Affirmative Action

[AKIron]

The student to teacher ratio should be based on the grade and possibly even subject. Seems to me the schools I went to (I went to a lot of schools, 14 of 'em through highschool) typically had 25-40 students per class.

I know that some schools do a lot worse, 50+ per class and it's not just minorities that suffer this. That's one of the reasons I'd like to see parents have a choice about which school to send their kids.

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Gunthr
- MT

MT, you are an expert in sound bytes that don't mean anything. Would you care to:


A. Be more specific.
B. Answer my post that you previously chose not to answer.

Here: "You obviously believe that because whites live in a racist society, and they have benefitted from racism, there is a debt that is owed to black people that should be paid by all of us currently living Americans. Admit it." - Gunthr


Or, as I suspect, will you continue to run when your beliefs are challanged,  or ask others to take your ineffectual part?
I'm on to you now.

OK, I'll play. I admit it. We owe a debt to those who have been wronged by our illegal or immoral institutions. That debt may be in the form of additional asistance in gaining entrance to an advanced education.

I have never run from my beliefs, and I would like to point out that your posts have yet to prove any point at all except possibly to accentuate your personal passions.

[midnight Target]

Expert: Aptitude tests are biased

Gifted Minority Student Left Behind

Biased Hiring Drug Tests

[Gunthr]

OK, I'll play. I admit it. We owe a debt to those who have been wronged by our illegal or immoral institutions. That debt may be in the form of additional asistance in gaining entrance to an advanced education. - MT

Now, instead of running away, you are trying to sneak past me,

You started running when I asked you how you feel about Reparations - you said it was a "kind of affirmative action" - but you never addressed my question about how you felt about it. All you did is post the following in response:

I'm sorry, I can't do more today. Careful not to hurt yourself while patting your own back there Gunthr.

Now that you have returned, will you please answer the original question?

How do you feel about reparations?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BTW, you also wrote "I have never run from my beliefs, and I would like to point out that your posts have yet to prove any point at all except possibly to accentuate your personal passions."  

- My answer to that is,  I only set out to share my point of view and to hopefully persuade. I also like to think that the discussion helps people decide how they really think about issues, rather than only quoting opinions of others. Its good to know how you feel about these issues, and why, because the issues will be before us very soon, if not already.

[Kanth]

MT,

If link one is correct,  this expert witness is charging that tests are designed in keeping the questions that certain types of people fail to answer and getting rid of questions that they do well on.

 But they all have the same study materials, if certain type of people don't understand certain concepts and those concepts must be understood in order for them to pass then I'd say they need to learn those concepts.

In the end if the person cannot understand then why should they be passing the test? Because there aren't enough of their race or gender in that field?  maybe it's because not enough of their race or gender understand these concepts and therefore do not belong in these fields.

 Lets say for example that women are worse at math so they are failing the math portions of tests..are those tests then biased against women?  Nope, women just don't get the concepts..and probably shouldn't be in that field if they can't understand it, if they still want to be in a field they aren't naturally good at they had better bust their bellybutton and study up so they can pass the test requirements.

 As long as these people aren't being denied anything that the other kids are studying, I don't see any unequal playing field here based on gender or race.

 In order for me personally to believe that people who cannot pass tests deserve to get into college as much as the ones who do pass, I need to see where these people are being denied access based on gender or race to the information the other kids are getting.

link 2 and link 3 I won't even go into.

some kid misses his test entirely and some woman who is living with a guy who smokes dope are getting off topic for me.

Originally posted by midnight Target
Expert: Aptitude tests are biased

Gifted Minority Student Left Behind

Biased Hiring Drug Tests

[midnight Target]

Now you misquote me...

I said that AA was a form of reparation, not that reparation was AA. All trout are fish, not all fish are trout.

So in that limited context I guess the form of reparations known as Affirmative Action is a good thing in most cases.

Now tell me. Have we wronged certain minorities in this Country? Do the affects of those past mistakes still linger? Should we do something about it?

[Kanth]

No, they don't.

Originally posted by midnight Target
Do the affects of those past mistakes still linger?  

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Kanth
No, they don't.

Yes they do.

[Gunthr]

I said that AA was a form of reparation, not that reparation was AA. All trout are fish, not all fish are trout.

 MT -  again, my question was:

"How do you feel about Reparations?  

I'm talking about the cash reparations allegedly due to black people because of past discrimination.  Please answer.

[Kanth]

Show me.

Originally posted by midnight Target
Yes they do.

[AKIron]

Read your expert MT. His conclusion was that a test cannot be made that is unbiased. Complete malarky imo.

[capt. apathy]

Link 1.
 The guy is saying that the tests discriminate against those who did not go to prep schools.  I didn't go, my kids didn't go. It is again not a race issue but an economic issue.  So, the tests are economically biased.  Maybe if we are going to do AA it should be based on how much your parents made not the color of your skin.

