Race politics scenario: which option would you pick?

[ronburgundy]

but Loren, neither race nor poverty are root causes of dropping out of school. So why replace one with the other?

Some causes of dropping out of school:

• need to enter the workforce
• prefer to enter the workforce for sake of the family or self
• pregnancy
• academic struggles
• lack of family structure and oversight of the child
• no role models who have completed school
• little safety at the school, bullying

My point was that if the hypothetical were true so that blacks had a higher drop out rate than whites, then you'd expect more of these types of problems among the black drop out subpopulation on average. (Their circumstances would be more severe). Example: the average black student dropping out may have 3.7 of these factors but the average white student may have 2.9. You could spend a third of the money on tutoring people, a third on improving safety at the school and on the grounds, and a third on allowing part-time work to be used as credit for a workforce class replacing some requirement for electives. But because there are more such issues among the black population, indirectly, you'd be spending more money on blacks per person. [If you chose to distribute the money evenly to reduce all the factors listed above, then you'd be on average giving blacks 3.7/2.9 times as much money indirectly. ]

So indirectly you'd meet the description of Option2 by using this strategy since black students may receive more money per person. However, the impact of going after these root causes might be better for society/the drop outs than merely trying to go after a symptom more distantly related to the causes. Example: even if a student drops out, if they have entered the workforce with connections, some training, and transportation provided by the school and observed positive role models, that end point is better than if Option1 was used merely to try to get them to not drop out but they did drop out.

Notice that 5 of the 7 causes you list have little to do with things the school is doing or could fix. It is those types of causes that are especially responsible for between group differences in drop out rates, and thus it is largely a futile waste of resources for schools to be focused upon closing group-level gaps in drop out rates. The effective use of the funds is to target the things under the schools control, such as academic struggles and safety, and to help all students whose drop out is tied to these factors. That will have the greatest impact on reducing the total number of drop outs, but will not do much to reduce the gap in drop out rates, because the causes of that are mostly outside the scope of what schools can impact.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is no need to look at race to find the actual cause unless the cause is racism--and again and again we see that when you look carefully at the data the supposed racism is really economic status. (Albeit sometimes indirectly. Take, for example, the fact that blacks get on average inferior care in the ER. Reality: it has nothing to do with race, but rather with the ER they go to. ERs in areas were many patients don't pay are overworked and on average you don't get as good care there.)

And if we look at the Venn Diagram, we can't help but notice economic status and race seem to overlap quite a bit. Which goes back to the issue of the whole hypothetical which really seems to represent a middle to upper class area, with a 90 to 10 split, however, presumes the blacks still be dumbing it up.

Yes, there's a considerable overlap. So long as you keep blaming the economic issues on racism the problem will persist. Trying to solve the economic inequalities with more and more discrimination is like trying to fix a broken bone due to a traffic accident with more and more seatbelts.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

but Loren, neither race nor poverty are root causes of dropping out of school. So why replace one with the other?

Some causes of dropping out of school:

• need to enter the workforce
• prefer to enter the workforce for sake of the family or self
• pregnancy
• academic struggles
• lack of family structure and oversight of the child
• no role models who have completed school
• little safety at the school, bullying

My point was that if the hypothetical were true so that blacks had a higher drop out rate than whites, then you'd expect more of these types of problems among the black drop out subpopulation on average. (Their circumstances would be more severe). Example: the average black student dropping out may have 3.7 of these factors but the average white student may have 2.9. You could spend a third of the money on tutoring people, a third on improving safety at the school and on the grounds, and a third on allowing part-time work to be used as credit for a workforce class replacing some requirement for electives. But because there are more such issues among the black population, indirectly, you'd be spending more money on blacks per person. [If you chose to distribute the money evenly to reduce all the factors listed above, then you'd be on average giving blacks 3.7/2.9 times as much money indirectly. ]

So indirectly you'd meet the description of Option2 by using this strategy since black students may receive more money per person. However, the impact of going after these root causes might be better for society/the drop outs than merely trying to go after a symptom more distantly related to the causes. Example: even if a student drops out, if they have entered the workforce with connections, some training, and transportation provided by the school and observed positive role models, that end point is better than if Option1 was used merely to try to get them to not drop out but they did drop out.

