Monday, July 28, 2014


Affirmative Action = Discrimination Against Asians, NYC Schools Edition

New York City politicians—including Mayor Bill de Blasio—want to change the admissions system for the city's nine highly-selective premiere public high schools, including nationally-renowned Stuyvesant High School. The schools currently use a single exam, the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, to determine admittance. Less than three percent of applicants are admitted to Stuyvesant.

The problem, in the eyes of some, is that black and Latino students are increasingly underrepresented at the elite schools. So are white students. When a test score is the only criteria, it seems that Asian Americans are more likely than other racial groups to gain admission to Stuyvesant.

Is that a problem? A coalition that includes de Blasio and teachers unions says that it is, according to Bloomberg:

“I do not believe a single test should be determinative, particularly for something that is as life-changing for so many young people,” de Blasio, who would need to persuade the state Legislature to amend the law, said last week. “We have to determine what combination of measures will be fair.”

The mayor would like the schools to consider other factors—such as grades and extracurricular activities—that would theoretically give non-Asians a better chance.

Writing for The New York Post, Dennis Saffran—an attorney and former GOP city council candidate—explains why that's not such a great idea. It's very difficult for low-income 13-year-olds to cobble together appealing resumes, he writes. In fact, moving away from an objective test might further decrease the enrollment of poor black and Latino students, while also hurting Asian enrollment, since kids with wealthy parents are the ones best equipped to build portfolios of volunteer work and extracurricular activities:

A Chinese student like Ting Shi who has to help out in his parents’ laundromat is not going on “service” trips to Nicaragua with the children in de Blasio’s affluent Park Slope neighborhood. The LDF’s suggested admissions criteria — student portfolios, leadership skills and community service — are all subject to privileged parents’ ability to buy their children the indicia of impressiveness.

Ironically, eliminating the SHSAT would magnify the role of what progressives call “unconscious bias” — the idea that we have a preference for those who look like us and share our backgrounds. Subjective evaluation measures like interviews and portfolio reviews are much more susceptible to such bias than is an objective examination.

Sure, the decision makers will do their best to admit a few more black and Latino kids (especially those from the same upper-middle-class backgrounds), but the primary beneficiaries will be affluent white students who didn’t study hard enough to perform really well on the test but seem more “well-rounded” than those who did. As always, the losers in this top-bottom squeeze will be the lower middle and working classes. Among the applicant pool for the specialized high schools, that means Asians.

As Saffran's critique makes clear, attempting to engineer admissions to produce some politically desirable racial mixture is both dubious and difficult. On the latter point, whose to say that a reformed admissions system won't cause further problems? It could exacerbate the very discrepancies it's attempting to resolve. It could also incidentally result in the admission of unqualified students—something administrators expect to happen if the test is no longer the focus—harming the rigor of the schools.

While I can understand the desire to assist groups that aren't making the cut for selective public schools, it doesn't seem fair—or morally justifiable—to stack the game against Asians seeking admittance merely because other Asians have fared well.

Of course, this is exactly what universities practicing affirmative action have done for years, using ethnicity-based admission systems that grade Asian applicants on a much higher curve. Should students be judged on their own merits or against the expected accomplishments of other people who happen to look like them?

SOURCE






THE ANTI-CATHOLIC CRACKDOWN AT UCLU

How students' union zealots are stifling controversial ethical debates

Vibrant intellectual exchange forms part of the joy of being human. Unfortunately, rigorous, intelligent debate that is receptive to controversy and disagreement is in increasingly short supply. Perversely, this is especially true on university campuses. That is, in a space in which debate should be most encouraged, limitations on controversial speech are becoming more common.

In October last year, I was scheduled to give a talk to the Catholic Society (or ‘CathSoc’) of University College London (UCL). The subject was to be the right of Catholics to have their own view on the contentious issue of homosexuality. I had prepared to explain what the Catholic teaching on homosexuality was, why the Church actually preaches and argues against homophobia, what the implications for this teaching are for Catholics in public life, and why civil liberties (such as freedoms of speech, religion and association) should be respected.

Ironically, given the subject matter, the talk was cancelled at the last minute by officials of the UCL Students’ Union (UCLU). While the official reason was that the requisite paperwork had not been completed, it soon became clear that the union’s sabbatical officers, alarmed and angered about the fact that the talk was taking place, had deployed any means necessary to have it stopped. This was no mere pedantic paper-pushing; it was censorship-by-bureaucracy.

UCLU’s external affairs and campaigns officer, Hannah Webb, on a thread about my talk on the UCLU LGBT society Facebook group, celebrated the fact that ‘[t]his was cancelled!’. After being asked how this was achieved, she answered, ‘Their speaker hadn’t been preapproved, so fairly easily’. In explaining this, she revealed that the event ‘was flagged up’ – that is, someone had complained about it – and consequently ‘several of us were alarmed that such a speaker had been allowed through the external speakers vetting process’. As a result, the union officials went out of their way to look into the event and when they found out the Catholic Society had not been given approval, they moved to stop the event altogether. As Beth Sutton, the UCLU’s women’s officer, boasted on Twitter: ’[W]e managed to stop it [the talk] because union protocol wasn’t followed.’

