Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

At Magnet School, An Asian Plurality
Washington Post ^ | July 8, 2008 | Michael Alison Chandler

Posted on 07/07/2008 6:33:25 AM PDT by liberallarry

Asian American students will outnumber white classmates for the first time in the freshman class at the region's most prestigious public magnet school this fall, a milestone reached as the number of African Americans and Hispanics has remained low and the Fairfax County School Board prepares to review the school's admission policy.

The rising concentration of Asian Americans at T.J. mirrors demographic trends in other elite math and science magnet schools. In New York, the selective and specialized Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School have Asian American majorities, although about 10 percent of the metropolitan population is of Asian descent. In San Francisco, Asian Americans make up more than 60 percent of the students at selective Lowell High School and about a third of the city's population.

The demographic imbalance in top public magnet schools has become a sensitive issue, however. Black and Hispanic students often are vastly under-represented. Many of the schools struggle to reflect the diversity of the wider population while maintaining a transparent admissions process with uniformly high standards.

Jenny Tsai, a recent Harvard University graduate, wrote her thesis about what she perceived as a growing sentiment that "too many Asians" were at top magnet schools. She attended the selective Hunter College High School in New York, where she sensed "a certain level of anxiety" as the portion of Asian American students in the entering class grew from less than a third to more than half between 1997 and 2003. Tsai said some students felt a need to justify their admission or their contributions.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: asianamericans; diversity; education; fairfaxcounty; genetics; giftededucation; iq; magnetschools; schoolboard
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 141-152 next last
To: MrB

“I’m homeschooling, and going to have more than the “replacement rate” of children.

That’s how I’m doing my part.

I’m fortunate in that God has provided our family the means to do so.”

You’re too humble!!!!
From what I’ve read in your other posts, you both work very, very hard to make this opportunity a reality for your children!
You are great parents!


81 posted on 07/07/2008 8:47:40 AM PDT by M0sby ((Proud Wife of MSgt Edwards, USMC (Ret)))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: 9YearLurker

Thanks , the best gift I can give my child is the ability to be able to teach and raise her own children. ( I don’t want my grands to be stupid =P )

I think their intent is to create an artificial class based system.


82 posted on 07/07/2008 9:01:50 AM PDT by Lera
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 79 | View Replies]

To: Transformers

*nod*


83 posted on 07/07/2008 9:05:51 AM PDT by Lera
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 80 | View Replies]

To: liberallarry
No study has ever shown a 100% genetic explanation of differences. Usually they report that their study indicates that a trait has some % heritability factor. The following study showed that no single genetic difference could account for more than 0.4% of the difference in “g” (IQ).

Genome-wide quantitative trait locus association scan of general cognitive ability using pooled DNA and 500K single nucleotide polymorphism microarrays.Butcher LM, Davis OS, Craig IW, Plomin R.
Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.

General cognitive ability (g), which refers to what cognitive abilities have in common, is an important target for molecular genetic research because multivariate quantitative genetic analyses have shown that the same set of genes affects diverse cognitive abilities as well as learning disabilities. In this first autosomal genome-wide association scan of g, we used a two-stage quantitative trait locus (QTL) design with pooled DNA to screen more than 500,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on microarrays, selecting from a sample of 7000 7-year-old children. In stage 1, we screened for allele frequency differences between groups pooled for low and high g. In stage 2, 47 SNPs nominated in stage 1 were tested by individually genotyping an independent sample of 3195 individuals, representative of the entire distribution of g scores in the full 7000 7-year-old children. Six SNPs yielded significant associations across the normal distribution of g, although only one SNP remained significant after a false discovery rate of 0.05 was imposed. However, none of these SNPs accounted for more than 0.4% of the variance of g, despite 95% power to detect associations of that size. It is likely that QTL effect sizes, even for highly heritable traits such as cognitive abilities and disabilities, are much smaller than previously assumed. Nonetheless, an aggregated ‘SNP set’ of the six SNPs correlated 0.11 (P < 0.00000003) with g. This shows that future SNP sets that will incorporate many more SNPs could be useful for predicting genetic risk and for investigating functional systems of effects from genes to brain to behavior.

