Boston Parents Sue Alleging Discrimination Against Asians and Whites In Change of Prestigious Public School Admissions
Group alleges that new plan to allocate spots according to zip codes is intended “to disfavor certain racial and ethnic groups (Asian and White applicants) while favoring others (Latino and African-American applicants) to increase black and latino student enrollment”
Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence (BPCAE) has sued over changes in how students are admitted to a small number of prestigious public schools.
Previously, admission was based on test scores, but Boston, claiming the results were racially unequal, decided to factor in zip codes as to admission. The result would be to exclude many asian-american and white students who otherwise would have gained admission. The parents group alleges the use of zip codes was a subterfuge for illegal use of race and ethnicity.
Asra Nomani has the story:
This past October 21, Michael Loconto, chair of the Boston School Committee, led a meeting of city’s school officials when he got caught in a hot mic moment, mocking the names of Asian American parents waiting to challenge a controversial vote to eliminate the merit-based test to the city’s “exam schools” and impose a new quota admissions plan based on zip codes. The change would target the number of Asian American and white students at the schools, and school policymakers voted that night to make the change, despite the culture of bigotry in which the vote was cast.
Today, 14 families, represented by the Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence, fought back, filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against the Boston School Committee and Boston Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius, alleging the “Zip Code Quota” admissions plan is unconstitutional and violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and state law, which guarantee equal protection under the law. Among the families, eight families are Asian American and six families are white.
The complaint argues convincingly that Boston educrats are using zip codes as a proxy for race and ethnicity to put in place a social engineering scheme that punishes certain children based on the zip code in which they live. Attorneys for the parents filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against the new zip code quotas and argued in a memorandum that the zip code quotas have a “racially disparate” impact on admissions. The Boston School Committee has argued the plan would bring “equity” to its “exam schools,” including Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science.
The Boston Globe further reports:
The admissions plan for this fall awards 20 percent of seats in the three schools based exclusively on grades. The remaining 80 percent of seats are awarded based on grades and ZIP codes, with the largest number going to the neighborhood with the greatest proportion of the city’s school-age children.
Under this plan, the lawsuit says, the defendants are “subordinating the longstanding merit-based citywide competition to a newly-created, and wholly-irrational quota system based on zip codes, which have never been a unit of educational qualification, and which are being purposefully used here as a proxy for race and ethnicity.”
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of 14 sixth-grade students of Chinese, Indian, and white ancestry who have applied to one or more of the exam schools and their parents, who are members of the organization, according to the filings.
The Complaint has embedded and also attached as Exhibits numerous exhibits documenting how zip codes are being used as a proxy for race and ethnicity. Here is the Introduction:
“Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people, and therefore are contrary to our traditions and hence constitutionally suspect.” Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 570 U.S. 297, 309 (2013) (citations and quotations omitted). In contravention of this fundamental principle of American values – and constitutional law – the Defendants have imposed upon the school children of Boston a racial and ethnic classification system for entry into its most prestigious public schools: the Boston Latin School, the Boston Latin Academy, and the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, known collectively as the Boston Exam Schools.
Defendants achieved this by subordinating the longstanding merit-based citywide competition to a newly-created, and wholly-irrational quota system based on zip codes, which have never been a unit of educational qualification, and which are being purposefully used here as a proxy for race and ethnicity (the “Zip Code Quota Plan”). By depriving some school children of educational opportunity based on their race or ethnicity, Defendants do great harm, not only to the children they seek to exclude but also to the Boston Exam Schools, which they would use as the instruments of their discrimination, to the City of Boston, and to this country’s cherished principle of equal protection.
It is to vindicate these important interests – and to safeguard the educational opportunities that Defendants would impair – that the Boston Parents bring their Complaint before this Court.
The Complaint alleges discriminatory intent and result:
25. The Defendants’ purpose in recommending, adopting and implementing the Zip Code Quota Plan is to disfavor certain racial and ethnic groups (Asian and White applicants) while favoring others (Latino and African-American applicants).
26. The effect of the Zip Code Quota Plan is likewise to disfavor certain racial and ethnic groups (Asian and White applicants) while favoring others (Latino and African-American applicants).
