Redstate

It seems this guy is willing to nuance his way around every position he's ever taken.

By the way, Affirmative Action is race based by definition. "Needs Based" is more of a welfare program than Affirmative Action and those programs are also in place. How about an abilities based program for admissions instead? If you have 100 openings, take the 100 students with the best combination of SAT and GPA. It's time our country started rewarding excellence instead of worrying about the color of your skin or who your daddy is.

Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.

However, there is no doubt that kids who grow up in poor urban and rural areas often don't get the same academic opportunities as those who grow up in more affluent areas. A needs based affirmative action program in higher education, not in the workplace, would give those kids a chance to earn a better life for themselves.

I'm with you on rewarding excellence and I've been part of some heated discussion with my own school board about how much money should be spent on "challenge" programs for our brightest kids vs how much is mandated by the State and Federal government for those kids to the left of the educational bell curve. However, I've come to learn and appreciate that we can't just dispose of those kids who are capable but just need an opportunity or an extra push. Needs based affirmative action would provide that opportunity, not guarantee, for kids to excel and become productive members of society.

It seems to me that if the students aren't willing to work for excellence , then giving them a free pass to higher learning regardless of their achievement isn't going to help the situation. What is needed is a way to incentivize them to work harder in K-12 to get one of those slots rather than just dole out 20% of the slots to low income families.

Higher education is a limited resource. We need to allocate it on some basis other than being poor or a member of some protected class. Giving the slots to the best and brightest seems to make the most sense to me.

Obama's proposal is trading race warfare politics for class warfare politics. Both are wrong.

Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.

This is about not having resources like books, computers, good teachers, safe classrooms. If you have a solution for improving the situation in poor rural and urban schools, then I'm eager to hear it and embrace it if it makes sense.

Needs based affirmative action would allow a poor kid from rural Illinois or from inner city Chicago, who is inherently bright and hard working but has not had the chance to build on those gifts because of circumstances beyond his control, to unleash those God given gifts in a university or college environment. This is not about alloting slots to any poor kid. This is about reaching out to the best and brightest among that disadvantaged population and offering them an opportunity to succeed.

Such programs already exist in the private sector by virtue of grants and scholarships from private charities and also by grants and scholarships by the colleges themselvs.

And you want the government to take it over with the idea that they'll do a better job?

----------------------
Dependence is Slavery.

We are discussing university admittance policies. So, public colleges and universities are government insitutions by definition, it would require government policy to set admission standards.

Funny, when I applied for my college (both of them), I didn't have to state my income level until I was filling out financial aid aps after having been accepted.

Up until that point it was my name, ACT/SAT score and high school transcripts (or previous college transcripts in the case of my current college)

I guess I'm not quite understanding how, since one's financial status isn't looked at, why it should be something they ought to be required to look at, so as to avoid discrimination based on something that they DON'T look at.

---------------------
Dependence is Slavery.

What Obama and many Conservatives are saying is that we should switch from a race based affirmative action admissions policy to one that is needs based. So, when you fill out an application today, they do ask for your race and ethnic origin. In the future, they would not ask that question but instead consider the demographics of your local high school and school district.

good teachers, etc. then you as a school board member are not doing your job.

Putting an unprepared student into a college situation will NOT make him a success. In order for a poor student to succeed It will either require that the college provide remedial instruction for the student for the first year or two or it will require the college to "dumb down" it's classes to allow the poor student to pass. The former makes to college expend limited resources on remedial education when it should be spending on post secondary level education. The latter harms ALL the students and reduces the value of the learning they receive for the benefit of students who don't have the abilities to keep up. Of course the college could just teach the classes it's supposed to teach and let the poor student fail, but that just wastes everyone's time and money.

If you want a solution, let's look at some free market reforms instead and try school vouchers so the parents can put their children into a good school rather than having to settle for a poorly run public school.

Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.

In fact, my school district is flush. We have the best facilities, great teachers, great parental involvement. If my kids don't succeed it will not be for lack of resources. However, 40 miles east in Chicago or 40 miles west in rural Illinois, the kids aren't so lucky. There are plenty of bright kids there who would thrive in my school district, but they won't get that chance.

You of course are correct that you can't just drop these kids into a university and expect them to succeed. But, I think it's worth the money to give them some remedial courses so they can catch up.

Finally, I think we both agree that the best time to help our kids succeed is in the K-12 years. I'm willing to try vouchers and charter schools and anything else to accomplish that. Changing our property based funding mechanism for local schools to one that's a bit broader might also help. I'm open to ideas.

