the_tyrant
02-17-14, 12:52 AM
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/features/2014/the_liberal_failure_on_race/affirmative_action_it_s_time_for_liberals_to_admit _it_isn_t_working.html
Interesting article, I somewhat agree with the conclusion. And I absolutely think that the current method of affirmative action is broken.
In my opinion, affirmative action at the college level is way too late for any meaningful solutions. Just consider what happened in China:
So "stereotypically", Asians emphasize marks and numbers when it comes to their education, and that is exactly how it works in Chinese universities. In China, students get admitted to university solely based on the results of the National Higher Education Entrance Examination. Yes, there are tiny amounts of students who are exempt based on exceptional talent (think athletic scholarships), but they are such a small percentage it's negligible.
Under this system, the vast majority of China (with small exceptions like Shanghai), use the 3+x system. Every student gets examined on the 3 main subjects of chinese, math, and english. With the rest bring their electives. The maximum possible mark is 750 points.
Students in China would write their exam, and get their results back before applying for university. Universities would look at the grades distributions and set an application requirement. In most cases, students would apply for the program with the highest requirement that they can get into (their thinking goes: I don't want my hard earned marks to go to waste). For instance, my friend got 647 out of 750, and he applied to a program that requires 645.
Traditionally, ethnic minorities in china are underachievers. (just like america). So the government a few years back implemented the largest scale affirmative action program ever. Minority students get a boost on their marks of a few points (up to 20 at one point if my memory serves me right).
Out of the 8 million or so high school graduates every year, the vast majority score between 600 - 700. a ridiculous amount like 7.5 million or so score between that range. So a boost of 20 points or so is HUGE. You would leap in front of something like a million students. 1 point means you leap in front of a few thousand.
For all the problems this system has, it is actually very good at predicting university success. For instance, a program that demands 645 would fine tune its curriculum so that students who score 645 would be able to do ok, but students who score 630 would have significant trouble.
The results after a few years tell us that affirmative action in china is failing. Students of ethnic minorities who only got into the program the wanted because of this 20 point boost have the highest washout rates in the country. It has actually increased washout rates at chinese universities because of it. After all, a student who is good enough to succeed at a 2nd tier school would go to a 1st tier school and fail.
Now at this point, it could be blamed on the fact that the students are minorities, but it goes far deeper than that.
In China, a person's ethnicity is stupidly defined as the ethnicity of his/her father. So for instance, if a man's father is Tibetan, but not his mother, he is still tibetan. Even if he marries a non tibetan, his children are still tibetan, and so on. A man would still be a minority, if his only minority relative was his great-great-great-great-great grandfather.
Under this system, ethnicity becomes easy to fake. And of course, many students end up faking their ethnicity for those few extra free points.
And of course, when the government cracks down on it, they found that the data is very interesting. Students who were fake minorities usually struggle and fail to succeed at top tier schools. They end up washing out to second tier school, and they took a spot for a more deserving student.
My conclusion is (and the chinese government's) that affirmative action does not work at the college level. There is a huge achievement gap between high achievers and low achievers by the time they get to their late teens.
Coming back to America, this is why I believe that affirmative action should be abolished for things like university acceptance. Enforce the fact that there is no discrimination against a minority group, but you cannot enforce each college's student body to be the same distribution as the population at large.
Affirmative action could only work if it is started young. Elementary school children of an underachieving group should receive help. By the time they turn 18, its far too late.
Now an example that the article sourced was this: http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/09/technology/diversity_silicon_valley/?iid=SF_T_Lead
the conclusion was that the technology industry doesn't like african americans, hispanic americans, and female americans.
I would tend to disagree, its simply a supply problem.
I go to a top tier university (top 20 in the world rankings), and one day I tried to do some counting in my own class. In a smaller higher level computer course, of the 70 or so students in class (almost everyone whom I know personally), we only have 3 students of african descent (one of whom was an international student from Kenya) 5 of Hispanic descent (I didn't count the guy from spain) and 3 girls (one of which was Hispanic, which overlaps with the other category). The rest were all of European or Asian descent (and by asian I count south asian and the Israeli guy).
