FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2018
Also, new lessons in loathing: We'd still like to know why it took so long for journalists to realize what was happening at the border under the "zero tolerance" policy. That said:
Is it possible that the federal government has basically stolen and lost some kids? Is it possible that kids were taken away from their parents in the process of pursuing a misdemeanor, and that some of those kids were then sent somewhere and were, in effect, lost?
We're thinking especially of the misplaced babies and toddlers who can't even state their own names. Is it possible that babies and toddlers have actually been lost? We've seen major news orgs suggesting that this actually may have happened. See, for example, this morning's Washington Post.
Is it possible that this could have happened? Also this:
If something like that has actually happened, so you feel confident that our major news orgs will ever figure that out and clearly report it? For ourselves, we do not.
We continue to be struck by the nation's failure to discuss the possibility that President Trump is mentally ill—insane. As his conduct becomes more disordered, such a discussion is badly needed. But too bad! Back in January, the New York Times said we shouldn't do that and everyone fell into line.
We're increasingly struck by the role that has been played by General Kelly. By now, he has become the three millionth example of a familiar type in the press corps' endless array of childish novels. To wit:
Kelly is the latest fellow hailed by the press as Most Upright Person Now Living who turns out to be anything but. Do they ever make an accurate judgment when they stage their silly Group Character Wars? Do they ever get one of their Inane Group Assessments right?
A final note about what we saw last night watching Maddow:
Last Wednesday night, we liberals got ourselves badly dumbed down when Maddow opened her program with eighteen (18) pointless minutes about Herbert Kalmbach, Nixon's personal lawyer. That was eighteen (18) minutes she could have been talking about something of value, not excluding events at the border.
Instead, we got an endless dose of Retro Schadenfreude involving the jailing of Kalmbach. It felt so good going down!
Last night, Maddow opened with a pledge to wage a hate campaign aimed at HHS Secretary Alex Azar, who apparently attended his college reunion this weekend when he apparently should have been doing something else. First, though, we had to sit through eight (8) minutes about Condi Rice—more specifically, about her alleged misbehavior during Hurricane Katrina.
At one point, Rice apparently bought some shoes! Last night, Maddow blew her first eight minutes on that.
Maddow is a highly developed personal loathing machine. That said, she's amazingly skilled at disguising this impulse through her constant grinning, laughing, mugging, clowning and talking about herself like she's our personal friend. But we've rarely seen anyone spend so much time encouraging us to hate the very bad persons found on The Other Side.
To her credit, she hasn't played the Bentley Telephone Sex Tape lately. That was deeply disordered conduct—by Maddow, not by Bentley.
Last week, it was 18 pointless minutes on Kalmbach. Last night, it was eight wasted minutes on Rice. Around here, Maddow is known as "The Nun" for the way she wishes ill on those whom she opposes.
For the record, that's a reference to East Coast nuns from the middle part of the last century, not to nuns as they exist today. Also, we have to admire Maddow's skill at hiding this disordered impulse.
Eight minutes of hate about Condi Rice for conduct during Katrina! Donald J. Trump may be flatly insane—but we have our own types Over Here!
GAPS AND TRACKS: God wants "tracking" in public schools!
FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2018
Part 4—Why the Naep reports percentiles: The New York City Public Schools face a gigantic problem.
Other systems face the very same problem. For the record, this gigantic problem isn't a New York thing.
(The gigantic problem seems to be worse in glorious, distant Seattle!)
The finer element in our society doesn't want to discuss this gigantic problem, which they find embarrassing. For this reason, they focus on the finer ideas preferred by their high social caste.
With the greatest respect for their lovely ideals, this is the shape of the gigantic problem they choose to ignore, as seen in New York City's schools:
Instead, you'll see headlines like these:
The problem we all happily live with, just to be more precise.
The New York Times wants to focus on "segregation." It will never, never, never report or discuss the enormous size of those gaps. You see, the finer people who constitute its staff don't live on the short end of those gaps. They direct you to finer problems, to concerns which are much more refined.
In Monday's front-page news report, attention was paid to the question of "tracking"—more precisely, to the practice of "tracking by school." The practice was described as "cherry picking" in the hard-copy headline that day.
Just for the record, "tracking" has long been a dirty word in pseudo-liberal circles. The pretty people who write our tribal novels associate "tracking" with racial injustice, even with "segregation."
With this association firmly in mind, we pseudo-liberals tend to rail against all forms of "tracking." Today, we want to help you understand why "tracking" exists in our schools.
Why does tracking exist in our schools? Why do some kids get taught a more high-powered curriculum—in high school math, let's say—while other kids are asked to navigate a less advanced course of study?
To answer your question, we're going to show you Gotham's gigantic achievement gaps—this time, without any reference to race or ethnicity.
This means that we'll have to deal with the concept of "percentiles." Cutting directly to the chase, this is the shape of those gaps:
First, those data represent scores achieved on the Naep by New York City's eighth-graders as one big happy family. Above, we showed you the average scores recorded by different "racial" or ethnic groups. These new data show the scores attained by Gotham's kids writ large, across the board.
As you can see, those data define enormous achievement gaps. At the 90th percentile, Gotham's eighth-graders racked up a score of 329.72. Lower down, at the tenth percentile, other Gotham eighth-graders scored a measly 222.66.
Given the way percentiles work, this means that the highest-achieving ten percent of Gotham's kids scored somewhere above 329. The lowest-achieving ten percent—the kids who are truly "struggling students"—scored somewhere below 223!
That's an achievement gap of 106 points on the rarely-consulted Naep scale. Judged by a very rough rule of thumb which loses all meaning at times like this, that would be described as a gap of ten academic years—with twenty percent of Gotham's kids separated by a gap even wider than that!
Basically, that ten-point metric loses utility in outlier situations like this. But we're looking at truly enormous achievement gaps when we look at numbers like these.
Here's what that fact means:
Suppose you decided to start a large neighborhood high school in Gotham. Let's suppose that, through meticulous micromanaging, your various students don't just "look like" New York. Let's suppose they also do math like New York!
That would mean that your neighborhood school will have to deal with those enormous gaps—with that enormous range of achievement in math. This brings us to our basic question:
Do you really think that the kids who scored above 329 should be taking the same ninth-grade math class as the kids who scored below 223? Does that actually seem to make sense?
Do you really think that all those kids should take the same "ninth grade math?" Or do you think your non-selective neighborhood school should decide to engage in "tracking"—should decide to teach a higher-powered curriculum for the higher-achieving kids, and a less advanced curriculum for the struggling kids who are years behind?
If you aren't completely insane, you will of course engage in some form of "tracking," dirty word though it may be. IF you aren't completely insane, you won't ask the kids who are struggling badly to take the same high-powered class as the kids who are scoring off the charts.
If you are completely nuts, you'll apply for a job at the New York Times. You'll ignore these realities altogether. Instead, you'll lobby for minor adjustments in the demographic numbers at certain Gotham schools.
You'll headline this piddle as "desegregation," patting yourself on the back as you do. In the process, you'll completely ignore the educational challenges defined by the data we've shown you. You'll also ignore the actual needs of the kids who so clearly are struggling.
You'll pretend the kids are all pretty much the same—that the kids can just study math "side by side," as one apparently delusional principal recently said in the Times, with no one questioning his unlikely statement.
Just to be clear, there's nothing unusual about the size of those (non-racial) achievement gaps. This isn't a New York City thing. Here are the corresponding data for the U.S. as a whole:
The same holds true if we imagine a perfect nation, one in which the kids are all one "race" or ethnicity. Within each demographic group, those very large gaps obtain on the Naep. We offer this example:
Guess what, Times subscribers? This is what kids are like! More specifically, this is what eighth-graders are like here in the United States.
Some kids are better students than others. Some kids are much more athletic, or are much better dancers. Some can sing much better than others. Some kids are shorter, or taller.
And some know a lot more math! The idea that you'd teach them all the same "ninth grade math" will appeal to you if you're totally out of your mind, or if you're an unnamed editor at the New York Times.