84 posted on 07/07/2008 9:10:08 AM PDT by allmendream
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: liberallarry
This study is well in line with other studies that indicate intelligence is about 40% heritable, with the remaining 60% being due to other factors.

IQ heritability estimation: analyzing genetically-informative data with structural equation models.Gallardo Pujol D, García-Forero C, Kramp U, Maydeu-Olivares A, Andrés-Pueyo A.
University of Barcelona, Spain.

When analyzing genetic data, Structural Equations Modeling (SEM) provides a straightforward methodology to decompose phenotypic variance using a model-based approach. Furthermore, several models can be easily implemented, tested, and compared using SEM, allowing the researcher to obtain valuable information about the sources of variability. This methodology is briefly described and applied to re-analyze a Spanish set of IQ data using the biometric ACE model. In summary, we report heritability estimates that are consistent with those of previous studies and support substantial genetic contribution to phenotypic IQ; around 40% of the variance can be attributable to it. With regard to the environmental contribution, shared environment accounts for 50% of the variance, and non-shared environment accounts for the remaining 10%. These results are discussed in the text.

PMID: 17295998 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

85 posted on 07/07/2008 9:18:06 AM PDT by allmendream
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: allmendream
No study has ever shown a 100% genetic explanation for differences.

I've never known anyone who ever claimed there was a 100% genetic explanation. In contrast, I've encountered many people who claim IQ differences are 100% accounted for by "environment" or "culture". No doubt it's a mix of factors, with genetics being one. But then, culture and IQ are intertwined. For thousands of years, Europeans, East Asians, Sub-Saharan Africans, and the peoples of the New World lived in isolation from one another. They created different cultures, and the ones created by Europeans and East Asians pretty much correlate with their present performance on entrance exams and IQ tests.

86 posted on 07/07/2008 9:42:48 AM PDT by puroresu (Enjoy ASIAN CINEMA? See my Freeper page for recommendations (updated!).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 84 | View Replies]

To: liberallarry
Well West Indian Blacks that emigrate here do very well!
They have a reputation of being very hard working. The perception is that they are almost pathologic about working hard.
In fact I remember an old “Saturday Night Live” skit poking fun at West Indians having multiple jobs, so many that their “social status” was in how many jobs they had!
George Gilder's book “Wealth & Poverty points out they success of West Indian immigrants. I believe he claimed that on a per capita income basis West Indians were roughly comparable to Asians.
87 posted on 07/07/2008 9:53:00 AM PDT by Reily
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: puroresu; liberallarry
“over several generations and in many countries and cultures, statistics on athletic performance are clear, undeniable and can be explained only genetically, and twin and adoption studies pretty clearly support genetic explanations for intellectual differences.” liberallarry

Was what I was replying to. He seems to think it is 100% heritable rather than 40% or so.

So you really think Europeans had more cultural factors that favored the reproductive success of intelligent people for longer than Persians? Do you think someone of Greek ancestry would be more likely to have a higher IQ than someone of Norwegian ancestry, due to the differences in culture over time?

88 posted on 07/07/2008 9:53:00 AM PDT by allmendream
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies]

To: Reily
In fact I remember an old “Saturday Night Live” skit poking fun at West Indians having multiple jobs, so many that their “social status” was in how many jobs they had!

That was "Hey Mon!" on "In Living Color"

"What, you only have t'ree jobs? Why you lazy lima bean!"

89 posted on 07/07/2008 9:54:48 AM PDT by dfwgator ( This tag blank until football season.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies]

To: Transformers

I totally agree with you on the guilt-trip point. Asian kids, at least in the first generation do not comprehend, and therefore are immune to, the idea that one should feel guilty for their success.


90 posted on 07/07/2008 9:56:46 AM PDT by PGR88
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: 9YearLurker

I also tell my kids, in reverse-60’s fashion - QUESTION what you are being taught. I explain to them how their teachers and administrators fit into the public education bureaucracy here in liberal NY State, and therefore what their motivations are.