* * *
33. The purpose and effect of the Zip Code Quota Plan are to use zip codes as precisely such a proxy for race and ethnicity, so as to artificially favor Latino and African-American students to the detriment of Asian and White students. This violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
At its website and in the Complaint, BPCAE documents the history of the fight over the changed admissions standards, including this chart from a presentation (pdf.) by the Boston school committed proposed to shift racial and ethnic admissions would by factoring in zip codes.
Nomani points out the importance of parents taking action, like these parents have:
Rather than working to effectively improve the academic skills of Black and Hispanic students to increase their enrollment in advanced studies programs, educrats are lazily implementing remedies to gut these program of their high-level merit-based standards and then alleging racism against parents who call them out on their flawed schemes.
Unless parents, like the 14 brave families in Boston, stand up and oppose the divisive ideology of critical race theory city by city, we will continue to face a future in which our communities are sliced and diced by race, zip code and ethnicity — in this disturbing new racism of critical race theory that we must reject and replace with a philosophy of a truly inclusive humanity — beyond race and zip codes.
No one person or group of parents can solve all the problems. But focus on fighting back in your own school district. We will discuss this issue at our upcoming Virtual Event: How Critical Race Training is Harming K-12 (March 3, 7 p.m. ET)
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Comments
Good Racism Inc.™️ won’t like this.
If one isn’t from Boston it may be hard to comprehend the damage being done here by the social engineers on the Boston school committee. Boston Latin is the oldest public school in the country having been started in 1635. For generations it was also one of the best public schools in America. People would move out of the city if their child got rejected from Latin while others from surrounding suburbs would look for creative ways to establish residency in the city so their kids could try to get in.
Unfortunately, Latin has been sliding for the past 25 years or so based on admissions tinkering by the school system. One can find an equivalent education in ~20 close suburbs to Boston but Latin is still the best in the city itself by far.
The powers that be now seek to destroy that with their new policies. This will prove a boon for housing prices in Newton, Wellesley, Lexington, Needham, etc. as families with means leave the city for better schools and for private schools in the area. Who will be hurt? Families of qualified children who can’t check a box for the diversity obsessed school leaders and who don’t have the money to move to the suburbs or send their kids to private school. Their children will be doomed to attend one of the myriad of failing high schools in the BPS.
Very sad.
The anti-racists seem to have cause and effect reversed. The students aren’t high achievers because they go to a prestigious school. The school is prestigious because it tries to admit only high achieving students.
It’s the same logic as observing that people with college degrees make more money, and concluding that if we give everyone a college degree everyone will make more money.
Hu hum. Another day, another lawsuit over anti-white (And Asian) bigotry.
It’s as if those pesky oppressors think they have rights too!
LOL, vote for the beast, get eaten by the beast. No sympathy.
I wonder if the demographics of the soon to be privileged zip codes is a bit rougher clientele.
If so and the kids are a little more unruly than the norm, will the teachers stay at the school or leave for greener pastures?
Redlining??
No s*t… they’re actually redlining?
Are they that stupid, or do they think we are?
Shove more blacks into these “prestigious public schools” and I guarantee you that in short order they’ll no longer be known as “prestigious pubic schools” as the student failure rate increases dramatically at the schools.
Decline of public schools in cities was directly related to busing of very low, as in nearly zero achievers to those schools. Crime and crappy schools are what caused people to leave cities. That process continues.
I suppose one can’t sue the state of Massachusetts for refusing to implement school choice, which would fairly quickly provide good options for all colors and income levels.
So I suppose the next best thing is to sue for ones stake in the “prestigious public school” competition.
Anyone who doesn’t think that urban blacks are getting screwed by the government schools is missing the picture. Trump understood this and was trying to fix it the right way. The dems understand it too, but it’s against their interests to fix it.
If blacks are getting “screwed” by government schools, it’s a mighty expensive screwing paid for by others.
Yes, but it’s not limited to blacks. The enemy is not black people – it’s education by government monopoly bureaucracy, America’s best example of totalitarian socialism.
Why do people (conservatives, even) have such a difficult time understanding this?