Illinois. The schools here aren't bad either. Those students who want to succeed can. But there is room for improvement and I think my own school district spends way to much on employing administrators and various other non-teaching expenses and too little on actual teaching. Still my son is getting a good education and scored fairly well on his ACT (it's gotten him LOT's of attention from colleges).

I suspect the problems with inner city schools has less to do with a lack of money and more to do with other social problems (many exacerbated by the very programs intended to solve the problems, but that's a whole different topic).

Yes, the best time to help our kids succeed is K-12. Perhaps there's another way to help the students who don't make the grade, but want to advance their education. I just don't think giving them a free slot in college is the right way to do it. They have to learn some basics before they can succeed at the college level. Placing the burden of providing those basics on the college is not the answer and reduces the resources available for those who DO meet the standards. K-12 education is not what colleges are designed to do.

Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.

I think dglenn has a good idea below. Junior and Community colleges do and should continue to play a vital role in preparing kids to attend a 4 year school.

I am a bit conflicted on this issue. Perhaps I just see needs based admissions as far preferable to race based given our current environment.

Why not use the Junior/Community College system to provide remedial instruction?
-----------------------------------
4.62, 0.51

I don't know about your part of the country, but here in the Midwest, community college is referred to as "high school with cigarettes". They used to be called "vocational schools", but a few years ago they all started calling themselves "colleges" (with no increase in the educational rigor).

I think that particular coin has been devalued about as far as it can go.
_______________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)

Affirmative action programs of any stripe lower the overall academics of the AA granters. That's one reason why a bachelors degree will now qualify you for most jobs at McDonalds. And little more.

Schools spend too much time on remedial education and not enough time on core learning. Let the "disadvantaged" kids go to a community college or a second tier school for a year or two, get their remedial stuff out of the way and be qualified to compete at a top school.

College/university SHOULD be difficult to get into, and the graduation should be relatively low. When I went to Engineering school at Cal Poly SLO in the dark ages, roughly 20% of the starting freshmen got their BS-E from Poly. The rest either flunked out or transfered to a less rigorous course of study. And the degree really meant something. Roughly 100% of graduates were hired in their field.

Bottom line, affirmative action is nothing more than a calculated dumbing down of the university system.
____
CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

MN had (maybe still does) a program to provide 'disadvantaged' people with government paid education via a community college.

My father interviewed a legal immigrant from Africa who showed up with family in tow and showed my father his graduation card showing that he graduated and was deemed to be a welder by this government-paid program.

My dad talked to him for a bit and could see that the guy had a good work ethic, so he took him out back into the shop and had some very basic welding tests to do.

He said that there was no time limit, just do the best job that you can.

The guy took forver. He couldn't read plans very well at all and his welding was even worse.

But he had a card saying he passed training to be a welder, and it was on the government dime.

I agree with you. Post-secondary education ought to mean something and if we keep watering it down so 'everyone can participate' we end up making things WORSE for those who cannot.

Here is another example:

I have seen job advertisements for part time computer technicians, requiring a MCSE AND Novel certification. Part Time, No benefits.

I have seen job advertisements for secretaries that required a Degree in Business Administration or Accounting.

I have seen job advertisements for all sorts of jobs that used to be considered 'entry level' jobs that are not only requiring a degree, but 2 to 5 years experience. And they're calling the position entry level.

----------------------
Dependence is Slavery.

"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

- John Meynard Keynes

So does that mean that we can expect the Obamasiah to actually come out and SAY that he's changed his mind because conditions have changed, or is the "new kind of politician" simply going to ooze around all possible sides of the issue?
________________________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)

We're always hearing about the disparity between good school districts, where there is a tax base to support excellence in education, and failing school districts, where most of the residents are poor.

College admissions boards could simply accept students who fall in the top 10 or 50 or (whatever they choose) percent of their high school class. It's not perfect, but it would definitely give a good cross-section of America. And the students with arguably the greatest potential would be accepted to college, regardless of the quality of school they attended.

Though you might have to tweak it a bit or kids from excellent schools would then be disadvantaged. There are definitely no neat and easy solutions. I support using economic need as only one of several criteria for college admissions. Your idea also has much merit.

If you wanted merit you wouldn't be playing these games.

HTML Help for Red Staters

If the 10th percentile student of Poor High School takes the place of the 11th percentile student of Notpoor High School at Awesome University, it doesn't mean that the Notpoor senior won't get into a good school. He/she will simply have to go on the wait list, or go to his/her second choice school. Given that high school seniors often use ill-informed criteria in deciding where to apply, I don't think that it is much of a disadvantage.

School districts that pool their wunderkind into one school can devise a district-wide ranking system if they so choose.

Think: G.R.A.D.E. I.N.F.L.A.T.I.O.N.