Some kids know a lot more math! For today, let's apply this fact to Monday'a front-page report, though only in one basic way. We return to the highly bombastic claims of that cherry-picked parent from the Bronx, and to the preceding remark by Harris and Hu:
Would Edwin Franco's daughters benefit from those advanced classes? Are they being "deprived of an opportunity" if they don't attend the schools which offer those courses?
There's no way to know that! But the vast majority of Gotham kids wouldn't "benefit" from being enrolled in such classes. They would instead be destined to fail if they were asked to take such courses. It would be a form of "legalized child abuse," to cite the quotable statement Harris and Hu cadged from another cherry-picked loudmouth in Monday's front-page report.
Should New York City run "highly selective" schools for high-achievers only? That's a matter of judgment.
We might be inclined to say no. But just for once, let's understand this bone simple fact:
If Gotham didn't perform that form of "tracking by school," it would have to "track within schools." It would have to track its ninth-grade students within its large neighborhood schools.
In New York, as everywhere else, tremendous achievement gaps obtain by the time kids reach ninth grade. By the time they reach ninth grade, New York's kids aren't all the same. When it comes to math achievement, they aren't anything like that!
The New York Times won't tell you that. They're prettier people than that. Their concerns are much more lofty.
God wants tracking in public schools. Those Naep scores basically prove it.
God didn't produce a planet full of kids who are all the same. For better or worse, God created a planet of kids with different ability levels—and with vastly different achievement levels by the end of fifth or eighth grade.
It's possible that better instruction, earlier on, would lead to fewer "struggling students." But the New York Times doesn't burden itself with complex questions like that. Instead, the New York Times wants to make minor adjustments in the demographics at certain schools, ignoring the fact that kids will then be tracked into "advanced classes" where white kids and Asian-American kids sit in the bulk of the seats.
The Naep reports scores by percentiles for a reason. That said, we can guarantee this—no one at the New York Times has ever examined such data.
In its public school reporting, the Times is a bunch of pretty people tinkering around the edges of reality. We'd call it "legalized child abuse," but Homey don't play that game.
Everybody praises the Naep, but no one reports its data! This is the elite journalistic world within which our floundering society is struggling to survive.
Next week: The gaps and the plans
Still coming: Gaps and excuses
Part 4—Why the Naep reports percentiles: The New York City Public Schools face a gigantic problem.
Other systems face the very same problem. For the record, this gigantic problem isn't a New York thing.
(The gigantic problem seems to be worse in glorious, distant Seattle!)
The finer element in our society doesn't want to discuss this gigantic problem, which they find embarrassing. For this reason, they focus on the finer ideas preferred by their high social caste.
With the greatest respect for their lovely ideals, this is the shape of the gigantic problem they choose to ignore, as seen in New York City's schools:
Average scores, Grade 8 math, NaepThose data define a punishing state of affairs—but so what?. (For all Naep data, click here.) Because its reporters and editors are refined people who "went to the finest schools," you'll never see the size of that problem described in the New York Times.
New York City Public Schools, 2017
White students: 290.71
Black students: 255.63
Hispanic students: 263.56
Asian-American students: 306.03
Instead, you'll see headlines like these:
Recent headlines from the New York Times:All three headlines have appeared atop this front-page report from Monday's print editions. Those headlines direct your concern toward "tracking" and alleged "segregation," not toward the gigantic achievement gaps which constitute the modern-day problem we all live with.
Schools Cherry Pick, Leaving Minorities Behind
A Shadow System of Tracking by School Feeds Segregation
A Shadow System Feeds Segregation in New York City Schools
The problem we all happily live with, just to be more precise.
The New York Times wants to focus on "segregation." It will never, never, never report or discuss the enormous size of those gaps. You see, the finer people who constitute its staff don't live on the short end of those gaps. They direct you to finer problems, to concerns which are much more refined.
In Monday's front-page news report, attention was paid to the question of "tracking"—more precisely, to the practice of "tracking by school." The practice was described as "cherry picking" in the hard-copy headline that day.
Just for the record, "tracking" has long been a dirty word in pseudo-liberal circles. The pretty people who write our tribal novels associate "tracking" with racial injustice, even with "segregation."
With this association firmly in mind, we pseudo-liberals tend to rail against all forms of "tracking." Today, we want to help you understand why "tracking" exists in our schools.
Why does tracking exist in our schools? Why do some kids get taught a more high-powered curriculum—in high school math, let's say—while other kids are asked to navigate a less advanced course of study?
To answer your question, we're going to show you Gotham's gigantic achievement gaps—this time, without any reference to race or ethnicity.
This means that we'll have to deal with the concept of "percentiles." Cutting directly to the chase, this is the shape of those gaps:
New York City Public SchoolsThe Naep provides these data for a reason. Let's get clear on what those data mean.
Grade 8 math, 2017
Scores by percentiles, Naep
90th percentile: 329.72
75th percentile: 303.23
50th percentile: 272.76
25th percentile: 245.27
10th percentile: 222.66
First, those data represent scores achieved on the Naep by New York City's eighth-graders as one big happy family. Above, we showed you the average scores recorded by different "racial" or ethnic groups. These new data show the scores attained by Gotham's kids writ large, across the board.
As you can see, those data define enormous achievement gaps. At the 90th percentile, Gotham's eighth-graders racked up a score of 329.72. Lower down, at the tenth percentile, other Gotham eighth-graders scored a measly 222.66.
Given the way percentiles work, this means that the highest-achieving ten percent of Gotham's kids scored somewhere above 329. The lowest-achieving ten percent—the kids who are truly "struggling students"—scored somewhere below 223!
That's an achievement gap of 106 points on the rarely-consulted Naep scale. Judged by a very rough rule of thumb which loses all meaning at times like this, that would be described as a gap of ten academic years—with twenty percent of Gotham's kids separated by a gap even wider than that!
Basically, that ten-point metric loses utility in outlier situations like this. But we're looking at truly enormous achievement gaps when we look at numbers like these.
Here's what that fact means:
Suppose you decided to start a large neighborhood high school in Gotham. Let's suppose that, through meticulous micromanaging, your various students don't just "look like" New York. Let's suppose they also do math like New York!
That would mean that your neighborhood school will have to deal with those enormous gaps—with that enormous range of achievement in math. This brings us to our basic question:
Do you really think that the kids who scored above 329 should be taking the same ninth-grade math class as the kids who scored below 223? Does that actually seem to make sense?
Do you really think that all those kids should take the same "ninth grade math?" Or do you think your non-selective neighborhood school should decide to engage in "tracking"—should decide to teach a higher-powered curriculum for the higher-achieving kids, and a less advanced curriculum for the struggling kids who are years behind?
If you aren't completely insane, you will of course engage in some form of "tracking," dirty word though it may be. IF you aren't completely insane, you won't ask the kids who are struggling badly to take the same high-powered class as the kids who are scoring off the charts.
If you are completely nuts, you'll apply for a job at the New York Times. You'll ignore these realities altogether. Instead, you'll lobby for minor adjustments in the demographic numbers at certain Gotham schools.
You'll headline this piddle as "desegregation," patting yourself on the back as you do. In the process, you'll completely ignore the educational challenges defined by the data we've shown you. You'll also ignore the actual needs of the kids who so clearly are struggling.
You'll pretend the kids are all pretty much the same—that the kids can just study math "side by side," as one apparently delusional principal recently said in the Times, with no one questioning his unlikely statement.
Just to be clear, there's nothing unusual about the size of those (non-racial) achievement gaps. This isn't a New York City thing. Here are the corresponding data for the U.S. as a whole:
National public schools, all studentsThe scores are higher at each percentile, But the size of the gaps is roughly the same—enormous, very large.
Grade 8 math, 2017
Scores by percentiles, Naep
90th percentile: 332.44
75th percentile: 308.90
50th percentile: 281.67
25th percentile: 255.01
10th percentile: 232.10
The same holds true if we imagine a perfect nation, one in which the kids are all one "race" or ethnicity. Within each demographic group, those very large gaps obtain on the Naep. We offer this example:
National public schools, Asian-American studentsThose scores are much higher at all percentiles. But a very large gap still obtains.