Your analysis here is racist--you're assuming blacks are better able to withstand such stressors than whites. You provide no reason for this assumption, though. Distributing it evenly probably results in a 2.9:2.9 ratio, not a 3.7:2.9 ratio.

You are asserting that there are more such stressors in the black community, something I will agree with. That's why there are more dropouts! It doesn't mean the average dropout is under more stress at the time they drop out, though.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Ron, how is what you wrote relevant to what I wrote?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

but Loren, neither race nor poverty are root causes of dropping out of school. So why replace one with the other?

Some causes of dropping out of school:

• need to enter the workforce
• prefer to enter the workforce for sake of the family or self
• pregnancy
• academic struggles
• lack of family structure and oversight of the child
• no role models who have completed school
• little safety at the school, bullying

My point was that if the hypothetical were true so that blacks had a higher drop out rate than whites, then you'd expect more of these types of problems among the black drop out subpopulation on average. (Their circumstances would be more severe). Example: the average black student dropping out may have 3.7 of these factors but the average white student may have 2.9. You could spend a third of the money on tutoring people, a third on improving safety at the school and on the grounds, and a third on allowing part-time work to be used as credit for a workforce class replacing some requirement for electives. But because there are more such issues among the black population, indirectly, you'd be spending more money on blacks per person. [If you chose to distribute the money evenly to reduce all the factors listed above, then you'd be on average giving blacks 3.7/2.9 times as much money indirectly. ]

So indirectly you'd meet the description of Option2 by using this strategy since black students may receive more money per person. However, the impact of going after these root causes might be better for society/the drop outs than merely trying to go after a symptom more distantly related to the causes. Example: even if a student drops out, if they have entered the workforce with connections, some training, and transportation provided by the school and observed positive role models, that end point is better than if Option1 was used merely to try to get them to not drop out but they did drop out.

Your analysis here is racist--you're assuming blacks are better able to withstand such stressors than whites. You provide no reason for this assumption, though. Distributing it evenly probably results in a 2.9:2.9 ratio, not a 3.7:2.9 ratio.

No I am not assuming that blacks are better able to withstand stressors especially since 20% of blacks in the hypothetical drop out whereas 10% of whites do.

However, it's possible that Person X will tend to normalize stress levels to some degree, regardless of their race. That isn't really relevant.

You are asserting that there are more such stressors in the black community, something I will agree with.

I am not discussing "stressors" but instead factors. Yes, it is true that all of these factors can be stressful, but let's keep to describing them as factors.

That's why there are more dropouts! It doesn't mean the average dropout is under more stress at the time they drop out, though.

I haven't commented on that but you are probably wrong because in the interim of when someone makes a decision to drop out (it takes time to consider and choose) the odds that another factor comes up for the population that has higher drop out rates is higher. So while the minimum threshold might be the same, the average number of factors would seem to be higher for that population.

 

[ronburgundy]

Ron, how is what you wrote relevant to what I wrote?

You listed what you think are root causes. What I wrote explains why effective use of money in education/school budgets cannot plausibly address most of those causes. Thus, it is foolish and leads to wasteful spending for school policies to even have closing graduation gaps as a goal or for them to be evaluated in terms of their impact on such gaps. Their impact on reducing drop outs overall and increasing learning overall is the only reasonable goal they should be designed to achieve and standard against which they should be evaluated. Group level gaps in outcomes shouldn't even be part of the discussion in reference to school-based programs. Such gaps are relevant to other discussions regarding more general societal, political, and economic issues and policies that fall outside of what schools can reasonably be expected to be responsible for.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Your analysis here is racist--you're assuming blacks are better able to withstand such stressors than whites. You provide no reason for this assumption, though. Distributing it evenly probably results in a 2.9:2.9 ratio, not a 3.7:2.9 ratio.

No I am not assuming that blacks are better able to withstand stressors especially since 20% of blacks in the hypothetical drop out whereas 10% of whites do.

However, it's possible that Person X will tend to normalize stress levels to some degree, regardless of their race. That isn't really relevant.

You are asserting that there are more such stressors in the black community, something I will agree with.

I am not discussing "stressors" but instead factors. Yes, it is true that all of these factors can be stressful, but let's keep to describing them as factors.

That's why there are more dropouts! It doesn't mean the average dropout is under more stress at the time they drop out, though.

I haven't commented on that but you are probably wrong because in the interim of when someone makes a decision to drop out (it takes time to consider and choose) the odds that another factor comes up for the population that has higher drop out rates is higher. So while the minimum threshold might be the same, the average number of factors would seem to be higher for that population.

I still see no source for the 3.7 other than pulling it out of your ass.

 

[whichphilosophy]

The money should be spent for additional facilities all of those who are likely to fail, hence race should not be an issue.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Ron, how is what you wrote relevant to what I wrote?

You listed what you think are root causes.

I gave examples of "some" (the word I used) root causes. The list was not intended to be complete.

What I wrote explains why effective use of money in education/school budgets cannot plausibly address most of those causes.

First, I gave a list of "some" causes, second, I don't care to respond to this point because once you have more than one root cause, it's problematic for Axulus.

Thus, it is foolish and leads to wasteful spending for school policies to even have closing graduation gaps as a goal or for them to be evaluated in terms of their impact on such gaps. Their impact on reducing drop outs overall and increasing learning overall is the only reasonable goal they should be designed to achieve and standard against which they should be evaluated.

No, that's an assertion. If people drop out in OptionA and OptionB, but in OptionA they go to night school but not in OptionB, then that is a metric that has value. So off the top of my head here are other scholastic metrics:
getting GED;
attending night school;
improvement in grades;
improvement in attendance;
improvement in attitude regarding graduation.

Group level gaps in outcomes shouldn't even be part of the discussion in reference to school-based programs. Such gaps are relevant to other discussions regarding more general societal, political, and economic issues and policies that fall outside of what schools can reasonably be expected to be responsible for.

Axulus brought up group-level gaps, not me. The problem for Axulus is that once the school starts addressing root causes (more than one root cause), then indirectly it may be giving more money toward blacks per person than toward whites per person. Thus, it would be Option2 indirectly.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No I am not assuming that blacks are better able to withstand stressors especially since 20% of blacks in the hypothetical drop out whereas 10% of whites do.

However, it's possible that Person X will tend to normalize stress levels to some degree, regardless of their race. That isn't really relevant.

You are asserting that there are more such stressors in the black community, something I will agree with.

I am not discussing "stressors" but instead factors. Yes, it is true that all of these factors can be stressful, but let's keep to describing them as factors.

That's why there are more dropouts! It doesn't mean the average dropout is under more stress at the time they drop out, though.

I haven't commented on that but you are probably wrong because in the interim of when someone makes a decision to drop out (it takes time to consider and choose) the odds that another factor comes up for the population that has higher drop out rates is higher. So while the minimum threshold might be the same, the average number of factors would seem to be higher for that population.

I still see no source for the 3.7 other than pulling it out of your ass.

This is Axulus' hypothetical with not enough information to compute such numbers, duh! So I explicitly wrote those were "examples." Try reading comprehension.

 

[Kusa]

Option 3
Spend all the money shipping in Hispanics to take the place of the dropouts.

 

[ronburgundy]

You listed what you think are root causes.

I gave examples of "some" (the word I used) root causes. The list was not intended to be complete.

What I wrote explains why effective use of money in education/school budgets cannot plausibly address most of those causes.

First, I gave a list of "some" causes, second, I don't care to respond to this point because once you have more than one root cause, it's problematic for Axulus.

Thus, it is foolish and leads to wasteful spending for school policies to even have closing graduation gaps as a goal or for them to be evaluated in terms of their impact on such gaps. Their impact on reducing drop outs overall and increasing learning overall is the only reasonable goal they should be designed to achieve and standard against which they should be evaluated.

No, that's an assertion. If people drop out in OptionA and OptionB, but in OptionA they go to night school but not in OptionB, then that is a metric that has value. So off the top of my head here are other scholastic metrics:
getting GED;
attending night school;
improvement in grades;
improvement in attendance;
improvement in attitude regarding graduation.

