Income Based Affirmative Action

Robert Reich says it's time to link affirmative action programs to family income:

Robert Reich, Marketplace: Here's an idea Democrats probably won't endorse but should: Affirmative action based on family income.

The latest data from the Census tell us that inequality keeps growing. ...

At the same time, it's become harder for lower-income people to move upward. With wider inequality, the distance poor kids -- whatever their color -- has to climb to reach the upper-middle class is much longer. And the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs has removed many rungs in the middle of the income ladder, making that climb even harder.

In the new economy, education and connections mean more. Increasingly, lower-income people without adequate education and connections are competing for a smaller and smaller slice of the economic pie.

If there was ever a good time to offer affirmative action based on family income -- giving kids from lower income families extra consideration in college admissions, for example -- it's now.

Despite the fact that one of the great social achievements of the last quarter century is the emergence of a black middle and professional class, people of color are still over-represented among the poor and working class. The advantage of income-based affirmative action is it would address many of the same issues as race-based affirmative action, but it would also address the needs of low-income whites. ... Demagogues would have a harder time using race to stoke the fires of economic resentment.

Finally, income-based affirmative action would lead to more economic diversity on our college campuses. And more economic diversity is a key to reversing America's trend toward widening inequality.

Income-based affirmative action makes sense. Democrats, as well as Republicans, should consider it.

Comments

says...

Why don't we just print them college degrees of their choice and guarantee everybody 50k a year.

[jim]

Financial assistance based on tested and assessed ability makes sense, no matter what the person's financial status may be. Divorce the candidate from genetics and family wealth. Judge them on what they offer to the future.

[bakho]

Sounds like Pell Grants. Put more money in them.

[Little Yang]

I've been arguing for this for a long time. Unfortunately, you would see a drop in African-American enrollment for a while, but I think the resulting situation would right itself after a while.

The previous comments about "merit" don't seem to be applicable to income-based programs, because you're not lowering standards for such people, simply providing people with lack of means to go where they, indeed, do get into. And even if they do lower standards slightly to let them in, what's the worst that could happen? Conservatives will think poor people are just lazy? Oh wait. Too late.

[Winslow R.]

It seems we create 'shortages' where they shouldn't exist.

The human and economic loss associated with a lack opportunity far exceeds the human and economic cost of providing opportunity.

Opportunity should not be rationed.

[benamery21]

I have no problem with affirmative action on college admissions for those from a disadvantaged economic background. I have a serious problem with eliminating affirmative action as previously constituted in favor of this proposal.
What part of socioeconomic don't you understand? Oh, the "socio-" part. People are disadvantaged by more than income level.

[Robert L]

I agree with the idea. State and Federal law prohibits discrimination based on all kinds of things including race and color. Affirmative action on the other hand makes it ok to give an advantage to someone because of their race or color. Tying it to income makes it an economic decision and not a race or color decision.

One must still earn the position or degree once they are afforded the opportunity. If you don't make the grade then you're out.

[Gegner]

Um, what would a college degree be worth if everyone had one? Conversely, a degree is no guarantee that you will secure employment in your chosen field of study.

I went to a Vocational High school and found that a large percentage of my classmates didn't end up in the professions they 'trained' for. I'm one of the few that did...until 9/11, when my 'trade' dried up an blew away. [Yeah, I'm a thirty year manufacturing professional.]

In this respect, I think politicians have put the cart before the horse. No matter how much 'education' you have (or experience for that matter), you will be 'trained' to do the job 'their way'.

I've 'trained' many the engineer, because how they're taught and how it's done are two different things. (It's not possible to produce a part the way they are taught to design it.)

I'm thinking it would far more 'affirmative' to guarantee an individual a job than it would be to offer to 'educate' them.

There is nothing the person of average intelligence can't be taught to do if it is broken down into simple, 'easy to digest' steps.

In this respect, a degree is nothing more than a 'pedigree'. It only serves to prove your parents had the wherewithal to send you to an 'Ivy League' school.

So, basing 'affirmative action' on income would, in my opinion, do little to improve the 'quality' of the program.

[Middle Rungs]

The middle rungs are shrinking, and the lower rungs are unpleasant. That is the problem. Only a small percentage of the population can move into the top rungs regardless of which socioeconomic group they originate from.

Give some thought on how to expand the middle rungs so that a greater percentage of the population can thrive.

[save_the_rustbelts]

My parents started out dirt poor and ended up prosperous.

How?