91 posted on 07/07/2008 10:01:00 AM PDT by PGR88
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 79 | View Replies]

To: PGR88

You mean ‘question authority-questioning authority?’ ;-)


92 posted on 07/07/2008 10:05:39 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 91 | View Replies]

To: allmendream
In summary, we report heritability estimates that are consistent with those of previous studies and support substantial genetic contribution to phenotypic IQ; around 40% of the variance can be attributable to it. With regard to the environmental contribution, shared environment accounts for 50% of the variance, and non-shared environment accounts for the remaining 10%.
Those figures are consistant with everything else I've read.
93 posted on 07/07/2008 10:07:33 AM PDT by liberallarry
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 85 | View Replies]

To: Transformers
Folks of Italian ancestry who get educated, work hard, and act no differently than other upper middle/upper class white Americans get ahead.

Italian Americans who insist on referring to themselves as "Italian" (even though they have never been to Italy or speak the language) act like wannabe Tony Sopranos, and spend their teen and adult years getting drunk at the shore don't get ahead in life.

I am of Polish and Italian ancestry, but I wouldn't be caught dead referring to myself as anything but American, nor do I really give a sh-t about the Mafia (a dying organization stateside anyway) or negative images in the media in general (I rarely watch television).

94 posted on 07/07/2008 10:08:09 AM PDT by Clemenza (You Shoot Me in a Dream, You Better Wake Up and Apologize)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: Transformers

Yes they will. If they educate themselves and learn good communication and social skills, they will do fine. If they sit around at the tavern or bowling alley talking about how “bitter” they are, then they will fail.


95 posted on 07/07/2008 10:09:51 AM PDT by Clemenza (You Shoot Me in a Dream, You Better Wake Up and Apologize)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: liberallarry

Yes, so about 60% of IQ is from non heritable factors, that is, the majority of it.

There is as much variability in IQ within a single family as there is between racial groups.

And that 60% difference is the difference between coming home to an empty house and a Nintendo and coming home to parents who want to know why you got a B on your test and what you are going to do to make an A next time.


96 posted on 07/07/2008 10:10:26 AM PDT by allmendream
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 93 | View Replies]

To: allmendream
He seems to think it is 100% heritable rather than 40% or so.

Sorry no. You've misstated my position. I said in an earlier post

"Oh yeah. Hard work and culture are important. But genes are , too". (or something very similar).

40% heritability is no negligible amount. You're not going to overcome a deficit like that with any amount of hard work or culture.

97 posted on 07/07/2008 10:11:04 AM PDT by liberallarry
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies]

To: liberallarry
"Caucasians" refer to Armenians and Georgians. Only in the United States do folks continue to use this incorrect and archaic term for white Americans (whether Italian, English, or Syrian) in general.

What is wrong with just plain "white" or "Euro American?"

98 posted on 07/07/2008 10:12:14 AM PDT by Clemenza (You Shoot Me in a Dream, You Better Wake Up and Apologize)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: liberallarry

You are completely misunderstanding the study if you think it means that Asians start with a 40% advantage in terms of heritability of IQ. If the Asians parents have an average IQ of 110 versus the European parents have an average IQ of 100; if the Asian scores a 110 and the European scores a 100 then 40% of that difference (4 IQ points) can be attributed to genetic causes and 60% of that difference (6 IQ points) can be attributed to environment.

Yes, that 4 IQ point above average advantage for having two parents both at 110 IQ might well seem insurmountable (to the innumerate)! May as well never get up off the couch, or encourage your kids to read books or get good grades! Asians and Jews start out with a 4 point IQ advantage just from having smarter than average parents!!!! OMG!!! Resistance is futile, they will assimilate us!!! LOL!!!


99 posted on 07/07/2008 10:19:40 AM PDT by allmendream
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 97 | View Replies]

To: liberallarry
In other words, if you took an average kid (IQ 100) and had the choice of.....

a) placing him as the kid of an Asian family with 110 average IQ and a culture that valued academic success.

b) waving a magic wand to make him the genetic son of those same Asian parents, but raising him as a ‘typical white person’ (trademarked by Obamassiahindustries).

Choice A would raise his IQ to 106 and choice B would raise his IQ to 104.

Sans magic if you took the average white kid (100 IQ) and the average Asian kid (104 IQ) and switched parents then the white kid raised by Asian parents would have a 106 IQ while the Asian kid raised as white would stay at 104 IQ.

Yep, hard work MUST not be the answer!!! LOL!!!

100 posted on 07/07/2008 10:35:01 AM PDT by allmendream
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 97 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 141-152 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson