DO BLACK KIDS (ACTUALLY) MATTER: What do those Naep data actually mean?

FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2019

Mara Gay doesn't care: How many "brilliant students" get rejected by New York City's Stuyvesant High School each year?

The famously "elite" high school is one of eight "specialized high schools" in Gotham to which admission is gained through the Specialized High School Admissions Test, full stop.

No other factors are considered. How many "brilliant students" don't get admitted to Stuyvesant High based on their score on that test?

There's no obvious way to answer that question. But according to Jose Vilson's recent essay at Vox, it sounds like a lot of brilliant students don't get admitted, including a lot of brilliant black and Hispanic kids.

To what extent is that fuzzy claim actually true? We have no way of knowing!

But if that feel-good claim is true, there's an obvious solution to the problem. Sadly, our liberal world is so freaking dumb, and works in such persistent bad faith, that this obvious solution almost never gets mentioned when we wail and moan, each year, about the vast injustice involving Stuyvesant High and the other high-powered high schools.

Duh! If legions of brilliant students are being rejected at Stuyvesant High, why doesn't the city's spectacularly moral mayor open a "Stuyvesant Annex?"

In one fell swoop, Gotham's brilliantly moral mayor could double the number of seats at Stuyvesant. He could also double the number of seats at such highly selective schools as The Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Tech.

This would sharply reduce the number of brilliant students getting turned away by these schools. It would double the number of brilliant students benefiting from the demanding curricula taught at these high-powered schools.

This partial solution to the Stuyvesant problem is so obvious that it squeaks. And yet, this solution almost never gets mentioned when we pseudo-liberals swing into action, complaining, on an annual basis, about the many brilliant kids who are unfairly turned away from Stuyvesant High because Gotham's devious Asian kids are eating up all their seats.

Was man [sic] ever "the rational animal?" Trust us! If you watch our pseudo-liberal world pretend to discuss this matter each year, the answer will be staring you square in the face.

We liberals! When we attempt to discuss the Stuyvesant problem, the spectacular dumbness of our discussions is their defining characteristic. Unless it's the bad faith we seem to put on display as we advance the scripted complaints which make us feel morally pure.

At any rate, how many brilliant black and Hispanic kids get turned down by Stuyvesant High each year? Basic data from New York City's public schools raise a very different question—a question concerning all of Gotham's black and brown kids, not just the talented few percent who matter to people like the New York Times' Mara Gay and Slate's Mary Harris.

Harris came to Slate from stints at ABC News and NPR. This Tuesday, Slate published the unfortunate audiotape of her discussion with Gay about the Stuyvesant problem.

Gay was once an intelligent, free-thinking undergraduate at Michigan (class of 2008). Today, she's a thoroughly scripted, very young member of the Times editorial board.

In our view, the 19-minute discussion at Slate is a showcase for ugly upper-class values, as filtered through a defiantly pseudo-liberal lens.

Repeatedly, Gay slimes the Asian-American kids who dominate admissions to Stuyvesant through their high academic achievement.

As she does, she produced an endless array of pseudo-lib nonsense. That included this all-time head-slapper at the 18-minute mark:

GAY (3/26/19): I guess what I can't stop thinking about is—because, you know, I had parents who advocated for me, like you advocate for your kids.

What I can't stop thinking about is, How many black and Hispanic kids are sitting somewhere in a middle school in East New York or in the South Bronx right now who have great grades, who come to school and are going to—you know, they could cure cancer!

And how many of them are going to be languishing in schools that are not going to get them there, because we are insisting on defending the indefensible?

At some point, it must be asked, as was asked long ago:

In the end, have these people no shame?

Next week, we'll look at this conversation between Harris and Gay in a bit more detail. But this is what Gay has said in that ridiculous passage:

Gotham's lower-scoring black kids would go on to find the cure for cancer if Stuyvesant would let them in! As for Gotham's higher-scoring Asian kids, consider this earlier passage:

GAY: At the end of the day, what do we want our specialized high schools, or any of our high schools, to do?

Do we want them to find the kids who are best at taking this exam? Or do we want them to find the most enthusiastic, accomplished, passionate learners around the city?

I guess I'm somebody who believe that there are kids in every single classroom in this city who have high potential.

You know, these schools, like Stuyvesant—they should reflect the city at large. Because otherwise—

Do you really believe that there are only seven black kids who are qualified for Stuyvesant? No, nobody really believe that.