AA is more racially biased than these tests and after 3 pages of posts, I have yet to see one example of a racially biased question.  

Link 2.  
 He was 'left out' because he didn't take the test at the proper time.  Was he denied the right to take that test in junior high?  There is no evidence of that in the post.  The only way this would be a race issue is if he was denied the right to take the test in junior high because he was a minority.

Seems to me as just another example of some whinny guy blaming his race as an excuse for everything going wrong in his life.   A little more personal responsibility would go a lot farther than AA in getting minorities their share of the 'American dream'

Link 3.
  This one is stupid.  She flunked because she was hanging out while her husband burnt one every night.  When I had to take my first drug test (to work a nuke plant) I left the room when people started getting high.  I needed the job, I needed the money, I got off my bellybutton and left the area when people where doing things that could jeopardize it.

If the test is flawed and giving, back false positives then junk the test.  Give all that fit the profile of being likely to get a false positive a chance to retest. (Or would that be racial profiling?  That’s bad, right?)


As far as reparations go- most of us (unless you are extremely wealthy) have somewhere throughout our history as a people been toejam on by one group or another. The difference is we got over it.

In the first link the Jews where mentioned.  They are a fine example.  Their history makes the 'black experience' look like a walk in the park.
 Hundreds of years of slavery.
 Wandering without a home, as a group, for 40 years.
 Their home taken over
 New people moved in
 Divided up and scattered throughout the Roman Empire
 Hated and persecuted in many countries for thousands of years
 Nazi’s
 The holocaust
 Suicide bombers

 Some of the smartest people on earth.  And I think Einstein was before any form of AA

[mietla]

Originally posted by capt. apathy
Link 1.
 The guy is saying that the tests discriminate against those who did not go to prep schools.  I didn't go, my kids didn't go. It is again not a race issue but an economic issue.  So, the tests are economically biased.  Maybe if we are going to do AA it should be based on how much your parents made not the color of your skin.

I just do not get it. You guys are missing the whole point of testing.

The purpose of the the test (whether for school or a job) is to pick  the best candidate, not to spread some idiotic "social justice" and right all wrongs real or perceived. Does not matter why you fail. All it means that you have to work harder than some other person to achieve the same goal.

Even I could be taught to play basketball, but I know I'd never be good at it so I stay out and do something else.

I want my fireman to be strong, surgeon to be educated and skilled, comedian funny and a mailman friendly. Couldn't care less about the race or any other attributes for that matter.

I drives me nuts to see all these boot camp documentaries where you can see woman tested/graded on a different scale just to let them pass.

How the f* will we tell the Iraqis to cut them some slack in combat?

[midnight Target]

Capt. apathy - I can only assume that you didn't read the entire text of all three links. There are some valid points in all three regarding missed opportunities regarding racial equality and opportunity.

From #1 -  

Martin Shapiro, a testing specialist and psychology professor at Emory University in Atlanta, testified that using race as one of many factors in admissions is the only way colleges can offset biases in standardized tests.

and

To maintain consistency with past questions, if the group that historically scores well performs well on a pretest, the question is kept. If a group that historically scores poorly does well on a pretest question, that item is tossed out, Shapiro said.

Thus perpetuating bias.

From #2 -

Between 1978 and 1997, Hispanic students identified as gifted increased from 5.2 percent to 8.6 percent nationally, according to the U.S. Department of Education. The overall Hispanic student population went from 6.8 percent to 14.3 percent. Nationally, blacks have not fared any better. Between 1978 and 1997, black students identified as gifted dropped from 10.3 percent to 7.3 percent. The overall black student population increased from 15.7 percent to 17 percent.

and

Ford said the most important part of identifying gifted students - the referral stage - is hampered by teachers' inability to deal with culturally and linguistically diverse children.

From #3  -

Eight citizens from Chicago have filed complaints of racial discrimination against the Chicago Police Department because of hair testing which gives more false positives with black hair,

and

A 1995 U. S. Navy study shows that the dark coarse hair of African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians is more likely to absorb drug residues from the environment (second hand smoke) and then test positive even if the individual never used drugs.

and

A 1997 National Institute for Drug Abuse hair test study showed a "significant ethnic bias" in their tests for cocaine. In African American hair there is a significant amount of melanin which acts as a binding site for cocaine. That means, with equal exposure, we don't pass and they (whites) do.

[Kanth]

That drives me nuts too, it's total bs.

Originally posted by mietla

I drives me nuts to see all these boot camp documentaries where you can see woman tested/graded on a different scale just to let them pass.

How the f* will we tell the Iraqis to cut them some slack in combat?