Group level gaps in outcomes shouldn't even be part of the discussion in reference to school-based programs. Such gaps are relevant to other discussions regarding more general societal, political, and economic issues and policies that fall outside of what schools can reasonably be expected to be responsible for.

Axulus brought up group-level gaps, not me. The problem for Axulus is that once the school starts addressing root causes (more than one root cause), then indirectly it may be giving more money toward blacks per person than toward whites per person. Thus, it would be Option2 indirectly.

It might give more to whites as well. If you spend money on things like special tutoring for struggling students and black students choose not to take advantage of it, then whites will wind up seeing more of the benefit and the gap will increase not decrease, despite the money being used in the best way that helps the most students willing and able to graduate. The OP scenario is about school using extra money to do things within a school's purview to increase graduation rates. The fact is that most of the graduation gap has nothing to do with anything that the school can or should be using its budget to fix. And most of the things the school can and should do to improve education overall and reduce drop out rates overall will not reduce those gaps, and may even increase them. You are right that some programs aimed at struggling students might happen to help black students disproportionately. Only racist would be upset by that. OTOH, the best program might also happen to do nothing about or even increase graduation gaps between groups, and only racists would be upset by that too. The point is that any direct emphasis on closing the gap detracts from doing what schools can and should do to optimally improve education and graduation overall. The focus should be on the latter and whatever happens to the gap happens, and is the concern of other social and political policies outside of what the school's need to focus upon.
Yet, education reform rhetoric very often focuses myopically on the graduation gap as though that should be the #1 concern for schools.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No I am not assuming that blacks are better able to withstand stressors especially since 20% of blacks in the hypothetical drop out whereas 10% of whites do.

However, it's possible that Person X will tend to normalize stress levels to some degree, regardless of their race. That isn't really relevant.

You are asserting that there are more such stressors in the black community, something I will agree with.

I am not discussing "stressors" but instead factors. Yes, it is true that all of these factors can be stressful, but let's keep to describing them as factors.

That's why there are more dropouts! It doesn't mean the average dropout is under more stress at the time they drop out, though.

I haven't commented on that but you are probably wrong because in the interim of when someone makes a decision to drop out (it takes time to consider and choose) the odds that another factor comes up for the population that has higher drop out rates is higher. So while the minimum threshold might be the same, the average number of factors would seem to be higher for that population.

I still see no source for the 3.7 other than pulling it out of your ass.

This is Axulus' hypothetical with not enough information to compute such numbers, duh! So I explicitly wrote those were "examples." Try reading comprehension.

You simply assumed the black dropouts were under more stress than the white ones--but you provided no indication of a reason this should be.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No I am not assuming that blacks are better able to withstand stressors especially since 20% of blacks in the hypothetical drop out whereas 10% of whites do.

However, it's possible that Person X will tend to normalize stress levels to some degree, regardless of their race. That isn't really relevant.

You are asserting that there are more such stressors in the black community, something I will agree with.

I am not discussing "stressors" but instead factors. Yes, it is true that all of these factors can be stressful, but let's keep to describing them as factors.

That's why there are more dropouts! It doesn't mean the average dropout is under more stress at the time they drop out, though.

I haven't commented on that but you are probably wrong because in the interim of when someone makes a decision to drop out (it takes time to consider and choose) the odds that another factor comes up for the population that has higher drop out rates is higher. So while the minimum threshold might be the same, the average number of factors would seem to be higher for that population.

I still see no source for the 3.7 other than pulling it out of your ass.

This is Axulus' hypothetical with not enough information to compute such numbers, duh! So I explicitly wrote those were "examples." Try reading comprehension.

You simply assumed the black dropouts were under more stress than the white ones--but you provided no indication of a reason this should be.

Last time: I did not write anything about stress, you did.

 

[Jarhyn]

ITT: posts calling people racist for wanting to eliminate racism as a confounding factor in racially disparate graduation rates.

 

[ronburgundy]

ITT: posts calling people racist for wanting to eliminate racism as a confounding factor in racially disparate graduation rates.