Grade 8 math, 2017
Scores by percentiles, Naep
90th percentile: 361.47
75th percentile: 339.51
50th percentile: 311.63
25th percentile: 281.66
10th percentile: 253.56
Guess what, Times subscribers? This is what kids are like! More specifically, this is what eighth-graders are like here in the United States.
Some kids are better students than others. Some kids are much more athletic, or are much better dancers. Some can sing much better than others. Some kids are shorter, or taller.
And some know a lot more math! The idea that you'd teach them all the same "ninth grade math" will appeal to you if you're totally out of your mind, or if you're an unnamed editor at the New York Times.
Some kids know a lot more math! For today, let's apply this fact to Monday'a front-page report, though only in one basic way. We return to the highly bombastic claims of that cherry-picked parent from the Bronx, and to the preceding remark by Harris and Hu:
HU AND HARRIS (6/18/18): ...New York [City], in essence, has replaced tracking within schools with tracking by school, where children with the best records can benefit from advanced classes and active parent and alumni associations. According to the city, of the more than 830 middle schools and high schools, roughly 190 screen all of their students. Many of these screened schools are clustered in Manhattan and Brooklyn, with enrollments that are more white, Asian and affluent than the overall school population.Do children with the best records "benefit from advanced classes" at those selective schools? Presumably yes, they do!
Edwin Franco, a father of two girls who lives in the Bronx, said that too many selective schools cherry pick the best students—and deprive everyone else of opportunities. “They’re almost like a factory,” he said. “They’re churning out high-performing kids who are doing great while the rest of the kids are trying to figure it out on their own because they don’t have the same resources.”
Would Edwin Franco's daughters benefit from those advanced classes? Are they being "deprived of an opportunity" if they don't attend the schools which offer those courses?
There's no way to know that! But the vast majority of Gotham kids wouldn't "benefit" from being enrolled in such classes. They would instead be destined to fail if they were asked to take such courses. It would be a form of "legalized child abuse," to cite the quotable statement Harris and Hu cadged from another cherry-picked loudmouth in Monday's front-page report.
Should New York City run "highly selective" schools for high-achievers only? That's a matter of judgment.
We might be inclined to say no. But just for once, let's understand this bone simple fact:
If Gotham didn't perform that form of "tracking by school," it would have to "track within schools." It would have to track its ninth-grade students within its large neighborhood schools.
In New York, as everywhere else, tremendous achievement gaps obtain by the time kids reach ninth grade. By the time they reach ninth grade, New York's kids aren't all the same. When it comes to math achievement, they aren't anything like that!
The New York Times won't tell you that. They're prettier people than that. Their concerns are much more lofty.
God wants tracking in public schools. Those Naep scores basically prove it.
God didn't produce a planet full of kids who are all the same. For better or worse, God created a planet of kids with different ability levels—and with vastly different achievement levels by the end of fifth or eighth grade.
It's possible that better instruction, earlier on, would lead to fewer "struggling students." But the New York Times doesn't burden itself with complex questions like that. Instead, the New York Times wants to make minor adjustments in the demographics at certain schools, ignoring the fact that kids will then be tracked into "advanced classes" where white kids and Asian-American kids sit in the bulk of the seats.
The Naep reports scores by percentiles for a reason. That said, we can guarantee this—no one at the New York Times has ever examined such data.
In its public school reporting, the Times is a bunch of pretty people tinkering around the edges of reality. We'd call it "legalized child abuse," but Homey don't play that game.
Everybody praises the Naep, but no one reports its data! This is the elite journalistic world within which our floundering society is struggling to survive.
Next week: The gaps and the plans
Still coming: Gaps and excuses
BREAKING: Agent Strzok had a strong sense of smell!
THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2018
We've been down this road before: We're sorry to raise such a negative point, but we think it'd worth recording. We refer to the sense of smell of the FBI's Peter Strzok, as described in the New York Times:
''The arrogance and condescension and the elitist attitude, that's what ticks people off?" Strzok made it amazingly easy for the perpetually furious Jordan when he texted that remark.
Long ago and far away, we've been down this road before. Soon after Nixon's re-election, film critic Pauline Kael offered a famous remark:
We tend to look down on The Others. Have you seen a single person discuss this Washington Post report about The Others' lack of access to dental care?
The report appeared in the Outlook section on Sunday, June 10. And no, you haven't seen it discussed. Such things simply aren't done.
As many people mentioned this month, Robert Kennedy famously went to Appalachia and famously showed that he cared. That was long ago and far away. Today, such incomprehensible things are no longer done!
We've been down this road before: We're sorry to raise such a negative point, but we think it'd worth recording. We refer to the sense of smell of the FBI's Peter Strzok, as described in the New York Times:
APUZZO AND FANDOS (6/20/18): At the heart of Republicans' criticism were two senior F.B.I. officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who exchanged text messages about their dislike of Mr. Trump, his supporters and his policies—even as they investigated his campaign's ties to Russia.A lot has been said, and correctly so, about Donald J. Trump's sense of "infestation." Agent Strzok's acute sense of smell reminds us that we finer folk, the ones Over Here, can sometimes lose our way too.
''Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart,'' Mr. Strzok wrote in August 2016, just a few weeks into the Russia investigation. ''I could SMELL the Trump support.''
Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, said such quotes have undermined public faith in the F.B.I. in ways that stretch beyond the Clinton investigation. ''The arrogance and condescension and the elitist attitude, that's what ticks people off,'' he said. ''As they look at all this and see what Strzok said throughout these investigations, that's why their confidence is so shaken.''
''The arrogance and condescension and the elitist attitude, that's what ticks people off?" Strzok made it amazingly easy for the perpetually furious Jordan when he texted that remark.
Long ago and far away, we've been down this road before. Soon after Nixon's re-election, film critic Pauline Kael offered a famous remark:
KAEL (12/28/72): I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.Kael could feel The Others in darkened rooms; Strzok can smell Them at Walmart. In this and a million other ways, our team can sometimes show the world that we may not always be as fine as we tend to say we are.
We tend to look down on The Others. Have you seen a single person discuss this Washington Post report about The Others' lack of access to dental care?
The report appeared in the Outlook section on Sunday, June 10. And no, you haven't seen it discussed. Such things simply aren't done.
As many people mentioned this month, Robert Kennedy famously went to Appalachia and famously showed that he cared. That was long ago and far away. Today, such incomprehensible things are no longer done!
BREAKING: Our heroic Resistance has done it again!
THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2018
First thoughts about what has occurred: It didn't take long for us to start clapping ourselves on the back. The New York Times published the official congratulatory letter this morning:
We'll admit that we've had a slightly different reaction to what has occurred in the past week, though we haven't thoroughly researched our reaction. We'll offer it among a few other first reactions:
How did it get so far: Attorney General Sessions announced the switch to "zero resistance" back in April. We're not sure why it took two months to figure out what was going to happen—indeed, to determine what was happening in more than two thousand cases.
For the past day or two, we've been puzzling about the apparent slow reaction. This morning, though, the Times let us know that our amazingly insightful team has brilliantly done it again!
Concerning Donald J. Trump: Is it possible that Donald J. Trump is some type of "sociopath?" We ask for the following reasons:
Pundits keep saying that Trump didn't anticipate the way the separation of children from their parents would look to the American public. Apparently, Stephen Miller wasn't able to make this prediction either.
Could it be that these guys are "sociopaths?" We ask because a certain percentage of people are, and because, unless we're mistaken, sociopaths may tend to have difficulty grasping the way certain behaviors will appear to others.
Could the president possibly be a sociopath? We regard that possibility as a matter of pity, not as a matter of hatred. Unfortunately, any such discussion is officially verboten. At the start of the year, the New York Times ruled that such discussions are bad.