Blacks have been making unreasonable demands on the rest of society for a long time, that is much worse now. They have had more than they are entitled to for a long time. Rabid black racism is common. All told, there needs to be an attitude adjustment.
I do thinks that blacks are being used, for example Muslims getting blacks to bite the Jewish hands which have been so good to blacks. No one made blacks do this, it was their choice. Once people are adults, they are responsible for their choices. Those choices are burning goodwill for blacks at an alarming rate. By the time they understand what they are doing, they will be screwed. It will be their own fault, so tough shit.
My goodwill was burned out starting with the Zimmerman case. It is taking other people longer to come to the same conclusions.
I do not wish blacks ill, but I simply am not putting up with black shit.
There’s a lot wrong with aspects of our educational system, but education is not the primary enemy, if one thinks in terms of enemies.
I don’t think in terms of enemies, though. It’s not my job to change others, and I don’t want to take what they’ve got.
It is nearly impossible to educate kids which come from urban environments. Culture and lack of parenting stop most of those children from achieving.
Low IQ caps what they might achieve, parenting assures that they never achieve that potential.
There is huge peer pressure in the black community to not achieve, so even children who are endowed with higher IQs are discouraged from performing to their full potential.
I wise I could see a way to fix the shit culture. It would have to start with better parenting.
One thing is certain, ADC has been a disaster.
A combination of school choice and good parenting would help.
Good parenting exists. Watch “Waiting for Superman” on Netflix. These are good parents who want a good education for their children, but are forced to play a lottery game in which they have some chance of getting a somewhat better government school. This should be fiction, but it’s not.
What is wrong with their assigned government school? It’s probably in a solid, safe, heated building, with a professional staff fully qualified to deliver the standard curriculum.
Yet, bad stuff happens that prevents many students from accessing that curriculum. But isn’t that usually beyond the responsibility of the school? It’s all they can do to cope as they are.
“What is wrong with their assigned government school? It’s probably in a solid, safe, heated building, with a professional staff fully qualified to deliver the standard curriculum.”
You must lead a very sheltered life. I suggest you watch “Miss Virginia” on Netflix.
OK I’ve watched the first 10 minutes. And a troublemaker gets the kid suspended through some terrible bad luck.
I said, get the troublemakers out. Without that troublemaker (the guy in the tight cornrows), the whole class could have calmed down and learned. You’ve got to be able to remove the troublemakers, and having enough police on hand so that the crime is observed.
That’s a form of school choice too. By his choice to engage bad behavior the troublemaker would get sent away to reform school.
“I said, get the troublemakers out.”
Ok, now imagine you’re Miss Virginia. You walk into the principal’s office and ask him to remove the troublemaker. He says no. There are several reasons why he says no. One is that part of the funding for his school is based on enrollment. There are more than one troublemaker. If he actually cares about the troublemakers, he is reluctant to eliminate their only educational opportunity. There are no alternatives to the government school.
In any case, he has no incentive to do what Miss Virginia wants him to do. Nothing will happen to him if he doesn’t. If you think her congressional representative would back her up, I suggest you watch the rest of the movie.
I’m wondering how you could possibly think that Miss Virginia didn’t try talking with the principal about the troublemaker.
Let’s say there are 10% troublemakers. Move them out so 90% can learn. The 10% may get slightly less opportunity elsewhere, but they were learning little but how to be a gangster anyway. That troublemaker announced he was a future criminal. He snarled at the teacher that he wouldn’t be working at McDonalds — even if he didn’t learn the plant biology.
You have to be willing to oust the bad ones, even though their dear hearts and precious souls might be damaged. That’s another usage of cops. If actual crimes are committed, they could overcome the corrupt principal’s interest in student numbers over education, via the magic of arrest.
You can tell who’s actually disadvantaged, by who has to file lawsuits invoking the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
These days, it’s whites and Asians.
Children of all colors whose parents do not have enough resources to homeschool them or send them to private schools are “actually disadvantaged”.
I attended “government schools” for grades 1-12. K was not included in those days. I went on to what most would say was very good success in higher education. So did many of my classmates, granted they were among the top students from that “government school system”.
I attended a private institution for college. I found no magic there that wasn’t in the “government school” because of the ownership.
