[_hilro]

> If a school system or program doesn't have enough black kids in it, it is by definition segregated.

No, it is literally not "by definition" segregated. Using the phrase 'by definition' is not that powerful a modifier that every word that surrounds it suddenly becomes true.

That's the most nonsense thing ever. Secondly, read the line I quoted:

> highly selective and racially segregated program

The program is not racially segregated. The NYTimes just needed to sneak in the word segregation because it's a very strong explosive word. To do that, it hammered it incorrectly to a place in a sentence which gives the impression the program itself is racially segregated.

[geofft]

I grew up in a school district in the deep south that was racially segregated, as found by the court system, until a month before I graduated.

This was in 2006. Not last century.

The school district didn't, of course, test people by race or have a Colored Students High School or whatever. What they did was to put schools and school zones in ways that happened to line up with strong demographic differences in swaths of the city. My elementary school was in a white part of the city, and I can remember maybe two black classmates. My middle school (because that's where they put the gifted and talented program, as it happens) was in a black part of the city, and from my memory it felt like a majority of the students who were zoned to be there were black.

This school district was, once again, "racially segregated" in the eyes of the law. The law didn't ask whether the school district officials were motivated by racism in how they drew the lines; that's simply not what the term means.

[xboxnolifes]

Which I agree would be racially segregated. But the original comment stated that the determiner was "not enough blacks" not "intentionally setting school boundaries to avoid blacks".

[geofft]

Read my comment again, please. I specifically said that at no time did the law ask whether anyone intentionally set school boundaries one way or another - just that they were set in a way that had this statistical effect.

[_hilro]

Eh, from your own words:

> What they did was to put schools and school zones in ways that happened to line up with strong demographic differences in swaths of the city.

Using geographic lines which correspond with race to determine entry to a school for which geographic location isn't a determining factor in success is racial segregation.

Giving the same standardised test and using the result of that test to gain access to a gifted and talented program is not.

from a linked ny articles in the OP article:

> On the exam, they are asked to finish patterns: For example, if children are shown a triangle, a square and a triangle in sequence, they are asked to name what shape comes next. They are also asked to solve simple arithmetic problems and define words.

I dont have the full test but any of the test parts I've seen do not in any way disadvantage native English speaking African-Americans.

This is devolving into California's "maths is racist" because black kids in California don't score as well as non black kids.

[bitwize]

Sorry, but the law says otherwise. If a school does not have a representative proportion of minority students, a court will rule it is segregated, and the school would be legally mandated to take desegregation measures including busing students in from out of district.