[chickenfries]

I was with you initially, but after thinking about it could be argued that creating classes that are overwhelmingly white in an overwhelmingly non white district are something approaching segregation. In the end, all that is being done to the “advanced” students is that they’re being offered the same education that their peers are getting. Resources spent on the advanced learning program could have been spent on offering a better quality of education for the entire school. I’m sympathetic to both sides of this issue but I don’t find it simple.

[rayiner]

It’s not segregation because the school doesn’t place students in these classes based on their skin color.

Oftentimes these disparities arise from communities being economically mixed along racial lines. It’s not even the case that these economic disparities arise from what’s called “systemic racism.” In urban school districts many kids are immigrants or children of immigrants, and have lesser economic circumstances because of recent migration. Treating them differently based on skin color doesn’t help erase some historical injustice. For example, Bangladeshi Americans, a group I belong to, have a household income in New York City much lower than whites. Indian Americans, by contrast, have incomes much higher than whites. These disparities aren’t due to differing effects of “racism” but recency of immigration and characteristics of the immigrants. This is true for Latinos as well. They have lower incomes now because a large number are recent economic migrants. But their incomes are converging with those of white people over time: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353. (In fact, after three generations, half of Latinos don’t even identify as such.)

The data shows that, apart from Black and Native American people, other ethnic groups in the US are similarly situated to how Polish people, Italians, etc., were during the early 20th century. Or how Cubans or Vietnamese were in the later 20th century. They’re in the process of economic integration. It’s not a situation where government discrimination is required now to erase the effects of past government discrimination.

For similar reasons, it makes no sense to discriminate between kids based on race to address present (rather than systemic) economic disparities. For purposes of dismantling gifted programs and test-based admissions, whites and Asians are typically lumped together. But in NYC, for example, most Asian kids in the gifted programs are actually fairly poor, because they’re the children of recent immigrants. It’s irrational to lump them together with whites in the “advantaged” group.

[superflit]

"The data shows that, apart from Black and Native American people, other ethnic groups in the US are similarly situated to how Polish people, Italians, etc., were during the early 20th century. Or how Cubans or Vietnamese were in the later 20th century. They’re in the process of economic integration. It’s not a situation where government discrimination is required now to erase the effects of past government discrimination."

That will end the narrative of systemic racism and then all the "diversity" officers and quote will be blown away.

Call what you want but America is the least racist country.

[ntsplnkv2]

Black americans have been around longer than Italian Americans have been, and they're still "integrating?" I don't buy that at all.

[QuarterReptile]

No, re-read the comment. "Other ethnic groups" are still integrating.

[yellowapple]

> apart from Black and Native American people

That's a pretty wide exception, and it's worth addressing why they remain an exception. Why are these groups so slow to economically integrate?

The simplest (and therefore most Occam's-razor-friendly) explanation for the black population is that they can't usually pass as "white" as easily as other demographics. But this doesn't really explain much for Native Americans, who could pass as "white" about as easily as Latinos and/or Asians.

[dragonwriter]

> It’s irrational to lump them together with whites in the “advantaged” group.

Why?

The “advantaged” here isn't about transitory economic status but systematic racism, and the durable effects of historical racism.

The material you are citing, taken at face value, justifies lumping not only Asians, but everyone but Blacks and Native Americans, into the “advantaged” group with Whites, rather than providing an argument against lumping recent Asian immigrants into that group.

[rayiner]

In the paragraph you’re quoting, I’m talking about what you call transitory economic status above. The point is that if you’re trying to address that, it makes no sense to lump poor Asian kids in NYC together with wealthy white kids. Or to treat poor white or Asian kids differently than poor Black or Latino kids.

I address systemic racism in the second to last paragraph above, and I agree that in that context, everyone but Blacks and native Americans should be in the advantaged group.

[seankimdesign]

Did you miss that part of the article or have you intentionally excluded the presence of Asian students in your reply because it makes your argument stick better? I don't think it meets the definition of segregation when a subset of multiple groups are given special treatment due to their aptitude on topics that are inherently race-agnostic. Yes, those with money and power can better educate their kids compared to the poor, but so can those without money who simply value education higher (speaking as a 1.5 gen immigrant who grew up extremely poor). Why are we always the first ones to be penalized in the name of racial equality?

[vulcan01]

> In the end, all that is being done to the “advanced” students is that they’re being offered the same education that their peers are getting.

This is generally not what advanced students get. They are usually taught different, more advanced curricula. Not all kids are capable of learning quickly, so the whole point of a separate program is to provide quick learners with advanced curricula and others with the support they need.

[StanislavPetrov]

>Resources spent on the advanced learning program could have been spent on offering a better quality of education for the entire school.

This assumption rests on the false supposition that all children have the same intelligence and learn at the same rate, and the only difference is environmental factors. While environmental factors are certainly important, they aren't everything, despite how wonderful that would be towards realizing the fantasy of a "fair and just" world. The fact is that people are different - innately. Just as a proper schooling system allocates resources for students that learn at a slower rate, so should a proper schooling system allocate resources for students who learn at an advanced rate.

[dragonwriter]

> Resources spent on the advanced learning program could have been spent on

Segregating students who would fail to be engaged by mainstream coursework unless disproportionate effort and attention was focussed on them is “offering a better quality of education for the entire school.”