Pity the fool: We pity the poor American citizen who tries to get clear on the basic facts concerning what has happened. We've been especially puzzled by Linda Qiu's fact-check piece in yesterday's New York Times.
As she started, Qiu fact-checked the following statement by Trump. We'll admit that we were more confused by the time we were done than we'd been when we started:
We're frequently puzzled by Qiu's work. For our money, the Times offered a much clearer "explainer" report today.
That said, we liberals are currently being propagandized too. Our president may be some type of sociopath, but there's a great deal of disordered behavior within our modern elites.
How did this latest disaster get so far? Did all the watchdogs abandon their posts? Does anyone know the answer?
First thoughts about what has occurred: It didn't take long for us to start clapping ourselves on the back. The New York Times published the official congratulatory letter this morning:
LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (6/21/18): Well done, resistance. The protesters, the media that told the stories of the children, the politicians, medical professionals and celebrities who spoke out, the many who donated money to organizations that support immigrant families, and the Americans who took to social media let President Trump know what we want America to look like.Are we tired yet? Tired of all the winning?
And he backed down. The people spoke, and the people were heard.
H— A—, OAK PARK, ILL.
We'll admit that we've had a slightly different reaction to what has occurred in the past week, though we haven't thoroughly researched our reaction. We'll offer it among a few other first reactions:
How did it get so far: Attorney General Sessions announced the switch to "zero resistance" back in April. We're not sure why it took two months to figure out what was going to happen—indeed, to determine what was happening in more than two thousand cases.
For the past day or two, we've been puzzling about the apparent slow reaction. This morning, though, the Times let us know that our amazingly insightful team has brilliantly done it again!
Concerning Donald J. Trump: Is it possible that Donald J. Trump is some type of "sociopath?" We ask for the following reasons:
Pundits keep saying that Trump didn't anticipate the way the separation of children from their parents would look to the American public. Apparently, Stephen Miller wasn't able to make this prediction either.
Could it be that these guys are "sociopaths?" We ask because a certain percentage of people are, and because, unless we're mistaken, sociopaths may tend to have difficulty grasping the way certain behaviors will appear to others.
Could the president possibly be a sociopath? We regard that possibility as a matter of pity, not as a matter of hatred. Unfortunately, any such discussion is officially verboten. At the start of the year, the New York Times ruled that such discussions are bad.
Pity the fool: We pity the poor American citizen who tries to get clear on the basic facts concerning what has happened. We've been especially puzzled by Linda Qiu's fact-check piece in yesterday's New York Times.
As she started, Qiu fact-checked the following statement by Trump. We'll admit that we were more confused by the time we were done than we'd been when we started:
TRUMP: We have to get the Democrats to go ahead and work with us. Because as a result of Democrat-supported loopholes in our federal laws, most illegal immigrant families and minors from Central America who arrive unlawfully at the border cannot be detained together or removed together, only released. These are crippling loopholes that cause family separation, which we don’t want.As best we can tell, three statements have been made there:
Three statements by Donald J. Trump:At the end of her fact-check, Qiu seems to acknowledge that the third statement is accurate. We were puzzled by her treatment of the first two claims. Here's the way she started:
1) As a result of loopholes in our laws, most illegal immigrant families and minors...cannot be detained together.
2) As a result of loopholes in our laws, most illegal immigrant families and minors...cannot be removed together.
3) Illegal immigrant families and minors...can in fact be released.
QIU (6/20/18): Mr. Trump is again wrongly claiming that Democrats are responsible for “loopholes” that necessitate breaking apart families at the border.Alas! In the quoted statement, Trump didn't claim that the settlement or the law mandated detaining parents and separating children. It seems to us that the murk in Qiu's treatment grows deeper from there. We thought her next paragraph was a genuine semi-doozy.
The White House cites a 1997 court settlement and a 2008 law as these loopholes. Neither mandates detaining parents and separating children from their families.
We're frequently puzzled by Qiu's work. For our money, the Times offered a much clearer "explainer" report today.
That said, we liberals are currently being propagandized too. Our president may be some type of sociopath, but there's a great deal of disordered behavior within our modern elites.
How did this latest disaster get so far? Did all the watchdogs abandon their posts? Does anyone know the answer?
GAPS AND TRACKS: We'll just pour resources into the schools!
THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2018
Part 3—Solutions from those who don't care: Should New York City operate "highly selective" schools at all?
Should the city identify the highest achieving kids and let them attend their own middle and high schools? Should the city run a Stuyvesant High or a Bronx High School of Science?
Should Boston run its own "exam schools?" Should it run Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and the O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, each of which is "selective?" Should our big city systems operate such schools at all?
These are perfectly sensible questions. We're discussing public education here, not private institutions. And the creation of "highly selective" schools may have undesirable effects throughout our public school systems.
Perhaps it's just a lousy idea to operate such "prestigious" schools at all. On the other hand, it's definitely a lousy idea to approach this important topic through the kind of journalism the New York Times tends to provide.
Why is this an important topic? Because we're talking about 1.1 million public school students in Gotham alone, most of them black and Hispanic. Also, because we're talking about a giant school system which produces data like these:
The 1.1 million kids of New York don't get mentioned by stars like Maddow. It simply isn't done. And when they're left to the likes of Harris and Hu (and their unnamed, incompetent editors), we're left with such efforts as this:
To a city where the black-white achievement gap is much larger than it is in New York? To a city whose black kids are half a year behind New York City's black kids in the sixth grade, according to Professor Reardon's recent study?
Given the entire nation to choose from, who except the New York Times would come up with such a miscast comparison? And by the way, Boston seems to screen its middle and high school students just as much as New York does. Seven high schools may not seem like a lot, but Boston's a much smaller system!
Does anyone give a flying flip about the nation's black and Hispanic kids? Or does a different agenda obtain at am upper-class newspaper like the Times, which seems to focus on assuring liberal readers that We are the morally good advocates of "desegregation," as opposed to Them, the bad people found Over There?
Monday's front-page report by Hu and Harris was an insult to the nation's intelligence. For our money, the wheels had finally come all the way off the wagon with this insultingly clueless late passage:
That's a perfectly valid position, but good God—that final quotation!
At least as presented, Hemphill seems to have said that New York should return to neighborhood schools, the kinds of schools the city ran before it began permitting so many schools to "screen" students for admission.
That's a perfectly valid position. The insult comes when Hemphill, at least as quoted, explains why this would work out so well:
“I think it would be a healthier system if we poured resources into neighborhood schools to make them stronger.” That's how Hemphill is quoted.
We'll just "pour resources" into those schools! Might we note a few shortcomings with this stirring suggestion?
We'll note that Hemphill doesn't say what those "resources" might be. Nor does she say why the city didn't simply pour these resources into these schools in the first place.
Beyond that, there's no sign that Harris and Hu ever got off their upper-class ascots and took the time and the trouble to ask her. But so it goes when the New York Times pretends to report on the schools.
We'll just "pour resources" into those schools! This will make them "stronger." But would it erase the brutal achievement gaps we've already posted today? Trust us! New York Times readers will never be asked to consider a question like that.
New York Times readers are skillfully shielded from any such unpleasant questions! Times editors would hold hands and leap from the George Washington Bridge before they'd ask their upper-end readers to gaze on data like these, or to know what those data seem to mean:
Five years behind at the end of eighth grade! But don't worry! We'll "pour resources" into our neighborhood schools. That will make the schools stronger!
The insouciance of that quote (as presented) contrasts with glimpses offered by Harris and Hu of those neighborhood schools in the old days. Why did Gotham ever decide to take the "highly selective" route? In paragraph 9, the reporters start to explain:
("Families of many backgrounds?" That's a disguised way of saying that many of these educationally ambitious families actually weren't white or middle-class.)
Breaking! Apparently, middle-class families, along with families of many backgrounds, prefer to send their kids to schools which aren't "overwhelmed!" Here's the way that ended up in New York:
Might we offer a thought? In these brief glimpses, Hu and Harris paint an extremely unattractive picture of those old neighborhood schools.