It's bad enough now, this would only make it worse.
____
CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

If all my classmates get Ds and I get straight Cs, I am still the valedictorian and I still get into the school that accepts only the top 1% of their graduating class.

Youve effectively gamed the system to cheat a qualified student out of a slot.
____
CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

If college admittance is based on class rank, expressed as a percentage, you know the competition would be cut throat, as it should be.

And what if the teachers at Excellence High are so tough, that they never give As or Bs?

All kids get A's and B's so everyone is valedictorian.

Teachers would not give every student the same grades so that all of them can go to the best college in the country. You know they reward students who study hard.

And the parents of the smartest kids would never stand idly by watching every student get an A regardless of effort.

1) How is a number grade any different from a letter grade?

2) Teachers reward students on a lot of different criteria, and "study hard" isn't always at the top. Besides, the system should reward accomplishment, not effort.

3) The last thing that the high schools are concerned about is the parents of the smartest kids. Don't beleive me? Check out the difference in school spending for "at risk" and "special ed" programs versus "gifted and exceptional" programs. Fact is, they're not really interested in the opinions of parents in the first place; teachers talk a lot about wanting "parental involvement" but what that really translates into is: "we want the parents to agree with what we tell them and never question our techniques".
______________________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)

1. Number grades (0-100) allow for more precise ranking.

2. By study hard, I meant study hard and ace the test. I am sorry that I was not clear.

3. My experience regarding the relationship between parents and teachers is the polar opposite of yours. I am the product of 12 years of Catholic schools. I am a Catholic school parent. Can that account for our difference of opinion?

1) Adding more precision to a subjective measurement doesn't make it more precise, it just makes it look that way.

2) OK. That still doesn't change the fact that some teachers grade on the basis of "need", or "effort", or the ability to sink a three-point shot in a clutch, rather than actual achievement.

3) My three kids have gone to Catholic schools all the way through. Have you dealt with a Catholic high school, yet? The two that I've dealt with so far have taken the position that "when we want your opinion, we'll let you know what it is". Even so, they're better than the public schools; as I said, check out the difference in funding ratios. There's simply not enough "smart kids" to have enough political clout to get the attention of the school board or of the teacher's union that usually controls said board. The fact that Uncle Sugar pays the school extra for special-ed classes and bupkiss for gifted programs probably has something to do with it, too.
____________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)

means "in class summa' da time."

My observation from going to the U here for a few semesters and from my oldest's experience at a state U in the Lower 48 was that:

Going to class and giving some indication of having read the text got you an A

Going to class fairly regularly got you a B

Showing up enough that the prof might recognize you as one of his/her students got you a C

Taking the final, passing it or not, got you a D

Not showing up and not taking the tests was the only way to get an F.

My oldest has a degree and had a three and change GPA. I'm sure he has never read all of any book. His writing is barely literate. He has only the most minimal knowledge of history, geography, politics, or literature and no real knowledge of Western Culture, other than pop culture and sports, that he didn't get at home.

I don't know why anyone would WANT affirmative action to get them into that system.

As an aside, the profs/instructors were visibly more demanding of older and brighter students which made it hard to want to do more than you had to since you knew the slackers were going to get an A anyway.

In Vino Veritas

If it was as simple as class standing, the standardized tests (ACT and SAT) wouldn't have any reason to exist.

Using clas standing penalizes kids for taking hard classes and going to more difficult schools.
_______________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)

ACT and SAT are effective in that they are the same for poor and rich kids alike.

Like death, they are a great equalizer.

Perhaps that is why the left hates them so much.

When I took the ACT, it was the last year that you were not allowed to use a calculator.

Grades on the ACT haven't gone up much, yet students don't have to do math in their head.

sad.

----------------------
Dependence is Slavery.

not in the math, but in the verbal section. I don't know if it still exists.

I went to a private high school where I was not only able to take Latin for 4 years but also had PSAT, SAT and ACT prep sessions in math and English classes. The Latin helped me on the verbal sections, since many English words have Latin roots. The prep session helped me in the math and verbal sections also. Needless to say, most of us kicked butt on those tests and 100% of my graduating class was admitted to a 4 year institution of higher learning. I doubt that kids in public schools in poorer areas had the same opportunity.

Uh, if the same test is given to all, there isn't bias.

If a school is so poor at educating that its students do not have a grasp on vocabulary, that is not the fault of the test.

As for test prep issues, one can easily scan the internet for test prep websites while at school during study hall, or at the free libraries that exist all over teh place.