According to Gay, Gotham's higher-scoring Asian kids "are best at taking this exam."

On the other hand, it sounds like Gotham's lower-scoring black and Hispanic kids are "the most enthusiastic, accomplished, passionate learners." They're the ones who will go on to find the cure for cancer if Stuyvesant lets them in!

Gay aims jibes of that type at those Asian kids all through her ugly performance. It never enters her scripted head to ask the blindingly obvious question:

If so many accomplished learners are being rejected at Stuyvesant High, why doesn't New York City open a Stuyvesant Annex? Why not double the number of kids exposed to its potent curriculum?

That must be the most obvious thought currently found on the face of the earth! But it doesn't enter Gay's head, because she isn't actually seeking a solution to an alleged social problem.

Instead, she's offering pseudo-liberal racial cant. Full stop, all the way down.

Note what Gay seems to imply in the first passage we've quoted. She seems to imply that the higher-scoring Asian kids should be forced to "languish in" lousy high schools so the lower-scoring black and Hispanic kids could get admitted to Stuyvesant.

Why would anyone picture such a miserable, zero-sum solution to this alleged problem? Why should anyone have to languish in some crummy high school? Why can't all these brilliant, accomplished kids attend an expanded Stuyvesant?

Why doesn't that obvious solution seem to enter Gay's head? It's because she's mainly voicing liberal cant all through this brainless discussion. It's because she doesn't seem to care about the vast majority of the kids in the city whose upper-class, pseudo-liberal newspaper she now goes out and shills for.

Next week, we'll examine the colloquy between Harris and Gay in more detail. For today, let's take another look at the data we've posted this week.

Today, we'll look at data from New York City and from the nation as a whole. What do these data actually mean? At the upper-class New York Times, it seems clear that nobody cares:

Average scores, Grade 8 math
New York City Public Schools, 2017 Naep
White students: 290.71
Black students: 255.63
Hispanic students: 263.56
Asian-American students: 306.03

Average scores, Grade 8 math
Public schools nationwide, 2017 Naep
White students: 292.16
Black students: 259.60
Hispanic students: 268.49
Asian-American students: 309.52

What do those punishing data mean? Those data seem to mean this:

They seem to mean that the average black kid in New York City doesn't come close to being prepared to pursue the demanding curriculum of a school like Stuyvesant High.

They seem to mean that the vast majority of Gotham's black and Hispanic kids don't come close to being "brilliant, accomplished students" in that particular sense.

Based on a standard though very rough rule of thumb, those data seem to mean that the average black kid in New York City, and across the nation as a whole, is years behind the average white or Asian-American kid in math. The achievement gap creeps all the way up to an astounding five years, based on that very rough rule of thumb.

Can the gap really be that large? Can the average black kid really be that far behind?

Mara Gay doesn't seem to care. Instead, she traffics in silly, sick dreams—silly dreams which let us pseudo-liberals sleep the sleep of the just.

For the record, people like Gay have been playing these games for at least the past fifty years. Meanwhile, upper-class newspapers like the Times refuse to publish those ugly data from our one reliable testing program. This lets them refuse to tell us what those data actually mean.

Can the gaps possibly be as wide as that rough rule of thumb would imply? According to that very rough rule of thumb—a rule we've seen the Times apply—the average black kid in New York City is five years behind the average Asian-American kid in math when they're still in the eighth grade!

Can anything like that really be true? The New York Times will never ask. Instead, it sends out cretins like Gay to tell us that Asian kids (and their parents) are gaming the system, while Gotham's highly accomplished black kids would go on to find the cure for cancer if we'd just give them the chance.

Why doesn't New York City open a Stuyvesant Annex? This apparent solution to this alleged problem is so obvious that it squeaks. But it doesn't occur to Gay in the course of this mindless discussion.

What do those Naep data actually mean? Gay doesn't seem to care.

We plan to continue this topic next week because it reveals so much about our disgraceful tribe. That said, it's only important if you care about the lives of Gotham's actual kids, not the superhero kids of Gay's ridiculous dreams.

We'll start with kids we taught long ago in the Baltimore City Schools. The kids we have in mind weren't going to find the cure for cancer. Nor would they ever descend to the level of shills like Harris and Gay.

What do these Naep data actually mean? And why won't Gay and the New York Times return from the Hamptons to tell us?

Next week: Numbered among the very best people we have ever known