Gotham's large neighborhood schools were "overwhelmed with struggling students," we're told. They were "failing" schools, which families longed to "escape."
Today, though, there's no need for concern! We'll just "pour resources" into those schools! That will make them "stronger!"
The point we're making is simple. Harris and Hu and their unnamed editors seem to have one thing on their minds. They want to pose as apostles of "integration." There's little sign that they know or care about anything else.
There's no sign that they have the first freaking clue about the size of the academic challenge facing the nation's public schools. Beyond that, we'll make the obvious point:
There's no freaking sign that they care.
New York City's schools are full of good, decent kids. They're also full of good, decent kids who are black and Hispanic. Many of those kids are struggling badly in the classroom, though, without question, not all. (More on that tomorrow.)
In response to that mountain of pain, Harris and Hu and their hapless editors want to change a few diversity numbers a tad. They want to call this "desegregation." But that seems to be where their interest ends. They have no apparent understanding or concern beyond that.
In fairness, Harris and Hu aren't education specialists. The New York Times is too uncaring to bother with piddle like that.
Tomorrow: Where does "tracking" come from? A look at Gotham's astonishing (non-racial) achievement gaps
The basic takeaway here: The New York Times will never ask you to come to terms with data like these:
Part 3—Solutions from those who don't care: Should New York City operate "highly selective" schools at all?
Should the city identify the highest achieving kids and let them attend their own middle and high schools? Should the city run a Stuyvesant High or a Bronx High School of Science?
Should Boston run its own "exam schools?" Should it run Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and the O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, each of which is "selective?" Should our big city systems operate such schools at all?
These are perfectly sensible questions. We're discussing public education here, not private institutions. And the creation of "highly selective" schools may have undesirable effects throughout our public school systems.
Perhaps it's just a lousy idea to operate such "prestigious" schools at all. On the other hand, it's definitely a lousy idea to approach this important topic through the kind of journalism the New York Times tends to provide.
Why is this an important topic? Because we're talking about 1.1 million public school students in Gotham alone, most of them black and Hispanic. Also, because we're talking about a giant school system which produces data like these:
Average scores, Grade 8 math, NaepYou're looking at punishing data—at giant achievement gaps. They affect those 1.1 million kids, and they affect the whole nation. But while Rachel is crying and breaking down about two thousand mistreated kids, the 1.1 million kids of New York are consigned to the incompetent journalism of Harris and Hu.
New York City Public Schools, 2017
White students: 290.71
Black students: 255.63
Hispanic students: 263.56
Asian-American students: 306.03
The 1.1 million kids of New York don't get mentioned by stars like Maddow. It simply isn't done. And when they're left to the likes of Harris and Hu (and their unnamed, incompetent editors), we're left with such efforts as this:
HU AND HARRIS (6/18/18): In Los Angeles, the country’s second-largest district, there are only two selective high schools and two “highly gifted” magnet schools. Boston has seven schools that screen—all high schools—including the prestigious Boston Latin School, a feeder for Harvard University that has an entrance exam akin to New York’s specialized high school test. In Seattle, the only screened schools are two elementary schools with accelerated curriculums for “highly capable” students who pass a district-administered gifted test.For details, see yesterday's report. But given the entire nation to choose from, who other than Harris and Hu would compare New York City—unfavorably!—to glorious distant Seattle, a largely middle-class district which is heavily white and Asian-American?
To a city where the black-white achievement gap is much larger than it is in New York? To a city whose black kids are half a year behind New York City's black kids in the sixth grade, according to Professor Reardon's recent study?
Given the entire nation to choose from, who except the New York Times would come up with such a miscast comparison? And by the way, Boston seems to screen its middle and high school students just as much as New York does. Seven high schools may not seem like a lot, but Boston's a much smaller system!
Does anyone give a flying flip about the nation's black and Hispanic kids? Or does a different agenda obtain at am upper-class newspaper like the Times, which seems to focus on assuring liberal readers that We are the morally good advocates of "desegregation," as opposed to Them, the bad people found Over There?
Monday's front-page report by Hu and Harris was an insult to the nation's intelligence. For our money, the wheels had finally come all the way off the wagon with this insultingly clueless late passage:
HU AND HARRIS: The process at every level can be grueling for children and their families. “I don’t think anyone who’s gone through the high school application process thinks it’s anything but legalized child abuse,” said Clara Hemphill, the editor of the popular school guide InsideSchools, a project of The New School’s Center for New York City Affairs. “I think it would be a healthier system if we poured resources into neighborhood schools to make them stronger.”Ignore the thrilling, quotable claim about "legalized child abuse." (No alternate view is offered.) Like everyone else the scribes quoted that day, Hemphill seems to oppose the operation of "highly selective" schools.
That's a perfectly valid position, but good God—that final quotation!
At least as presented, Hemphill seems to have said that New York should return to neighborhood schools, the kinds of schools the city ran before it began permitting so many schools to "screen" students for admission.
That's a perfectly valid position. The insult comes when Hemphill, at least as quoted, explains why this would work out so well:
“I think it would be a healthier system if we poured resources into neighborhood schools to make them stronger.” That's how Hemphill is quoted.
We'll just "pour resources" into those schools! Might we note a few shortcomings with this stirring suggestion?
We'll note that Hemphill doesn't say what those "resources" might be. Nor does she say why the city didn't simply pour these resources into these schools in the first place.
Beyond that, there's no sign that Harris and Hu ever got off their upper-class ascots and took the time and the trouble to ask her. But so it goes when the New York Times pretends to report on the schools.
We'll just "pour resources" into those schools! This will make them "stronger." But would it erase the brutal achievement gaps we've already posted today? Trust us! New York Times readers will never be asked to consider a question like that.
New York Times readers are skillfully shielded from any such unpleasant questions! Times editors would hold hands and leap from the George Washington Bridge before they'd ask their upper-end readers to gaze on data like these, or to know what those data seem to mean:
Average scores, Grade 8 math, NaepJudged by a standard, very rough rule of thumb, those data mean that the average black kid in New York's public schools is (something like) five years behind the average Asian-American kid at the end of eighth grade.
New York City Public Schools, 2017
White students: 290.71
Black students: 255.63
Hispanic students: 263.56
Asian-American students: 306.03
Five years behind at the end of eighth grade! But don't worry! We'll "pour resources" into our neighborhood schools. That will make the schools stronger!
The insouciance of that quote (as presented) contrasts with glimpses offered by Harris and Hu of those neighborhood schools in the old days. Why did Gotham ever decide to take the "highly selective" route? In paragraph 9, the reporters start to explain:
HU AND HARRIS: Until at least the 1970s, most New York City students attended their neighborhood schools. Over the years, more options to these neighborhood schools emerged, often appealing to middle-class families and providing an alternative for families of many backgrounds to large comprehensive schools that were overwhelmed with struggling students, according to educators and parents.Interesting! According to educators and parents, those large comprehensive neighborhood schools "were overwhelmed with struggling students" back in the good old days! When other options were provided, those options "appeal[ed] to middle-class families" and to "families of many backgrounds."
("Families of many backgrounds?" That's a disguised way of saying that many of these educationally ambitious families actually weren't white or middle-class.)
Breaking! Apparently, middle-class families, along with families of many backgrounds, prefer to send their kids to schools which aren't "overwhelmed!" Here's the way that ended up in New York:
HU AND HARRIS: Then, during Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration, the city required all children to apply to a high school in their eighth-grade year. Students rank up to 12 choices, and then get matched to one school by a special algorithm. The idea was to allow students to escape failing neighborhood schools and apply anywhere they chose.Intriguing! Under the Bloomberg procedures, Gotham's students were "allowed to escape failing neighborhood schools." Or at least, some students were allowed to escape those schools—the students able to gain admission into selective schools.
Might we offer a thought? In these brief glimpses, Hu and Harris paint an extremely unattractive picture of those old neighborhood schools.
Gotham's large neighborhood schools were "overwhelmed with struggling students," we're told. They were "failing" schools, which families longed to "escape."
