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I halfway agree with you. I don't think that anyone should be judged based on race, gender, or religion. However, I believe in a class-based affirmative action. For instance, those in the lower 20th percentile of parental income should be given help in qualifying. So many studies have shown that children from poor backgrounds have fewer opportunities to broaden their horizons and come to school already behind the curve. America has a big problem with widening gaps in class. The rich have been getting richer and passing the benefits of their wealth is passed on to their children. Our current President is a great example of this (Not that this is the first time in American history that relations have helped elect Presidents) but he is only one of many examples. I am in business and I see this every day - connections and referrals passed on to the next generation. It is natural for parents to want to help their children get ahead in the world, but 'the system' needs to help compensate.
Now that there are a good amount of middle-class, upper-middle class, and even upper-class blacks, as well as every other group of minorities, it is time to change the parameters in which we think about affirmative action. If affirmative action is only based on race, the upper-middle class black kids will have advantages over the lower-class blacks who need the help more. And I have seen this in action, for one of my good friends from high school got a great scholarship this way when his parents could have easily afforded tuition at any college.
What do you think about class-based affirmative action?
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![[info]](http://www.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cellio
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| Date: |
1/19/2003 12:54:58 PM |
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For instance, those in the lower 20th percentile of parental income should be given help in qualifying.
Wouldn't it be better to give this help in the form of better education, supplemental tutoring, and so on, before college, rather than in reduced admission standards? Colleges that are teaching remedial students stuff that their students should already know are not spending those resources teaching what they're really there to teach. The result is less-educated graduates, which does a disservice to the students and to the employers who will be hiring them.
I think supplemental tutoring would be a great idea, and also programs to help guide poorer students in the direction of college to begin with. Let's face it, there are a lot of really poor kids who don't even consider college an option, no matter how smart they are. If you're the child of an un-educated single mom who has to work 2 or 3 jobs to put food on the table, you're probably not thinking about if you can get into college, you're wondering what job you can get now to help out.
When I said "given help in qualifying" I didn't necessarily mean lowering admissions standards. I agree that better help in qualifying would be better education and supplemental tutoring before college. In fact, I think that the system we have to fund public education is a joke.
The fact that it's based on income for the area and not an average for the country and not a national average makes the playingfield inherently uneven. For instance, my siblings are in high school now. They are very lucky and go to a well-funded school. They have an amphitheater, indoor batting cages, Olympic-style running track, etc. They also have a whole lot of AP classes where you get college credit. Everyone wants to send their kids there, so they also have trailers, which are not heated or air-conditioned (no air-conditioning in Florida is a very bad idea).
The schools across town don't have any of those amenities, but they do have weapons inspection and razor-wire fences. They look very much like prisions.
This could all be avoided if they were equally funded. Everyone would get a better-quality environment to learn in, and the education levels would be equal.
I certainly think that it is more reasonable than race/gender/religion-based affirmative action! I'm not sure how much it would help, however, since there are means (scholarships, grants, etc) to get into college if someone really wants to. Or do you mean for schools like Harvard or Princeton, where grades aren't as important as who you know? I think it would make a lot more sense for ivy league schools than for universities like WVU where just about anyone with decent grades and a means to pay can get in.
Well I think the Ivy League needs help with that along with some private universities that specialize in specific things, and excel at what they do, but are extremely expensive.
And I think all states need to have the scholarship to a state school for anyone with a B-average or better kind of deals. And those scholarships need to include tuition, books and some kind of living stipend.
Teachers need to have hefty monetary incentives for teaching at schools with underprivileged kids, because it is a larger responsibility to teach kids who start out behind the curve.
If America wants to continue to be a superpower we need to pay the taxes it takes to support a quality education. The rest of the first-world countries have already far surpassed us. And democracy doesn't work with citizens who aren't interested in their communities and who are too lazy to keep up with current events.
Sorry to vent here, I've just been annoyed at the general public here in Georgia who simultaneously chant 'Lower Taxes' and 'Better Education'.
I definately agree that we need to pay for ALL students to get a better elementary and high school education. I also think, however, that the schools themselves need to reorder their priorities in some cases. For example: I went to a high school with raggedy out-of-date books, falling apart desks, and no air conditioning. There was a local levy that gave a large amount of money to said high school. Did we get new books, new desks, or air conditioning? Hell no. Instead, they spent that money on a new field house for the football team. :\
Hehe, that's why local control is not always great. And that kind of crap is so common!
Here are my thoughts on Affirmative Action. I agree with you that getting points based on skin color is just as absurd as getting them based on, to use your example, height. And I wish we lived in a world where people didn't judge people based on mere physical appearance, but we don't. There is still a lot of racism and bigotry in the world. Ultimately I hope affirmative action won't be necessary, but I think right now it is. Too many racists have too much power for there not to be some form of checks and balances.
| From: |
topi
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| Date: |
1/19/2003 2:38:06 PM |
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You nailed it!
I don't like AA (I've never even overtly benefited from AA to my knowledge...but you nailed it so solidly on the head!
Yosef
I also agree that there IS a lot of covert racism in this country, and that there ARE too many rich white Christians in power... but is lowering the standards or enrolling minorities for the sake of quotas the best way to fix that? Wouldn't it be more logical (and less insulting to the minorities in question) to install and enforce equality laws in colleges and universities?
And Yosef, since it applies to you... if you wanted to go to U of M, how would you feel about being "given" 20 bonus points because of your skin colour?
| From: |
topi
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| Date: |
1/19/2003 3:40:51 PM |
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Ah, license to bring my skin color into this... |
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Nessie,
I think that I should get points for being Jewish, Souix Indian, and Colombian also! We can set around being pithy about a policy that is clearly unfair, a policy that is a response to a bigger societial scope of past unfairness, a policy that has roots originating with President Richard Nixon (but exploited by the Liberals and Political Left), but what are we going to do about it? Here is what I'm gonna do about it...
I plan to apply to U of M's History PhD program later this year. I plan to apply to many other colleges also, who have no policy of handing out points for skin color. I did not even realize that U of M had such a program, but heck, never count those academic Liberals out for "uplifting those poor minorities."
It is not fair to someone non-Black who is just as qualified as I am, that I gain such an advantage. However, I will make no apologies for recieving special favor over something as incredulous as my skin color.
Additionally, I do not think it fair that U of M gives those with higher SAT scores (assuming a similar gpa), additional points over those with lessor SATs. However, if I had those perfect SATs you can bet your butt I would take the extra 12 points for that also.
In short, I am going to do what my vision of a good Conservative would do; take advantage of the stupid Liberals.
Yosef
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Re: Ah, license to bring my skin color into this... |
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LOL! Yeah, you ought to start out with about 80 points, eh? According to their scoring system, you should be able to get in with a low D average! =D
I do not think it fair that U of M gives those with higher SAT scores (assuming a similar gpa), additional points over those with lessor SATs.
Why IS that, exactly? I know that some people feel that the SAT scores are biased in some way, but no one has ever really explained why. Wouldn't they be as unbiased of intellectual assessment as the GPA is?
| From: |
topi
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| Date: |
1/19/2003 5:27:28 PM |
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Re: Ah, license to bring my skin color into this... |
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I don't even remember which I took in high school...I think it was the ACTs, but no one ever told me what my score was...you think I'm dumb now, I was a big dope in high school. The ACTs, SATs, GREs, LSATs, MCATS, GMATs, etc., are basically tests to gauge if a person has even heard about the subject area that they are interested in. They do not measure real success, or brain smarts. However, these various army of tests do provide tons of $$$ for the test-makers, test-facilitators, oh, and the colleges and universities across the nation.
Yosef
| From: |
cellio
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| Date: |
1/20/2003 12:45:32 PM |
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Re: Ah, license to bring my skin color into this... |
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Standardized tests are a better measure of academic ability than GPA, because GPA varies by local standards. Think about it up one level: all else being equal, would you hire the Harvard grad with the 3.75 or the community-college grad with the 4.0? High schools are varied like that, too.
Note that I didn't say that standardized tests are a good measure. They're just better than anything elase we've come up with so far, short of extensive personal interviews (which can work as a later-stage filter, but not initial-stage).
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