A good job that wasn't shipped to China or Mexico.

Improved education funding is a start, but will not work in the insane rush to globalize at all costs as quickly as possible.

[save_the_rustbelts]

My parents started out dirt poor and ended up prosperous.

How?

A good job that wasn't shipped to China or Mexico.

Improved education funding is a start, but will not work in the insane rush to globalize at all costs as quickly as possible.

[ken melvin]

Access is all a part of the selection process; the selection process that allocates the jobs. As the number of jobs available decreases, the requirements increase. Few years back, a bachelors would get you a job as a tech. Now, one needs a masters.

Hear that education is the answer - a lot - makes for a better work force no doubt; but, we can't reasonably expect to educate even a majority to the bachelors level, and, again, this only skews the distribution, i.e., it doesn't bring any jobs back from China.

We'll make great progress once we realize that it's a new and different day.

[robertdfeinman]

Um, what would a college degree be worth if everyone had one? Conversely, a degree is no guarantee that you will secure employment in your chosen field of study.

The idea that college is a kind of trade school gets brought up frequently, so it is time to bring out good old John Dewey (again).

I suggest reading Democracy and Education which is available free online.

Dewey's contribution to philosophy was both practical and theoretical. His practical contribution was to promote the idea of learning by doing instead of the more traditional learning by rote and from authority.

The difference in these approaches can be seen when contrasting the way students are taught in traditional theocratic societies vs liberal westernized ones. It can also be seen in the tension in the US between those who want to bring back authoritarian, standardized teaching and those who don't.

His philosophical contribution was to foster the idea that learning is not about instilling a core set of "facts", but about developing the skills so that one can learn by oneself in the future. Call it critical thinking.

The reason for critical thinking is that it is necessary if one is to be a useful citizen in a true democracy. Citizens will always be called upon to make political decisions based upon new evidence and circumstance and only by having a good set of critical skills will they be allowed to do this well.

Those who are promoting autocratic design for schools also prefer an autocratic structure to governance.

Does one need to go to college to develop critical thinking skills? Of course not, but if one does get the extra years of school one can be exposed to other areas of human accomplishment and have more practice in critical thinking. There is also a value in learning for its own sake, learning is supposed to be a pleasurable experience, one now knows more than before and feels more self reliant.

Having said all this, the trade school/vocational school track is in poor condition in this country and should be rethought as well. But there is no reason an apprentice plumber can't discuss Shakespeare.

[reason]

When I was growing up getting widely available (government means-tested)scholarships was a big deal for struggling families. Surely, this is way to go.

[Noni Mausa]

Rusty said: My parents started out dirt poor and ended up prosperous. How?

Exactly the question my oldest aunt, bless her heart, puzzled over. She was born in the Gilded Age but never knew it; she grew up in the Depression which set her lifelong attitude to money and having a year's worth of canned goods in the pantry. Her career was in the armed forces, and her retirement was one of secure though modest wealth buoyed by her and her husband's USAF pensions plus the privilege of shopping at the BX and dining at the officer's club.

She, along with most of the rest of America, caught the billowing updraft of prosperity from 1930 to 1970 or so, driven by many fires, and she could not understand how today's youth could not prosper the way she had. She felt that in such a prosperous country, the only explanation must be that the kids were spoiled and lazy -- yet she knew many young people, she always had house guests, nephews and nieces and friends and children of friends. She saw with her own eyes that they were not spoiled or lazy, but they were still struggling.

The reasons for the difference in generational prosperity are many and we have been discussing them for years in this forum. But in short, thousands of small and large changes in business and government worked toward cranking open the watergates of the rivers of individual effort, and meticulously closing off the faucets that returned those rivers to their source.

There may have been no conspiracy in the classic sense, but it was a concerted effort. Who needs a vampire when a hundred thousand mosquitoes can draw just as much blood, without danger of being identified and staked?

Noni

[S Brennan]

Holy smoke folks,

"offer affirmative action based on family income -- giving kids from lower income families extra consideration in college admissions, for example.

Let's reason this out.

If you wait until age eighteen to help somebody...don't 'ya think you're little late? Honestly, does anybody in the economics profession understand the hopelessness that accompanies multi-generational poverty?

Why raise a dams height when the base is being undercut?

No, drain the dam, rebuild the foundation into bedrock, now build a taller dam. See LBJ, War on Poverty. See Reagan, "the war on poverty is over...the poor lost"

says...