Today, though, there's no need for concern! We'll just "pour resources" into those schools! That will make them "stronger!"
The point we're making is simple. Harris and Hu and their unnamed editors seem to have one thing on their minds. They want to pose as apostles of "integration." There's little sign that they know or care about anything else.
There's no sign that they have the first freaking clue about the size of the academic challenge facing the nation's public schools. Beyond that, we'll make the obvious point:
There's no freaking sign that they care.
New York City's schools are full of good, decent kids. They're also full of good, decent kids who are black and Hispanic. Many of those kids are struggling badly in the classroom, though, without question, not all. (More on that tomorrow.)
In response to that mountain of pain, Harris and Hu and their hapless editors want to change a few diversity numbers a tad. They want to call this "desegregation." But that seems to be where their interest ends. They have no apparent understanding or concern beyond that.
In fairness, Harris and Hu aren't education specialists. The New York Times is too uncaring to bother with piddle like that.
Tomorrow: Where does "tracking" come from? A look at Gotham's astonishing (non-racial) achievement gaps
The basic takeaway here: The New York Times will never ask you to come to terms with data like these:
Average scores, Grade 8 math, NaepThe Times doesn't seem to care about that. It cares about something else.
New York City Public Schools, 2017
White students: 290.71
Black students: 255.63
Hispanic students: 263.56
Asian-American students: 306.03
BREAKING: Things you never hear about!
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2018
Dumbest culture ever: Basically, it's against the law for upper-end journalists to report basic information.
Especially on "cable news," they'd rather spend each waking minute engaged in pointless discussion about whatever Donald J. Trump said ten seconds ago. Or speculating, for hours on end, about aspects of the Mueller probe they can't possibly know about.
Basically, our upper-end journalism, especially on cable, is conducted as if we were all subhuman. Yesterday, we listed a few of the basic statistics you never hear discussed, given this subhuman culture.
We forgot to include the basic facts about the decline in crime. Today, Kevin Drum notes one result of this subhuman corporate behavior.
"Crime Is Down But Most People Don’t Know It," Drum's headline says. Actually, we'll make a correction:
People haven't been told that test scores are up. People haven't been told that crime rates are down. People don't know that they're getting massively looted through the astonishing costs of American health care.
(Do people know about incarceration rates? When Patrisse Khan-Cullors published her Black Lives Matter memoir early this year, did you see her on the cable shows of our favorite corporate stars? Of course you didn't! The people who have been locked up are the people our mugging and clowning cable stars persistently disregard.)
People don't know that crime rates are down! But if you watched Rachel last Wednesday night, you possess eighteen minutes of useless knowledge about Herb Kalmbach, Nixon's personal lawyer. This pleasing but pointless tribal porridge was served to you under liberal cable's Retro Schadenfreude Rules!
We've asked you many, many times if our journalists are actually human. Sometimes, people think we're joking or engaged in hyperbole.
For the record, we've never been sure that we are. We wouldn't bet that they're nonhuman, but we wouldn't be shocked by that news.
They should talk about Yemen, Seymour Hersh said. Maybe they could even talk about basic matters at home!
There Went the Sun: "Here Comes the Sun," George Harrison said.
Regarding American social pathologies, the sun has pretty much come and gone. Remarkably, no one was told!
Dumbest culture ever: Basically, it's against the law for upper-end journalists to report basic information.
Especially on "cable news," they'd rather spend each waking minute engaged in pointless discussion about whatever Donald J. Trump said ten seconds ago. Or speculating, for hours on end, about aspects of the Mueller probe they can't possibly know about.
Basically, our upper-end journalism, especially on cable, is conducted as if we were all subhuman. Yesterday, we listed a few of the basic statistics you never hear discussed, given this subhuman culture.
We forgot to include the basic facts about the decline in crime. Today, Kevin Drum notes one result of this subhuman corporate behavior.
"Crime Is Down But Most People Don’t Know It," Drum's headline says. Actually, we'll make a correction:
Crime is actually way, way down, but most people don't know it.Drum offers some of the reasons for this public ignorance. Most of it takes us back to the behaviors of the national and local press.
People haven't been told that test scores are up. People haven't been told that crime rates are down. People don't know that they're getting massively looted through the astonishing costs of American health care.
(Do people know about incarceration rates? When Patrisse Khan-Cullors published her Black Lives Matter memoir early this year, did you see her on the cable shows of our favorite corporate stars? Of course you didn't! The people who have been locked up are the people our mugging and clowning cable stars persistently disregard.)
People don't know that crime rates are down! But if you watched Rachel last Wednesday night, you possess eighteen minutes of useless knowledge about Herb Kalmbach, Nixon's personal lawyer. This pleasing but pointless tribal porridge was served to you under liberal cable's Retro Schadenfreude Rules!
We've asked you many, many times if our journalists are actually human. Sometimes, people think we're joking or engaged in hyperbole.
For the record, we've never been sure that we are. We wouldn't bet that they're nonhuman, but we wouldn't be shocked by that news.
They should talk about Yemen, Seymour Hersh said. Maybe they could even talk about basic matters at home!
There Went the Sun: "Here Comes the Sun," George Harrison said.
Regarding American social pathologies, the sun has pretty much come and gone. Remarkably, no one was told!
GAPS AND TRACKS: A "shadow system" feeds "segregation!"
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2018
Part 2—Slanted all the way down: The New York Times thinks Gotham's public schools shouldn't engage in "tracking."
Check that! The Times believes that tracking—or "screening" by academic achievement—shouldn't be part of the school admission process. Or at least, the Times believes that the New York City Public Schools allows too much screening of this type.
Alas! It's a bit hard to know what the Times believes because the paper didn't announce its beliefs in an editorial. It announced its beliefs in a front-page "news report" this Monday—a front-page news report which was spectacularly slanted.
The report appeared on Monday's front page. Tomorrow, we'll start to show you why some form of "tracking" is inevitable—unavoidable, unless we're all crazy—in a gigantic school system like New York's.
For today, though, let's take a look at the slanting in Monday's front-page report. The report was slanted all the way down, in a way which might helps us see why some conservatives say they don't believe a thing they read in the New York Times.
How slanted was Monday's news report? The slanting began in the headlines.
Yesterday, we showed you the highly evocative headline which appeared on the front page of Monday's print editions. ("Cherry Picking Students Leaves Minorities Behind.")
In fact, the "cherry picking" in question only left some minorities behind, if you want to use that evocative term. Asian-Americans are a "minority" too, and Asian kids are the monumental winners in the "cherry picking" at issue, in which kids are required to take an achievement test and are admitted to the schools in question based upon their scores.
Do we want to call that process "cherry picking?" At the Times, some editor did, in a front-page headline! But here's the headline which originally appeared on line. In this highly evocative headline, we'd say the slanting is good:
(Note: That online headline has been changed. It now reads, "A Shadow System Feeds Segregation in New York City Schools.")
When it comes to the pushing of buttons, no button was left behind in that original headline! In fact, the high schools which result from this "shadow system" aren't "segregated" in the traditional sense of the term. Students from all racial/ethnic groups attend these schools, though not in the percentages found throughout New York's schools as a whole.
Deciding admission by academic performance does create something like "racial imbalance," both in the admission schools and in the system's remaining schools, which tilt more heavily black and Hispanic kids as a result of the "screening" procedure.
That said, the term "segregation" stirs the soul in a way which "racial imbalance" doesn't. As a result, some editor at the Times decided to make that choice.
That on-line headline was heavily slanted. Before the week is through, we'll show you the more accurate headline the Times would never publish.
We'll set that embarrassing task aside for another day. For today, this is the way the front-page news report started:
Is it "problematic" to "pick and choose" public schools' students in this way and to this extent? That's certainly possible—though, inevitably, it's a matter of judgment.
That said, the thumbs are already on the scales when we're told it's "a startling fact" that New York screens admission this much—and when the person the New York Times chooses to quote is devoted to "integration."
