens of grades. As long as the cautionary words of Anne Hsu regarding students who fail to keep up in school, words which lost her an election, are considered racist for their realism, there’s no chance that the problem will be solved anytime soon, especially given the abject denial of public education leaders to accept the reality that all students who underperform do so primarily as a function inadequate rearing, leading to lack of motivation and poor study skills with some exceptions. You can blame it on poverty and lack of money, but no amount of money will change the fact that a student who does not care to learn won’t. Of course, this comment like Hsu’s will be attacked as racist. Any student can reasonably succeed with the proper motivation and attitude, attributes that no amount of money can provide. Students of all races can be divided into two groups, those who care about their performance at school and those who don’t. The difficulties different individuals experience in life that may affect their ability to perform as students need to be addressed with support at school, however, it is the family that sociololgists have long held as paramount in the development of a child. As long as the call for families to focus their attentions on education as a priority is viewed as a racist idea, failure at school will remain an intractable problem.
I don't think anyone is arguing against the value of diversity, or the use of admissions criteria other than scores and grades. In other words, your otherwise eloquent rebuttal misses the point.
Lowell has eliminated merit entirely. SOTA has not. And SOTA is probably more discriminatory than Lowell was. The underlying, unspoken, unexamined bias behind that dichotomy is what this essay is trying to illuminate.
Diane Yap writes: "Don’t be fooled by language about diversity: if the board wants a larger proportion of their favored races at Lowell, that means fewer Asians are welcome." It's pretty clear that Diane is arguing against diversity if it means fewer Asians will be admitted. There is a chance Lowell might return to selective admissions since a judge just said the change to admission by lottery was done in a way that violated the Brown Act.
I am not Asian, I'm Black, and I might argue against diversity if it means fewer Asians are admitted. Punishing Asians for perceived historical factors that had nothing to do with them is awful. I have no problem in things going for the hardest workers or more talented people. Similarly, if people need help help should be based on their actual need, not on their race. I support the Supreme Court, which will end racial preferences. Here is my podcast on the matter. https://open.substack.com/pub/justingaffneysamuels/p/happy-affirmative-action-will-soon?r=6512g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Even if you think the School Board's decision to use a lottery for admission to Lowell is a thoughtless solution to a complex problem, you should acknowledge that there is value in having racial diversity in schools, and there is value in a society that tries to help hard working and motivated kids to break out of long cycles of poverty and oppression. Colleges and workplaces don't select applicants purely on scores and grades, and neither should Lowell.
I suppose merit is defined by some as the highest test scores and grades. End of story. However, if you ever want to change inequities that exist in society, you have to challenge these deceptively simple assumptions of fairness. The fact that some students can achieve higher grades or higher scores on a test does not necessarily mean that they have merited admission to Lowell. For starters, who said that anyone deserves entrance to Lowell based solely on those two criteria? Of course we want students who are up to the task of succeeding in the most academically rigorous classes at Lowell, but we also want to consider what obstacles that student may have faced and the qualities that make him or her exceptional.
As the New Yorker recently reported, "Blacks are much more likely than whites, Latinos, or Asian Americans to live in ethnically segregated neighborhoods. Black students are much more likely than white students to attend segregated schools and schools with a high percentage of students from poor families, even though Black students perform better, on average, in integrated schools—largely because those schools usually have better resources. Black neighborhoods have far less access to employment. They are often less safe, and subject to police violence. Because homeownership is the main asset for most Americans and real-estate values in Black neighborhoods are low, residential segregation is a major factor in the substantial Black-white wealth gap."
When we speak about having a level playing field for admissions to Lowell or Harvard, we need to consider that there was never an even playing field to begin with in the United States. This country was built on slavery, which was protected in the original Constitution. While slavery is a thing of the past, unfortunately racial oppression and vast inequality of condition and wealth are still with us. The United Nations Human Rights Council condemned the United States as having the most economic inequality of any nation in the Western world.