S. Brennan,

The poor have lost, that was the point of liberal policy. The second half of the game is to keep them their.

[lonesome moderate]

Ken Melvin: Few years back, a bachelors would get you a job as a tech. Now, one needs a masters.

Not sure what kind of tech youj're talking about, but in the computer/IT field I don't see that the degree requirements are any higher than they were 25 years ago.

The main difference I've seen in the job market (no doubt driven in part by globalization) is how quickly job requirements change, how quickly and unpredictably people can become obsolete. It's like an endless game of Twister, which of course gets harder to play as you get older.

[S Brennan]

"...which of course gets harder to play as you get older." - lonesome moderate

And of course employers know older workers between 40-64 years cost more for medical coverage. Sure, we have laws to prevent discrimination, but of course, the Supreme Corporate Council [formerly known as the Supreme Court] negated them.

[S Brennan]

"Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale,"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/28/health.socialexclusion
"...[A]ccording to a major United Nations report, by a World Health Organisation commission headed by the British professor Sir Michael Marmot, shows that the ill health and shorter lives of the least lucky has brought down life expectancy in the UK .

"Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale," it says,

The report highlights stark disparities within the UK, as in most countries in the world. A boy in the suburb of Calton, Glasgow, can expect to live 28 years less than one brought up in Lenzie, a few miles away. One born in Hampstead, London, will live around 11 years longer than a boy from St Pancras, five stops down the underground Northern line.

The health secretary, Alan Johnson, today defended the government's record and said he thought the UK target to reduce health inequalities within the next two years was "achievable". It has undertaken to narrow the gap in life expectancy and infant mortality between rich and poor by 10% by 2010.

"We haven't closed the gap – in fact the gap has widened – but the health of those who are most disadvantaged in life expectancy and infant mortality is at the same level as the rest of the population was eight years ago," he said on BBC radio.

...The report says a "toxic combination of bad policies, economics and politics is in large measure responsible for the fact that a majority of people in the world do not enjoy the good health that is biologically possible".

Deprivation reduces dramatically children's chances of growing up to lead healthy lives, the report says. Health inequity "is caused by the unequal distribution of income, goods and services and of the consequent chance of leading a flourishing life". It is not a natural phenomenon, but "the result of policies that prize the interests of some over those of others – all too often a rich and powerful minority over the interests of a disempowered majority".

The desperate consequences of social injustice are most marked in developing countries where the poorest struggle to survive. Average life expectancy in some African countries is below 50 years. But the underlying issues are similar all over the world.

"In rich countries, low socioeconomic position means poor education, lack of amenities, unemployment and job insecurity, poor working conditions and unsafe neighbourhoods, with their consequent impact on family life. These all apply to the socially disadvantaged in low income countries in addition to the considerable burden of material deprivation and vulnerability to natural disasters," the report says.

It gives examples in both poor and rich countries of policies and programmes aimed at social justice that result in better health for all.

The good health of the Nordic countries is rooted in commitment to universalist policies such as equality of rights to benefits and services, full employment, gender equity and low levels of social exclusion.

Some low-income countries with strong social policies have done very well, such as Costa Rica, China, India, Sri Lanka and Cuba, the report says.

Rapid change is possible, it says. Forty years ago, Greece and Portugal had child mortality of 50 per 1,000. Now they are not far behind Iceland, Japan and Sweden, which have the highest lifespans in the world.

In the same period, Egypt has gone from 235 to 35 per 1,000. But change in the other direction can be equally rapid. Adult mortality has risen in the Russian Federation since the political, social and economic upheaval of 1992.

The commission wants every government policy and programme assessed for its impact on health.

Above all, it says, governments should invest in high-quality education with a focus on intervening in the earliest years, from the womb to age eight. Ensuring good education for girls dramatically improves the chances of survival for their babies.

Affordable housing, encouraging people to use healthier modes of transport and controls on junk food and alcohol outlets are all important, as is the availability of full, fair and decent employment for all at a living wage, the report says.

[the problemwithcaring]

Means-Test Affirmative Action Policy: All Hat, No Cattle

Recently, Barack Obama gave an interview with Essence magazine in which he commented that America and the media in particular has an unnatural affixation on race. Like sex and violence, we are hyper-attuned to race to the detriment of larger social issues.

While the premise of the economic article Income-based Affirmative Action promises to offer an easy way to hit the “Reset Button” on our hypersensitivity to race, all it really offers is just more of the same. Most Americans profess to want - at least -the supposed benefits of a “color-blind” society. However, it is improbable we will get there by pretending racism is somehow no longer a real social obstacle to people of color.