Why did Hu and Harris choose to quote Gonzales, rather than someone with a different view? Why did they introduce the evocative term "integration" into their news report?
We can't answer those questions! We can tell you this—it may not be such a "startling fact" that New York "screens" students in twenty percent of its schools, while Boston only screens students in seven high schools.
According to the system itself, the Boston Public Schools only runs something like 24 high schools. If students are screened for admission to seven, that's almost 30 percent!
That said, we've found find no record of which seven schools screen admission in Boston. The system itself repeatedly says that it runs three "exam schools."
That's even fewer than seven! However, this blog report from last July makes the following statement: "The three exam schools enroll roughly a quarter of BPS students in grades 7 through 12." If, as seems to be the case, that statement is even dimly accurate, how "startling" is the degree of screening in New York City's schools
None of this tells us whether New York's amount of screening is a good idea. It does help us see the way our biggest newspapers may sometimes slant their front-page "news reports," with various thumbs on the scales.
That said, let's return to the question at hand. Does New York City's amount of screening "undermine the democratic, and free and open nature of public education?"
Everything is possible! It's even possible that someone will be able to explain what that evocative statement means!
The amount of screening in New York may be a bad idea. But as Hu and Harris continue, so does the lusty slanting of their news report:
In paragraph 5, we're told that Gotham's screened schools constitute " a way to appeal to [middle-class families] and keep their children in the public schools."
Almost surely, that's true. The reference to "million-dollar apartments" suggests that these screened schools also represent an outreach to wealthy families.
Almost surely, this presentation will make Times readers think of middle-class and wealthy white families. The role these schools play for lower-income immigrant families goes unmentioned here. Asian-American kids disappear.
In paragraph 6, we're told that this admission screening is really a form of "tracking." This is a perfectly reasonable statement—though we'll note the fact that the term "tracking" has long been tangled, in our liberal tribe's lore, with allegations of racism.
In paragraph 7, a highly opinionated parent is quoted—Edwin Franco from the Bronx. He thinks the screening is a rip-off and a scam, aimed at families like his.
He says the kids who don't get admitted to the screened schools are being deprived of opportunities and resources. (He even says that kids like his end up "on their own.") Regarding the loss of opportunity, Hu and Harris have already said something similar in paragraph 6.
Why is this one parent quoted? Why are no other parents quoted? There are many parents in New York City who regard these schools are godsends. In Monday morning's front-page report, you didn't hear from them!
Hu and Harris composed a front-page report. Journalistically, it was a mess.
You only heard from those who oppose the screened schools or find them barely tolerable. You didn't hear from those who support them. Every evocative button got pushed, including the buttons about "tracking," "cherry picking," "shadow systems" and of course "integration."
Tomorrow, we'll offer a public service! We'll help you see why some form of "tracking" is inevitable in a system like New York's, unless we're all out of our minds—which in fact we've basically been since the 1960s.
"Tracking" has long been a dirty word in pseudo-liberal circles. Tomorrow, we'll show you how utterly clueless—and how deeply uncaring—we liberals can actually be.
For today, let's end with a note about Seattle, the shining city school system on a hill the authors cited at the start of their report. Unlike New York, with its shadow system and its segregation, heroic Seattle barely screens admission to schools at all:
According to it basic data page, Seattle is a rather small, heavily middle-class system. Its enrollment this years was 53,000. The New York City Public Schools enroll 1.1 million students.
Only 34 percent of Seattle's students are "low income." In New York City, the figure stands at 77 percent.
Aside from being middle-class, Seattle's system is heavily white and Asian-American. It faces many fewer demographic challenges than New York City's does.
Despite these facts, and for all its greatness, Seattle boasts an enormous achievement gap between its white and black students. According to the New York Times graphics which illustrate Professor Reardon's recent study, Seattle's black/white achievement gap stood at 3.7 years at or around the start of sixth grade.
In horribly segregated Gotham, Reardon placed the black/white gap at 2.3 years. According to Reardon, Seattle's black kids were 1.7 years behind grade level. Gotham's black kids were exactly one year in arrears.
Gotham's figure is unacceptable. But it's much better than Seattle's.
Middle-class cities like Seattle don't have to struggle to forestall middle-class flight (of all races and ethnicities) in the way a city like Gotham might. Despite this fact, it sounds to us like several of Seattle's twelve (12) high schools are involved in something like the academic selectivity the New York Times now decries:
(The logic behind that claim follows.)
Monday's report by Hu and Harris was a parody of public school reporting. In the main, it served the purpose of telling pseudo-liberal Times readers that they're moral, upstanding and good.
Along the way, Hu and Harris seemed perhaps a bit concerned by the very notion of "tracking." Why can't we all get along? Perhaps in one big rollicking ninth-grade math class?
Yes, Virginia, we have to have "tracking!" Prepare for a giant heart attack when we show you why.
Tomorrow: Gotham's (non-racial) achievement gaps. Warning! Percentiles involved!
Part 2—Slanted all the way down: The New York Times thinks Gotham's public schools shouldn't engage in "tracking."
Check that! The Times believes that tracking—or "screening" by academic achievement—shouldn't be part of the school admission process. Or at least, the Times believes that the New York City Public Schools allows too much screening of this type.
Alas! It's a bit hard to know what the Times believes because the paper didn't announce its beliefs in an editorial. It announced its beliefs in a front-page "news report" this Monday—a front-page news report which was spectacularly slanted.
The report appeared on Monday's front page. Tomorrow, we'll start to show you why some form of "tracking" is inevitable—unavoidable, unless we're all crazy—in a gigantic school system like New York's.
For today, though, let's take a look at the slanting in Monday's front-page report. The report was slanted all the way down, in a way which might helps us see why some conservatives say they don't believe a thing they read in the New York Times.
How slanted was Monday's news report? The slanting began in the headlines.
Yesterday, we showed you the highly evocative headline which appeared on the front page of Monday's print editions. ("Cherry Picking Students Leaves Minorities Behind.")
In fact, the "cherry picking" in question only left some minorities behind, if you want to use that evocative term. Asian-Americans are a "minority" too, and Asian kids are the monumental winners in the "cherry picking" at issue, in which kids are required to take an achievement test and are admitted to the schools in question based upon their scores.
Do we want to call that process "cherry picking?" At the Times, some editor did, in a front-page headline! But here's the headline which originally appeared on line. In this highly evocative headline, we'd say the slanting is good:
A Shadow System of Tracking by School Feeds SegregationIn that headline, the process of deciding admission by means of a test is described as "a shadow system of tracking." This shadow system "feeds segregation," the suggestible reader is told.
(Note: That online headline has been changed. It now reads, "A Shadow System Feeds Segregation in New York City Schools.")
When it comes to the pushing of buttons, no button was left behind in that original headline! In fact, the high schools which result from this "shadow system" aren't "segregated" in the traditional sense of the term. Students from all racial/ethnic groups attend these schools, though not in the percentages found throughout New York's schools as a whole.
Deciding admission by academic performance does create something like "racial imbalance," both in the admission schools and in the system's remaining schools, which tilt more heavily black and Hispanic kids as a result of the "screening" procedure.
That said, the term "segregation" stirs the soul in a way which "racial imbalance" doesn't. As a result, some editor at the Times decided to make that choice.
That on-line headline was heavily slanted. Before the week is through, we'll show you the more accurate headline the Times would never publish.
We'll set that embarrassing task aside for another day. For today, this is the way the front-page news report started:
HU AND HARRIS (6/18/18): No other city in the country screens students for as many schools as New York—a startling fact all but lost in the furor that has erupted over Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recent proposal to change the admissions process for the city’s handful of elite high schools.In our view, the slanting is already general. To wit:
One in five middle and high schools in New York, the nation’s largest school district, now choose all of their students based on factors like grades or state test scores. That intensifies an already raw debate about equity, representation and opportunity that has raged since Mr. de Blasio proposed scrapping the one-day test now required to gain entry into New York’s eight elite high schools. Black and Hispanic students are underrepresented in many of the most selective screened middle and high schools, just as they are in the specialized high schools.