Can you point to any posts that did that, or this just a strawman misrepresentation?

What is racist is to oppose school policies that help all students, but for reasons having nothing to do with racism in the education system, don't wind up correcting graduation gaps that are also primarily caused by factors having nothing to do with racism in the education system.

What is racist and generally immoral is to favor policies that harm or fail to help most students but happen to close the graduation gaps over policies that help all students but don't close that gap.

 

[Jarhyn]

ITT: posts calling people racist for wanting to eliminate racism as a confounding factor in racially disparate graduation rates.

Can you point to any posts that did that, or this just a strawman misrepresentation?

What is racist is to oppose school policies that help all students, but for reasons having nothing to do with racism in the education system, don't wind up correcting graduation gaps that are also primarily caused by factors having nothing to do with racism in the education system.

What is racist and generally immoral is to favor policies that harm or fail to help most students but happen to close the graduation gaps over policies that help all students but don't close that gap.

Read the thread. In particular Lauren's replies labeling positions as racist.

It is racist, in actuality, to support policies which propagate racial stereotypes. It is not racist to seek to end racial disparity.

When the fuel for racism is gone, the effects of racism also go away, or at least start to. Look at threads here on race. Eventually the racists will point to actual population disparities (crime, graduation rate, poverty) and imply that it is due to race and not poverty and so support racist bullshit. So, yeah, we need to close the disparity to make the racism go away. We can focus directly on graduation when teachers, legislatures, and communities stop selling black students short and telling them to circumscribe their dreams and hopes because they are black.

 

[ronburgundy]

Can you point to any posts that did that, or this just a strawman misrepresentation?

What is racist is to oppose school policies that help all students, but for reasons having nothing to do with racism in the education system, don't wind up correcting graduation gaps that are also primarily caused by factors having nothing to do with racism in the education system.

What is racist and generally immoral is to favor policies that harm or fail to help most students but happen to close the graduation gaps over policies that help all students but don't close that gap.

Read the thread. In particular Lauren's replies labeling positions as racist.

It is racist, in actuality, to support policies which propagate racial stereotypes. It is not racist to seek to end racial disparity.

When the fuel for racism is gone, the effects of racism also go away, or at least start to. Look at threads here on race. Eventually the racists will point to actual population disparities (crime, graduation rate, poverty) and imply that it is due to race and not poverty and so support racist bullshit. So, yeah, we need to close the disparity to make the racism go away. We can focus directly on graduation when teachers, legislatures, and communities stop selling black students short and telling them to circumscribe their dreams and hopes because they are black.

I don't see Loren or anybody else saying that people are racist for the invented reasons you ascribe to them.
Schools cannot make the graduation disparity go away. They have no control over most of the causes of that disparity. The only thing that comes from people making that disparity the focus of education policies is worse education for all, including blacks, and thus more poverty and its associated problems. Where there is actual racism within the education system, it should be addressed, but unequal education outcomes themselves is not racism or evidence of racism within the education system, because most of that disparity is due to external factors (some of it racism in other aspects of society).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Last time: I did not write anything about stress, you did.

Where did the 3.7 come from???

 

[Loren Pechtel]

ITT: posts calling people racist for wanting to eliminate racism as a confounding factor in racially disparate graduation rates.

You're assuming racism is a factor in the initial disparity and you want to take racist actions to fix this. Fighting racism with racism is being racist--especially since it doesn't appear that there is any racism in the original issue.

- - - Updated - - -

Read the thread. In particular Lauren's replies labeling positions as racist.

It is racist, in actuality, to support policies which propagate racial stereotypes. It is not racist to seek to end racial disparity.

When the fuel for racism is gone, the effects of racism also go away, or at least start to. Look at threads here on race. Eventually the racists will point to actual population disparities (crime, graduation rate, poverty) and imply that it is due to race and not poverty and so support racist bullshit. So, yeah, we need to close the disparity to make the racism go away. We can focus directly on graduation when teachers, legislatures, and communities stop selling black students short and telling them to circumscribe their dreams and hopes because they are black.

If race enters into the decision it's racist, period.