I seem to recall a time when blacks had their own schools; there was no oppression from the evil everyone-else. Too bad Brown vs Board of Ed wrecked all that…
Yes. See “Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World” – Full Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK4M9iJrgto
However, those were days before the secular leftists had taken over the government schools. Nothing like that is currently possible.
My younger child graduated from the “government school system” a couple years ago. It seemed a lot like when I attended, with some more insidious brainwashing but not that much different.
There are some plans to make the schools even worse, but those will apply to all schools even with school choice. They don’t want to allow escape. But I don’t think things are so impossible now. Have the leftists made the urban schools that much worse? If so, isn’t the solution easy: move out the troublemakers, have sufficient police on hand so the adults are in charge and calm prevails?
Check out the proficiency status of children in Baltimore’s government schools:
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/13-baltimore-city-high-schools-zero-students-proficient-in-math
Yeah the Baltimore stats are famously terrible. So what is the school doing wrong? Teachers teach presumably the Maryland standard curriculum, they have heat, chairs and desks, a chalkboard, and someone with a college degree teaching. Do you think that if we swapped in the TJ faculty it would make much difference?
I think the problems are enforcement, and the abilities of the students. The first can be fixed. Get troublemakers out so the rest can calm down and learn. That’s about all a school is for. From there it’s up to the kid and his family.
If you disagree, tell me what terrible thing(s) the Baltimore schools are doing wrong. Be specific. Are the teachers not moderately proficient in the math and English they’re teaching? They’re certainly paid enough to be.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with the state of “teachers colleges”.
You persist in the quaint belief that government schools are there to serve parents and children. Their only responsibility is to adhere to federal and state legislation and bureaucratic rules. That’s how “the institution of democratic control” works. It is often sufficient to build and maintain roads, but is woefully inadequate for the education of children.
In a private school, parents and children are customers who can choose not to be customers. In government schools, parents and children are subjects. Your inability to grasp this is astonishing.
True, most school teachers aren’t brilliant. In the old days women couldn’t realistically enter other professions. Now they can and the academically best ones usually do.
Still, market forces mix things up. Public school teachers make more money with more job security than those in some elite private schools. Granted the dangerous parts of Baltimore won’t get the best, in any school there. Idealistic people who go in have given up, and now people are giving up on such idealism. They see.
I contend that you could get the idealistic people, the better public school teachers, to want to contribute in inner city Baltimore. But you’ve got to get rid of the troublemakers and have cops. You have to make the schools safe. Things have to be calm enough that a good teacher sees an opportunity to do something.
You don’t have to be brilliant to teach enough English and math to pass state assessments. That’s not the main problem they have.
In the sixties a narrative was that black school performance was due to lack of resources. Eventually, it became very clear that was not the actual problem. The problem is black children’s intellectual capacity, and generally poor attitude about learning. That is often a problem with lower IQ children, it is hard for them, so they do their best to avoid what is hard.
The bulk of American blacks IQ falls between 70 and 100, the mean average is 85. About 20% are below 70 IQ, and a bit less than 20% are over 100. At best, 10% are college material.
Career advice needs to be based on each person’s intellectual capability.
Rather than focusing on intellectual capacity, we should work to make the most of all children’s abilities. The overwhelming problem is that the tax-supported education system in the US is run by a government bureaucracy. There is more school choice available in almost all developed countries than in the US. We are an embarrassment to the world.
President Trump tried to correct this, and that is one of the reasons why he was opposed by the totalitarian socialist left and the wholly teachers-union-owned democrat party.
I really don’t understand why so many political conservatives don’t seem to understand this. Perhaps they are remembering the moderately functional government schools of their youth. That is gone.
Prove that schools are that much different from the old days. They didn’t work magic in the old days either. But my high school had wood shop, metal shop, there was something for automotive repair, etc. Vocational training was there.
That *did* make the most of each child’s potential. It’s much better to be a middle class electrician than a sociology graduate with an unpayable student loan and a lot of opinions about social grievance that nobody in their right mind would pay to hear.
I know of one government school in FL which has a full collection of CNC machines and which partners with local businesses for internships. But this is EXTRAORDINARILY RARE.
Most government schools got rid of “the trades” when it was decided that everyone must attend college.