In Los Angeles, the country’s second-largest district, there are only two selective high schools and two “highly gifted” magnet schools. Boston has seven schools that screen—all high schools—including the prestigious Boston Latin School, a feeder for Harvard University that has an entrance exam akin to New York’s specialized high school test. In Seattle, the only screened schools are two elementary schools with accelerated curriculums for “highly capable” students who pass a district-administered gifted test.
“When we have a publicly funded school system, the notion that you can pick and choose your students is problematic,” said Matt Gonzales, director of the school diversity project at New York Appleseed, an organization that pushes for integrated schools. “It undermines the democratic, and free and open nature of public education.”
Is it "problematic" to "pick and choose" public schools' students in this way and to this extent? That's certainly possible—though, inevitably, it's a matter of judgment.
That said, the thumbs are already on the scales when we're told it's "a startling fact" that New York screens admission this much—and when the person the New York Times chooses to quote is devoted to "integration."
Why did Hu and Harris choose to quote Gonzales, rather than someone with a different view? Why did they introduce the evocative term "integration" into their news report?
We can't answer those questions! We can tell you this—it may not be such a "startling fact" that New York "screens" students in twenty percent of its schools, while Boston only screens students in seven high schools.
According to the system itself, the Boston Public Schools only runs something like 24 high schools. If students are screened for admission to seven, that's almost 30 percent!
That said, we've found find no record of which seven schools screen admission in Boston. The system itself repeatedly says that it runs three "exam schools."
That's even fewer than seven! However, this blog report from last July makes the following statement: "The three exam schools enroll roughly a quarter of BPS students in grades 7 through 12." If, as seems to be the case, that statement is even dimly accurate, how "startling" is the degree of screening in New York City's schools
None of this tells us whether New York's amount of screening is a good idea. It does help us see the way our biggest newspapers may sometimes slant their front-page "news reports," with various thumbs on the scales.
That said, let's return to the question at hand. Does New York City's amount of screening "undermine the democratic, and free and open nature of public education?"
Everything is possible! It's even possible that someone will be able to explain what that evocative statement means!
The amount of screening in New York may be a bad idea. But as Hu and Harris continue, so does the lusty slanting of their news report:
HU AND HARRIS (continuing directly): Unlike many cities, New York, with its 1.1 million students, also has a large base of middle-class families that attend the public schools, said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. Screened schools are a way to appeal to them and keep their children in the public schools, especially in a city where public housing projects sit beside million-dollar apartments, he said.Let us translate that:
But the result has been that New York, in essence, has replaced tracking within schools with tracking by school, where children with the best records can benefit from advanced classes and active parent and alumni associations. According to the city, of the more than 830 middle schools and high schools, roughly 190 screen all of their students. Many of these screened schools are clustered in Manhattan and Brooklyn, with enrollments that are more white, Asian and affluent than the overall school population.
Edwin Franco, a father of two girls who lives in the Bronx, said that too many selective schools cherry pick the best students—and deprive everyone else of opportunities. “They’re almost like a factory,” he said. “They’re churning out high-performing kids who are doing great while the rest of the kids are trying to figure it out on their own because they don’t have the same resources.”
Richard A. Carranza, the schools chancellor, said in an interview that screened schools have a limited place in a public school system, providing an option for those students who want an “intense academic environment” and can thrive in it. But, he said, “the role of those kinds of schools in a portfolio as large as New York City’s is very specific.”
In paragraph 5, we're told that Gotham's screened schools constitute " a way to appeal to [middle-class families] and keep their children in the public schools."
Almost surely, that's true. The reference to "million-dollar apartments" suggests that these screened schools also represent an outreach to wealthy families.
Almost surely, this presentation will make Times readers think of middle-class and wealthy white families. The role these schools play for lower-income immigrant families goes unmentioned here. Asian-American kids disappear.
In paragraph 6, we're told that this admission screening is really a form of "tracking." This is a perfectly reasonable statement—though we'll note the fact that the term "tracking" has long been tangled, in our liberal tribe's lore, with allegations of racism.
In paragraph 7, a highly opinionated parent is quoted—Edwin Franco from the Bronx. He thinks the screening is a rip-off and a scam, aimed at families like his.
He says the kids who don't get admitted to the screened schools are being deprived of opportunities and resources. (He even says that kids like his end up "on their own.") Regarding the loss of opportunity, Hu and Harris have already said something similar in paragraph 6.
Why is this one parent quoted? Why are no other parents quoted? There are many parents in New York City who regard these schools are godsends. In Monday morning's front-page report, you didn't hear from them!
Hu and Harris composed a front-page report. Journalistically, it was a mess.
You only heard from those who oppose the screened schools or find them barely tolerable. You didn't hear from those who support them. Every evocative button got pushed, including the buttons about "tracking," "cherry picking," "shadow systems" and of course "integration."
Tomorrow, we'll offer a public service! We'll help you see why some form of "tracking" is inevitable in a system like New York's, unless we're all out of our minds—which in fact we've basically been since the 1960s.
"Tracking" has long been a dirty word in pseudo-liberal circles. Tomorrow, we'll show you how utterly clueless—and how deeply uncaring—we liberals can actually be.
For today, let's end with a note about Seattle, the shining city school system on a hill the authors cited at the start of their report. Unlike New York, with its shadow system and its segregation, heroic Seattle barely screens admission to schools at all:
HU AND HARRIS: ...Boston has seven schools that screen—all high schools—including the prestigious Boston Latin School, a feeder for Harvard University that has an entrance exam akin to New York’s specialized high school test. In Seattle, the only screened schools are two elementary schools with accelerated curriculums for “highly capable” students who pass a district-administered gifted test.Three cheers for high-minded Seattle! But here's what got left out:
According to it basic data page, Seattle is a rather small, heavily middle-class system. Its enrollment this years was 53,000. The New York City Public Schools enroll 1.1 million students.
Only 34 percent of Seattle's students are "low income." In New York City, the figure stands at 77 percent.
Aside from being middle-class, Seattle's system is heavily white and Asian-American. It faces many fewer demographic challenges than New York City's does.
Despite these facts, and for all its greatness, Seattle boasts an enormous achievement gap between its white and black students. According to the New York Times graphics which illustrate Professor Reardon's recent study, Seattle's black/white achievement gap stood at 3.7 years at or around the start of sixth grade.
In horribly segregated Gotham, Reardon placed the black/white gap at 2.3 years. According to Reardon, Seattle's black kids were 1.7 years behind grade level. Gotham's black kids were exactly one year in arrears.
Gotham's figure is unacceptable. But it's much better than Seattle's.
Middle-class cities like Seattle don't have to struggle to forestall middle-class flight (of all races and ethnicities) in the way a city like Gotham might. Despite this fact, it sounds to us like several of Seattle's twelve (12) high schools are involved in something like the academic selectivity the New York Times now decries:
James A. Garfield High School is a public high school in the Seattle Public Schools...Garfield draws students from all over the city. Garfield is also one of two options for the district's Highly Capable Cohort for academically highly gifted students, with the other being Ingraham International School. As a result, it has many college-level classes available ranging from calculus-based physics to Advanced Placement (AP) studio art.Whatever! But at the start of Monday's report, Seattle's small, middle-class system was used to help us see how vile New York's "segregation" is. So it goes as readers of the Hamptons-based Times are dumbed down within an inch of their lives—and as black kids are thrown under the bus as part of our tribe's long tradition.
(The logic behind that claim follows.)
Monday's report by Hu and Harris was a parody of public school reporting. In the main, it served the purpose of telling pseudo-liberal Times readers that they're moral, upstanding and good.
Along the way, Hu and Harris seemed perhaps a bit concerned by the very notion of "tracking." Why can't we all get along? Perhaps in one big rollicking ninth-grade math class?
Yes, Virginia, we have to have "tracking!" Prepare for a giant heart attack when we show you why.
Tomorrow: Gotham's (non-racial) achievement gaps. Warning! Percentiles involved!
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