When I asked Webb on Twitter whether she’d have been so legalistic about any other event, she replied that she would for those events that are ‘on the boundaries of what UCLU allows and requires discussion’. Such a discriminatory attitude certainly puts to bed any last-minute cancellation fears for unconfirmed speakers at the UCLU baking society, or the badminton club, but something tells me the UCLU Friends of Palestine and assorted anti-war groups are probably similarly at ease.

Webb argued that the union has to have an ‘awareness for student welfare’, which recognises that ‘[p]eople have a right to feel safe on campus’. Were anyone ‘homophobic’ allowed to speak at a student society event, she said, this would involve making ‘an oppressed group [in this case, gay people] feel even more unsafe’, and thus such speech must be prohibited.

Dan Warham, the UCLU democracy (!) and communications officer, went even further, saying that he would ‘happily do anything to stop people speaking if they were causing distress to a member of the union, at a union society event, especially if those students identify as part of a liberation group (ie, LGBT+)’. Thus, the right of a society like the CathSoc to hear the Catholic teaching on sex and sexuality explained to them is trumped by the perceived need for privileged minority treatment.

After being challenged on how infantilising to students his approach to speech on campus is, Warham claimed the aim was to minimise the possibility of ‘LGBT people committing suicide due to things they are subjected to by people who are allowed to “upset” people with hate speech’. So, the assumption is that not only would my talk have constituted ‘hate speech’, but it would have potentially helped cause someone to commit suicide. Clearly the likes of Warham think gay people are sorely lacking in personal strength and intellectual and emotional integrity, as well as basic tolerance and moral conviction. It is precisely this impoverished view of its fellow students that leads the UCLU to insist that its members be wrapped in cotton wool.

I am fully aware of the deeply controversial nature of the subjects on which I was going to speak. But regardless of what you think of Catholic sexual ethics, and even if you do believe the caricature of them that is often presented, surely one would have thought the proper response to such a controversial position in a free society – and most especially at a university – would be to allow people to raise, discuss and debate it openly. If I am wrong (ever a possibility), then I expect that the rational scrutiny of others will bring me to recognise my error.

Unfortunately, this belief was apparently absent among the UCLU leadership, as we can see from the response from Webb to the idea of rational debate: ‘Generally, bigots aren’t that swayed by “reasoned argument”.’ This is not only a gratuitous kneejerk response to those with whom she disagrees – it also highlights a radical pessimism towards the potential of reasonable discussion. This is a poisonous attitude, especially in a students’ union. When we lose our confidence in the ability of people to reason and engage in controversy, even when they possess radically divergent worldviews, all that is left is for one side to impose its will on the other coercively, with no respect for the other’s moral (let alone legal) right to free speech and expression.

This sort of attitude is nothing new at UCLU, as the struggle in 2012 over the rights of the Catholic Society to hold talks on abortion made clear. It will remain a potential and perennial problem until such attitudes are challenged by all liberal and broad-minded people, regardless of their views on controversial ethical issues, and until the longstanding dominance of illiberal ideologues in students’ union posts is ended by a coalition of students who prize free speech, and who have a positive and optimistic view of the ability of human beings to debate and discuss controversies with reason and charity. Only if that happens can an exciting and progressive battle of ideas truly occur.

SOURCE





Australian teachers face significant classroom challenges

In 2008, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development conducted a survey of teachers, asking them about their working conditions and the learning environment in their schools.

The survey, called the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), is to be repeated every five years. The results of the 2013 survey, with 34 participating countries including Australia, were released recently.

Among other things, it reveals that Australian teachers have some of the most challenging working conditions among participating countries, and far more challenging circumstances than countries with which Australia competes in international tests such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

The following statistics apply to lower secondary teachers (usually years 7 to 10):

    33% of Australian teachers work in schools where for more than one in ten students the language of instruction is not their first language. The average for participating countries is 21%, and the averages for high-performing PISA countries Korea, Japan and Finland are between 0% and 9%.

    26% of Australian teachers work in schools where more than one in three students is from a socioeconomically disadvantaged home. The average for participating countries is 19%, and the averages for high-performing PISA countries Korea, Singapore, Japan and Finland are between 3% and 8%.

    66% of Australian teachers work in schools where students frequently arrive late. The average for participating countries is 52%.

    59% of Australian teachers work in schools where students are frequently absent. The average for participating countries is 39%.

    25% of teachers work in schools where students frequently intimidate and verbally abuse school staff. The average for participating countries is 3.4%.

These statistics reveal the different context within which teachers in different countries must work, requiring caution when making cross-country comparisons. They confirm the need for teachers to be well-prepared for these challenges with rigorous and comprehensive teacher education. According to the TALIS report, Australian teachers are among the most highly-educated in terms of completion of tertiary educational qualifications, but the content of the courses is not as strong as it might be.

In addition, the TALIS statistics on the working conditions of teachers are a reminder of the need for school management at all levels to support teachers to deal effectively and early with disciplinary issues, both for the sake of teachers themselves and other students.

SOURCE


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