If the constant stream of news articles on LI about abuse and failure of government schools, and the frantic attempts of inner city parents to get their children out of them can’t convince you that they have gone downhill (with rare exceptions), I certainly can’t.
IQ only measures one of many things which drive success. Each can limit a person’s potential.
Early in my engineering career I did work on solid state EEG amplifiers. Prior to that those amplifiers were vacuum tube.
I worked closely with neuro doctors and researchers. I attended conferences with them, and I dissected human brains. I designed and built biofeedback devices.
I was considering how to do a direct brain to computer interface to a minicomputer or mainframe.
That was when I became very interested in IQ.
Where people have very low IQ, there is nothing we can do to fix that.
I am hopeful this will change in the future.
In the good old days, did schools push moral relativism? Did they say that being sexually active is fine as long as you use contraceptives?
Perhaps you might find the book “Get Out Now” by Hasson and Farnan convincing.
….and we wonder why society is slip-sliding away.
Another article to make the Chinese smile.
The Chinese, those in the country of Xi Jinping or reporting up to him, want to see our society break down. Not to elevate the Chinese-Americans who have come here to make a new life.
More mediocrity is not what we need. Teacher’s Unions crave this. Participation trophies abound.
Romey — EQUITY demands that ALL students achieve the same success in school regardless of silly things like parent involvement and god given ability.
My friend is a manager for the Boston Public Library system. She has told me many times what a great public educational system they have, from special needs to high achievers… She is a D and a Liberal.. I wonder how she will explain away this. SMH
Good luck to the plaintiffs.
If you want to understand these top public schools, you should read the articles that I will leave here. TJ is predominately Asian. In fact, foreign non-American Asians from Asia will purposely move to the USA to establish residency directly prior to the TJ application process. Thus, USA taxpayers pay for an exclusive STEM school for Asian foreigners….
https://www.insidenova.com/news/education/asians-again-predominate-in-thomas-jefferson-admissions/article_fea3adb8-a5a1-11ea-9de5-9b478d929c73.html
Um, excuse me? If they establish residence here then they are US taxpayers, the same as anyone else, and are paying far more than their fair share of the cost of their children’s education.
Yes, we continue to brain-drain the foreign countries. If we couple that with strong America-first policies in trade and employment (and get rid of nonsense like OPT and scale down H1B) that will help propel us forward.
One well-known example of the madness:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/harvard-stanford-admissions-hoax-becomes-international-scandal/2015/06/18/4abac970-156a-11e5-89f3-61410da94eb1_story.html
Thanks for the link! Madness on multiple levels. Parents and students in deadly combat for admission to Ivy League schools where they will be indoctrinated in Critical Race Theory. Obsession with success.
Alternatives exist, and more are coming.
If you have children who are interested in STEM, check out FIRST Robotics.
State colleges in FL are not utterly pervaded with CRT and are inexpensive and academically rigorous in the STEM areas.
Online bachelors and masters degrees are available nationwide.
I work at a state college in FL, and we’re going to spend the next five years focusing on “equity” in our strategic plan.
I like to think it won’t be as bad as at the Ivys, but I could be wrong.
Who would wish this bad outcome on USA students? Note that my local public school system logs an average of at least one student suicide threat/attempt per day already! Their stupid solution? Hire more student counselors! The correct solution is to lessen student stress. The top students are under tremendous academic stresses with far too many hours of homework and extremely unrealistic expectations as to sports and activities.
https://www.google.com/amp/m.koreaherald.com/amp/view.php%3fud=20200427000687
Thanks again! Yes, the government schools attempt to justify their existence by making course work artificially difficult.
One example of this is advanced placement (AP) courses. The work required is much more than for equivalent or better community college courses which can be taken via “dual enrollment”. In FL, dual enrollment is paid for by the school district (including a book allowance). It doesn’t require the dreaded AP exam, and dual enrollment credits are PREFERRED over AP credits by colleges and universities.
Children who take a lot of AP courses in high school LOSE THEIR CHILDHOOD. Children who take dual enrollment courses do not. I know this via personal experience with both.