How can the technology industry have an ethnic distribution similar to that of the general population if the schools have a skewed student base? This isn't something that workplace affirmative action can hope to fix!
Interesting article, I somewhat agree with the conclusion. And I absolutely think that the current method of affirmative action is broken.
In my opinion, affirmative action at the college level is way too late for any meaningful solutions. Just consider what happened in China:
So "stereotypically", Asians emphasize marks and numbers when it comes to their education, and that is exactly how it works in Chinese universities. In China, students get admitted to university solely based on the results of the National Higher Education Entrance Examination. Yes, there are tiny amounts of students who are exempt based on exceptional talent (think athletic scholarships), but they are such a small percentage it's negligible.
Under this system, the vast majority of China (with small exceptions like Shanghai), use the 3+x system. Every student gets examined on the 3 main subjects of chinese, math, and english. With the rest bring their electives. The maximum possible mark is 750 points.
Students in China would write their exam, and get their results back before applying for university. Universities would look at the grades distributions and set an application requirement. In most cases, students would apply for the program with the highest requirement that they can get into (their thinking goes: I don't want my hard earned marks to go to waste). For instance, my friend got 647 out of 750, and he applied to a program that requires 645.
Traditionally, ethnic minorities in china are underachievers. (just like america). So the government a few years back implemented the largest scale affirmative action program ever. Minority students get a boost on their marks of a few points (up to 20 at one point if my memory serves me right).
Out of the 8 million or so high school graduates every year, the vast majority score between 600 - 700. a ridiculous amount like 7.5 million or so score between that range. So a boost of 20 points or so is HUGE. You would leap in front of something like a million students. 1 point means you leap in front of a few thousand.
For all the problems this system has, it is actually very good at predicting university success. For instance, a program that demands 645 would fine tune its curriculum so that students who score 645 would be able to do ok, but students who score 630 would have significant trouble.
The results after a few years tell us that affirmative action in china is failing. Students of ethnic minorities who only got into the program the wanted because of this 20 point boost have the highest washout rates in the country. It has actually increased washout rates at chinese universities because of it. After all, a student who is good enough to succeed at a 2nd tier school would go to a 1st tier school and fail.
Now at this point, it could be blamed on the fact that the students are minorities, but it goes far deeper than that.
In China, a person's ethnicity is stupidly defined as the ethnicity of his/her father. So for instance, if a man's father is Tibetan, but not his mother, he is still tibetan. Even if he marries a non tibetan, his children are still tibetan, and so on. A man would still be a minority, if his only minority relative was his great-great-great-great-great grandfather.
Under this system, ethnicity becomes easy to fake. And of course, many students end up faking their ethnicity for those few extra free points.
And of course, when the government cracks down on it, they found that the data is very interesting. Students who were fake minorities usually struggle and fail to succeed at top tier schools. They end up washing out to second tier school, and they took a spot for a more deserving student.
My conclusion is (and the chinese government's) that affirmative action does not work at the college level. There is a huge achievement gap between high achievers and low achievers by the time they get to their late teens.
Coming back to America, this is why I believe that affirmative action should be abolished for things like university acceptance. Enforce the fact that there is no discrimination against a minority group, but you cannot enforce each college's student body to be the same distribution as the population at large.
Affirmative action could only work if it is started young. Elementary school children of an underachieving group should receive help. By the time they turn 18, its far too late.
Now an example that the article sourced was this: http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/09/technology/diversity_silicon_valley/?iid=SF_T_Lead
the conclusion was that the technology industry doesn't like african americans, hispanic americans, and female americans.
I would tend to disagree, its simply a supply problem.
I go to a top tier university (top 20 in the world rankings), and one day I tried to do some counting in my own class. In a smaller higher level computer course, of the 70 or so students in class (almost everyone whom I know personally), we only have 3 students of african descent (one of whom was an international student from Kenya) 5 of Hispanic descent (I didn't count the guy from spain) and 3 girls (one of which was Hispanic, which overlaps with the other category). The rest were all of European or Asian descent (and by asian I count south asian and the Israeli guy).
How can the technology industry have an ethnic distribution similar to that of the general population if the schools have a skewed student base? This isn't something that workplace affirmative action can hope to fix!