My estimation of the problem is not that it's fundamentally a bad idea but that it counteracts the business model of universities who think they have been doing the right thing since the term Affirmative Action was invented. Ask them what their edifice of diversity is and they will point back to decades of growth of their administration …
My estimation of the problem is not that it's fundamentally a bad idea but that it counteracts the business model of universities who think they have been doing the right thing since the term Affirmative Action was invented. Ask them what their edifice of diversity is and they will point back to decades of growth of their administration to professor ratio in service of the 'student community'. That will not be means tested against the overall quality of their educational product as compared to that of other first world nations.
There is nothing at all wrong with the less competitive standards of land grant schools, state university systems, community colleges and other types of non-scam forms of higher education. But when it comes to any university that considers itself academically competitive, its cherry-picking of any sort of 'minority' to round out the social experience of undergraduates is the worst kind of quota. Most people recognize the over-representation of such marginalized tokens in glossy marketing aimed at teenagers and parents. But not so many are aware of how much more successful people apt to get a 3.4 GPA actually fare at teaching oriented schools as compared to research oriented schools.
Speaking personally about achievement gaps as an adult collegian entering 4 years after my high school graduation. I can tell you unequivocally that the quality of math instruction in K12 public schools is horrible relatively speaking. Competent math instruction is at such a premium, I would not be surprised to see something like only 10% of K12 math teachers actually having a degree in mathematics. The ability of math teachers to explain multiple approaches to calculus or statistics is invaluable. So many just don't have that skill.
These are the sorts of means testing we should focus on, but the symbology of race rules these discussions to the detriment of all. This is the nature of institutional racism - that we track race at all given the complexity of human attributes and individual history we don't bother to consider.
My estimation of the problem is not that it's fundamentally a bad idea but that it counteracts the business model of universities who think they have been doing the right thing since the term Affirmative Action was invented. Ask them what their edifice of diversity is and they will point back to decades of growth of their administration to professor ratio in service of the 'student community'. That will not be means tested against the overall quality of their educational product as compared to that of other first world nations.
There is nothing at all wrong with the less competitive standards of land grant schools, state university systems, community colleges and other types of non-scam forms of higher education. But when it comes to any university that considers itself academically competitive, its cherry-picking of any sort of 'minority' to round out the social experience of undergraduates is the worst kind of quota. Most people recognize the over-representation of such marginalized tokens in glossy marketing aimed at teenagers and parents. But not so many are aware of how much more successful people apt to get a 3.4 GPA actually fare at teaching oriented schools as compared to research oriented schools.
Speaking personally about achievement gaps as an adult collegian entering 4 years after my high school graduation. I can tell you unequivocally that the quality of math instruction in K12 public schools is horrible relatively speaking. Competent math instruction is at such a premium, I would not be surprised to see something like only 10% of K12 math teachers actually having a degree in mathematics. The ability of math teachers to explain multiple approaches to calculus or statistics is invaluable. So many just don't have that skill.
These are the sorts of means testing we should focus on, but the symbology of race rules these discussions to the detriment of all. This is the nature of institutional racism - that we track race at all given the complexity of human attributes and individual history we don't bother to consider.