I agree about AP courses — too much busywork. They used to be for academically elite HS kids so they could have a lighter touch and a high ceiling and a lot would be learned. Now they’re more democratized, the equity watchdogs are on duty, and so now for AP Calc BC you hardly have to know how to do integrals and there is no proof on the exam anymore — but they sure keep you busy!
Dual Enrollment is preferred if it’s on a college (or CC) campus with college students, not if it’s located in the HS taught by a HS teacher, even if it does earn CC credit that way. And also, the dual enrollment class doesn’t count if it’s also used to fulfill a HS graduation requirement, at least at my younger kid’s college.
“Dual Enrollment is preferred if it’s on a college (or CC) campus with college students, not if it’s located in the HS taught by a HS teacher, even if it does earn CC credit that way.”
My experience with dual enrollment is on the college or CC campus. Why waste your child’s time with government school attendance unless you’re looking for “child care”?
“And also, the dual enrollment class doesn’t count if it’s also used to fulfill a HS graduation requirement, at least at my younger kid’s college.”
I’m sorry to hear this. Not in my experience in FL. That seems like a problem with the college.
Milhouse: You have lost the plot. The USA citizens whose families and friends have been lifelong residents and taxpayers of the USA and have volunteered or been drafted in the military to fight endless wars for elites have paid far more than their fair share for their children’s education – and every foreign Johnny Come Lately who shows up a year before the application process in order to establish local residency. Perhaps you would like to further clarify your stance?
On the contrary, your real issue is that you don’t accept that recent immigrants are just as American as you. And the reason you don’t accept it is revealed in your next comment, which refers to “European heritage”, as if that were something good, better than Chinese heritage or Ibo heritage, or whatever.
America has always been a nation of immigrants. Productive people who come here because it’s a better place to raise their children. Not to receive handouts but to work and create wealth, which is what makes it such a better place. It makes no difference whether they came last year or 10 years ago or their ancestors came 200 years ago.
Nor does it make a difference where they came from or what their heritage is; the only thing that makes a difference is whether they come to take advantage of the opportunity to do well for themselves, or to take advantage of taxpayers’ willingness to give them stuff for free.
Which isn’t wrong, by the way; if the taxpayers are stupid enough to give stuff away why not take advantage of it? But people who come for that purpose are not necessarily the kind of people we want here. They may be, but the only way to tell is to turn off the spigot and see if they start producing for themselves. If they do then they’re our kind of people, no matter what they look like. And if they don’t then they’re not our kind of people no matter how long their family’s been here, or what they look like.
*Productive people who come here because it’s a better place to raise their children. Not to receive handouts but to work and create wealth …*
That characteristic was strongest when in fact newcomers could not get handouts. Now in that sense it’s a mixed multitude.
Milhouse: Your original argument was that immigrants – and I was talking about very new immigrants – paid ‘far more than their fair share’ (which you emphasized by italicizing) than existing citizens for their children’s education. It is up to YOU to defend your statement rather than just flinging random ad hominem accusations against the wall to see what will stick.
It’s patently obvious if a foreign family shows up in the USA just in time to establish residency for a top school application process, that foreign family has indeed paid LESS into the USA school system using money or blood, sweat and tears as reasonable measurements of payment.
No, Egghead, that is not true. The schools do not run on last year’s taxes, let alone those of ten years ago. They run on the taxes that immigrant family is paying this year and those it will be paying ten years from now. And it is paying far more than its fair share, because it’s also paying for the children of those who pay nothing. Many of whom have been here for centuries.
Oh, and the schools aren’t supported out of last year’s taxes, or those of ten years ago. They’re supported out of this year’s taxes, and those of future years that have been mortgaged by bonds. By moving here a productive family is not only paying its way but it’s paying for your children’s schooling last year and ten years ago, from which it received no benefit.
Mostly not, and many schools sit on land grants and have benefited from years of tax exemption, effectively payments from the community.
To pick on the usual example, do you think the hedge fund known as Harvard is paid for by current year students? And MIT down the street actually does sit on a land grant from the US government.
Milhouse: Do you even believe what you are saying? Public schools are mainly paid for via property taxes. People who owned property for the longest paid the most for the public schools. That’s what senior citizens are always complaining about – that they pay property taxes for schools that they don’t use….