There is benefit in having diversity on campus. Numerous studies have supported this claim. "In 2004 Anthony Lising Antonio, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, collaborated with five colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, and other institutions to examine the influence of racial and opinion composition in small group discussions. More than 350 students from three universities participated in the study. Group members were asked to discuss a prevailing social issue (either child labor practices or the death penalty) for 15 minutes. The researchers wrote dissenting opinions and had both Black and white members deliver them to their groups. When a Black person presented a dissenting perspective to a group of white people, the perspective was perceived as more novel and led to broader thinking and consideration of alternatives than when a white person introduced that same dissenting perspective. The lesson: when we hear dissent from someone who is different from us, it provokes more thought than when it comes from someone who looks like us."
Lowell should continue to have a multi-tier system of admissions, but those tiers should be modified, so that fewer students are admitted solely on grades and test scores and more students are admitted based on potential that is exhibited in other ways. We don't want to stop Lowell from being a serious place for academic study, but we do want to make it more welcoming to people from different backgrounds in San Francisco.
Lowell has a finite number of students who can be admitted each year. By decreasing the number of students admitted primarily on grades and test scores you are effectively advocating an increase in the number of points required for that portion of applicants. You are advocating to make it even more competitive to get into Lowell on points while other students get in on some other basis, one which you have only described as “potential exhibited in other ways”. Please describe what this “potential” is and how you would determine which student have it?
Whatever solution may be provided to rationalize an increase in diversity as a matter of policy for Lowell does not solve the fundamental problem of entrants who lack the prerequisite knowledge to flourish and succeed at Lowell. Moreover, creating diversity at Lowell without increasing high school readiness may inadvertently do these students more harm than good, academically as well as sociallly and emotionally. The last few years under the changed assignment policy are living proof of that with minority students significantly underperforming at Lowell when analyzed through the lens of grades. As long as the cautionary words of Anne Hsu regarding students who fail to keep up in school, words which lost her an election, are considered racist for their realism, there’s no chance that the problem will be solved anytime soon, especially given the abject denial of public education leaders to accept the reality that all students who underperform do so primarily as a function inadequate rearing, leading to lack of motivation and poor study skills with some exceptions. You can blame it on poverty and lack of money, but no amount of money will change the fact that a student who does not care to learn won’t. Of course, this comment like Hsu’s will be attacked as racist. Any student can reasonably succeed with the proper motivation and attitude, attributes that no amount of money can provide. Students of all races can be divided into two groups, those who care about their performance at school and those who don’t. The difficulties different individuals experience in life that may affect their ability to perform as students need to be addressed with support at school, however, it is the family that sociololgists have long held as paramount in the development of a child. As long as the call for families to focus their attentions on education as a priority is viewed as a racist idea, failure at school will remain an intractable problem.
I don't think anyone is arguing against the value of diversity, or the use of admissions criteria other than scores and grades. In other words, your otherwise eloquent rebuttal misses the point.
Lowell has eliminated merit entirely. SOTA has not. And SOTA is probably more discriminatory than Lowell was. The underlying, unspoken, unexamined bias behind that dichotomy is what this essay is trying to illuminate.
Diane Yap writes: "Don’t be fooled by language about diversity: if the board wants a larger proportion of their favored races at Lowell, that means fewer Asians are welcome." It's pretty clear that Diane is arguing against diversity if it means fewer Asians will be admitted. There is a chance Lowell might return to selective admissions since a judge just said the change to admission by lottery was done in a way that violated the Brown Act.
I am not Asian, I'm Black, and I might argue against diversity if it means fewer Asians are admitted. Punishing Asians for perceived historical factors that had nothing to do with them is awful. I have no problem in things going for the hardest workers or more talented people. Similarly, if people need help help should be based on their actual need, not on their race. I support the Supreme Court, which will end racial preferences. Here is my podcast on the matter. https://open.substack.com/pub/justingaffneysamuels/p/happy-affirmative-action-will-soon?r=6512g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web