That test prep materials are not handed out to the students does not get the student 'off the hook' for finding the information on their own. They know that they're taking the test their junior or senior year and have no excuse for not preparing except dependence upon the government to spoon feed them and apathy towards personal responsibility. Given the FREE help that is available on the internet, along with books you can check out from the library specifically for prepwork.

When a person fails to take the time to prepare themselves, they have no one else to blame.

----------------------
Dependence is Slavery.

The complaint about "racist" SAT questions used this one as an example:

"Car is to road race as (blank) is to regatta"

Supposedly, it was racist to expect a minority kid to know that a regatta is a sailing race, because most minority kids had never seen a regatta or a sailboat.

I grew up solidly blue-collar, and you know what? I knew the answer to that question, and I'd never seen a regatta, either. The whole issue isn't wether you use those words in your daily life, but wether you've done enough reading to know what those words mean.

Expecting kids to have done a certain amount of reading, and to have been eclectic enough in thier reading to have run across words like "yacht" and "regatta" isn't racist. Unless, or course, you're using the new, improved liberal progressive definition of "racism", as in "not applying soft expectations on the basis of membership in a recognized victim group"
_____________________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)

But the newer, dumbed-down cerbal section of the SAT hasn't helped the gap, from my understanding.

I really screwed up the "cerbal" section, tricky bastards they.

That is, if you* actually payed in attention in class.

*you as in the generic you
-----------------------------------
4.62, 0.51

the difficult courses in determining class rank...I assumed most schools do the same.

The more challenging schools argument does present a problem only if the school selectively pools the smartest kids. If it is a public school, the students can be ranked against others in the district. For private excellence schools and the home-school community, the colleges would have to come up with some alternate plan.

By the way, I was not arguing to do away with the admissions process altogether. I was trying to find a way to admit worthy students who have achieved as much as they could within their given circumstances without resorting to a need-based system.

My high school gave more weight to the difficult courses in determining class rank...I assumed most schools do the same.

Are you kidding??? That would require a (gasp!) Value Judgement (sound of studio audience saying "oooooOOOOOOOoooo") What are you, some sort of Nazi?

Seriously, could you imagine the hue and cry if the school were to officially recognize that "History of food" isn't as educationally valid as pre-calculus? That trig and physics are more important than choir and fingerpaining? I can guarantee you that it would never happen.

Between the teacher's union and the beret-and-granola crowd, I can already hear the pillows being cut open and smell the tar being heated.
_________________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)

God and gun country. I am a Catholic school parent, but based on the kids' awesome babysitter, excellence still counts for a lot in the district's public high school.

or upper middle class neighborhood like me. Our schools still have the resources to have honors courses, AP courses, etc. At the last school board meeting, they announced how many of our high school kids took and passed AP classes and will go into college with as many as 12 or 15 college credits under their belt. Impressive.

different weights to different levels of classes. I don't remember the labels they give them, but they essentially have 3 levels of classes (plus special ed which has it's own grading system).

There are honors level classes. Things like pre-calc, and academic english language fit into this category. These classes are intended for the kids who are actually going to LEARN something and go to college. All of the top 20 or 30 students take at least SOME of this level class with the top 10 pretty much in a full load of them. These classes have a few extra points added to an A level. I think it's a 21 point scale.

They have "normal" level classes which teaches at about the level that I remember from my high school that didn't have such a system. These classes have a lower GP assigned to them, with I think 18 being the top point value for an A.

Then they have the dumb kids classes. These are the classes that teach math and language at a level that most people would have expected in middle school. An A in this class will get you 15 points.

Most students have a mix of classes depending upon the abilities that their teachers and parents believe they have.

It's not a bad system. It teaches kids at a level that's appropriate for their skill. It allows children who aren't as smart or failed to learn in lower grades to get an A while at the same time awarding more points in class ranking to the students who really DO perform better.

Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.

I'm heading out of town for Independence Day. Have a great weekend!

I've read that some of the "need-based" programs use a complex formula to determine if you're socially, as well as economically, needy. They factor in things like parents marital status, parents education level, crime level in your neighborhood, graduation rate at your high-school, and, of course, racial makeup.

The not-too-well-kept secret is that the weighting system assumes that if your nose is brown, you've been the victim of racial opression, regardless of the income level or school you attended, and that automatically buries the needle.

It's basically a game of college-admissions quiddich (C), the other applicants can score points all day, but if you're a member of a protected victim group, you've caught the golden snitch and automatically win the game.

A race-based admission criteria with a diffrent name isn't that big an improvement, even if it (grudgingly) favors a few white kids from extreme circumstances.
________________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)

HTML Help for Red Staters

I'm not exactly sure which constition they're working from these days, but it's pretty clear that it's not the one that I read in high school. They seem to be making this one up as they go.
___________________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)