They’re paid for by this year’s property taxes, and those of future years, not by last year’s or those of the past.
Thanks, Gibbie! There are a tremendous amount of extremely bright European heritage USA citizen children who work exceptionally hard to succeed in a system that gives tremendous advantages to literal foreigners! It really bothers me to hear people take cheap shots at USA students. I agree that AP is worse than dual enrollment. IB is also very tough and has some very questionable educational focuses. A very real problem is that colleges try hard to avoid giving students credit for AP, IB and dual enrollment. One presumes that the colleges want to keep the income from requiring students to take or re-take those courses. So, all that stress for very little gain in the end!
“A very real problem is that colleges try hard to avoid giving students credit for AP, IB and dual enrollment.”
Not in my experience in FL. Perhaps you live in the wrong state. 🙂
“One presumes that the colleges want to keep the income from requiring students to take or re-take those courses. So, all that stress for very little gain in the end!”
You are appropriately cynical, but you forgot that the colleges may also be colluding with the government high schools to preserve the latter’s monopoly.
I’d like people to notice one more item: 23% of applicants to TJ identify as white. Why is that percent of white applicants so low? Do you think that maybe word has gotten around that TJ admission is biased against top USA European heritage citizen students? Thus, those very busy top students opt out of even applying? It takes a significant amount of time to apply to top public schools (even those on a lottery system). Serious students without a meaningful chance for admission will logically focus on other more fruitful opportunities.
I didn’t know about that stat, it is disturbing. Whites are very disorganized and do nothing collectively to protect their own interests. Of course if they do it’s called “white supremacy” so it’s very tough.
Here’s the REALLY fun part. Note: Minorities are blaming whites for TJ having racist admission policies when it is Asians who predominate in TJ admissions. Wrap your mind around that one!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.publicschoolreview.com/amp/blog/prestigious-high-school-in-virginia-faces-civil-rights-lawsuit
Yeah they always blame whites first because they find that Asians will sometimes join them against whites — which is discouraging and people have noticed. But where convenient they also mean “whites and Asians”.
I don’t think they really believe that URM have inferior schooling. They just want a larger share of the resources to make up for their worse position coming into school, the combination of nature and nurture. They want others to pay to improve their problems.
Since there’s little apparent cost to their continuing to whine and moan about this stuff (lawyers will often work free or for a nice fat contingency), they continue.
Here’s the most recent lawsuit that attempts to prevent Virginia from eliminating the admissions test for TJ in an attempt to increase diversity (i.e. admit more non-Asian minorities defined as black, Hispanic and disabled).
https://www.google.com/amp/s/wtop.com/fairfax-county/2020/11/lawsuit-challenges-admissions-changes-at-elite-public-school/amp/
Note that 1) TJ in NOVA is ranked as the top public school in the nation, and that 2) the state of Virginia is committed to pursuing racial equity. Note that the Richmond, VA, Maggie Walker Governor’s School has played with test results for years. Applicants take admission tests, BUT it has NOT been the highest scorers who are admitted. Rather, high ranking administrators of all of the local school systems have sat in a room together and ‘balanced’ the admitted student population. But, that is claimed to have STILL failed to include ‘enough’ black students….
https://richmond.com/news/local/about-7-of-maggie-l-walker-governors-school-students-are-black-2-alumna-want-to/article_0da511fc-e8e2-5f95-90b2-f624eb7ed588.amp.html
https://richmond.com/news/local/education/chesterfield-reforms-gifted-selection-process-to-boost-diversity-among-countys-maggie-walker-attendees/article_fb37b3b6-faf5-5a96-aacb-72e643f762e5.amp.html
Rather than manipulate the entrance requirements for TJ, why not create more schools like TJ to meet the demand?
Because it would drain good students from the low performing schools.
My opinion is that the Boston parents will lose their challenge against a zip code based system.
State-sponsored Maggie Walker Governor’s School in Richmond, VA, let’s each school system select the students for whom it pays tuition.
Our school system selects a few students from each district. The theory is that each district pays taxes, and thus it is fair that each district gets to send a few students. There are multiple districts.
Frankly, I have heard that the school system sometimes reserves the best students for its local schools (i.e., does NOT want to send the top talent away from the local schools for the Governor’s School to get credit for their achievement).
I have also noticed that children of high ranking or long time school administrators and employees tend to get admissions preference.
As of this year, another local school system will select student(s) from each school in a effort to increase diversity.
In my opinion, the Boston parents are fighting a losing battle.
I suspect you’re right. It would be a very useful ruling if they win.
And courts won’t allow such rulings. We are not to be freed of admission preference against us and diversicrats, they are part of “the American way of life”. Just as they wouldn’t rule to allow Trump to stay in office, they won’t allow this foot to be lifted off our figurative necks.
Actually, in thinking more about it, I want to refine my comment. The school system where I am selects a few students from each local high school (and sometimes student residents from local private schools). There are fewer high schools than districts, but the idea is to give kids from each district a (theoretical) chance to attend the Governor’s School.
Y’all surely know that the lawsuit is futile. The government, including the court system, is totally opposed to both liberty and achievement. Appealing to a corrupt court system is pointless.
Subotai Bahadur
Milhouse: Asians (Chinese or Indian) are very ethnocentric and have ZERO problem thinking, saying, or agreeing that their own people are better, smarter and/or more deserving than other people including European heritage people – especially because a lot of Americans regularly tell them and each other that they ARE better, smarter and/or more deserving than European heritage people. I sat in a public meeting where former Congressman Dave Brat proudly related that he essentially told USA Indian business people that USA Indian kids are smarter than USA European heritage kids (because Indian kids were smarter than his own kids!) He was trying to ingratiate himself with the local USA Indian community for votes. I notice that you took a nasty swipe at European heritage people in your comment (‘as if that were something good’). Are you saying that it is a bad thing to have European heritage? Please defend your stance.
No, Egghead, you defend your claim that “European heritage” is something to be proud of. Because it isn’t.
Guess what, those Asian kids are smarter than your kids. And more deserving, which is why they benefit from a merit-only system. Quotas weren’t invented by blacks; they were invented by white Europeans, to keep “those people” from taking all the places on their merit. And when quotas became too blatant, they came up with ideas like “regional diversity” to achieve the same thing.
Milhouse, A few quibbles.
Asian kids are smarter on the average.
At some point on the higher end of the intelligence vs wisdom curve, wisdom starts to become inversely proportional to intelligence. See “Intellectuals” by Paul Johnson.
Gibbie: USA citizens and European heritage citizens MUST stop repeating the trope that Asian kids (from all Asia and India/Pakistan) are smarter on average. It demoralizes USA people with a false picture of reality.
There are billions more Asian kids than European heritage kids in the world now. You have to look at the IQ statistics by total population. Each population has a range of IQs. The Asians and Indians cherry pick to test their smartest, so their dumber people fail to show in the IQ ranges whereas the Western countries test everyone (and conflate everyone’s scores including new immigrants). In addition, there are well known testing scandals where Asians give the their kids the answers to IQ tests in advance! By the way, that also happened with early IQ testing in the USA where at least one ethnic group memorized the IQ test and then gamed the IQ test to score better by giving advanced knowledge of the test and answers to selected people.
The IQ tests show that it is motivated immigrants from Asia who have high IQ scores versus ‘all Asians on average‘. It’s just that there are a lot more Asians than Americans or European heritage people. The way it seems on the ground is based on numerical superiority versus IQ superiority. The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world….
The real IQ test is who creates a society where people want to live! The people who have done that have the highest IQ.
Milhouse: 1) Public schools and college do NOT just spring out of the ground the moment that new immigrants arrive. 2) Bonds are obtained and paid for over many years by existing taxpayers. 3) Existing citizens designed the schools and obtained the bonds that pay for the schools through a process that well predates new immigrants – a process based on the creditworthiness of existing citizens. 4) All immigrants are NOT taxpayers nor are or even plan to be productive citizens on behalf the USA. 5) Some new immigrants are spies or agents of other countries which send them here for that purpose which includes being placeholders to prevent USA students from achieving advanced education and employment due to limited spots and funds. 6) You have ZERO idea how smart MY kids are. That’s a cheap shot.