The Problem With ONLY Means Testing-
The fallacy here is not that the means-based policy is immoral, unjust, illogical or wrong. The problem is, like most economic analyses, it likes to ignore fundamental reality. We can pretend that the life, opportunities and future of every 18 year-old of the same IRS federal income bracket, bright enough to make the grade to get to college and smart enough to want to go, looks exactly the same whether you are white Black or Hispanic. Reality shows that this is not the case.

The Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics tells us a lot about the average 18 year-old in a low family income in this country.

The average low-income white or Asian 18 year-old male grew up in a suburban, urban or rural area in a (at some point) two-parent household, both of whom typically graduated from high school. The 18 year-old went to predominantly white- or Asian-majority schools all his life – typically starting with day care. At those schools he had access to more educational resources, such as more AP, college-prep and music instruction courses The average low-income white or Asian 18 year-old male grew up in a suburban, urban or rural area in a (at some point) two-parent household, both of whom typically graduated from high school. The 18 year-old went to predominantly white- or Asian-majority schools all his life – typically starting with day care. At those schools he had access to more educational resources, such as more AP, college-prep and music instruction courses than a typical non-majority white school .

His teachers were some of the most highly credentialed in the state and the highest paid. He most likely was used to his classes having teachers’ aides and credentialed substitute teachers. He most likely had access to just the kind of sports resources and extracurricular activities that increased college eligibility and the likelihood of admission. Though he was the least likely to make use of it, on average, most likely he had access to plenty of extra academic help. He grew up in a world that *expected* him to either achieve or overachieve. His immediate peers, typically, had a similar background.

The average low-income 18 year-old Black or Hispanic male has experienced education very differently over the course of his life. On-going housing discrimination and job discrimination keeps many minorities communities ghettoized . Statistics show that typically these 18 year-olds, like their parents before them, were warehoused into overcrowded High Schools with the greatest proportions of African American and Latino students. These schools offer fewer AP courses, fewer college prep classes, and fewer credentialed teachers. These schools also typically have the lowest teacher retention rates and so therefore cycle through inexperienced teachers and the teachers who are not fully credentialed year after year after year.

Those schools are most likely dangerous – for the teachers who are asked to take pay cuts to “referee” in them – as well as for the students who must navigate the typical terrors of an American High school, like bullying and harassment, with the added detriments of guns, gangs and poverty. Their parents are typically undereducated, have low-killed, low-paying jobs, and/or language difficulties that make it more difficult to navigate the system on their children’s behalf. Their children’s schools do even a far worse job accommodating parents.

Policy Prescriptions vs Policy Band Aids
Most affirmative action policy, including this recommendation to change AA to just another highly subjective form of the existing “needs-based” test to admission is, for the challenges of educational policy and the Achievement Gap, in particular, simply a band-aid. Just as the State Children’s Health Plan (SCHIP) provides limited, uneven and selective relief to some but not nearly enough of the uninsured, affirmative action in all its forms, offers uneven and subjective answers but no real systemic relief to inequality in education.

Some policies programs are meant to maintain the status quo and not meant to take on the social forces at work that create these inequalities and reinforce their need in the first place. Affirmative Action in all its incarnations is designed to be such a policy program. (See: Arthur Fletcher’s, Nixon’s Assistance Sec. of Labor and the grandfather of Affirmative Actions book, “The Silent Sellout” for more on how the policy was historically conceived as a political tool.)

America succeeds when all American children have *real* not theoretical access to a quality, 21st century education as a birthright.

[Lafayette]

WR: The human and economic loss associated with a lack (of) opportunity far exceeds the human and economic cost of providing opportunity.

Now, that's a mouthful. A shame it has no bearing in fact.

Could you put some meat on that statement? It seems preposterous standing there all by itself.

[Lafayette]

What is lacking is the will

Consider a school system, both secondary and tertiary, that is free, gratis and for nothing.

Both systems are very different. The former is "close to home", the latter probably not. The secondary school education is (so-called) guaranteed by the state, tertiary education is not. The former is free, the latter is not. The latter depends upon how lucky you may be at obtaining a scholarship, which is almost random chance.

Secondary school education has two objectives. The first is a basic education that prepares children for real life. In other words, at the end of their education, they should be able to cope. We find that for both those graduating and, certainly, drop outs, such is woefully not the case.

In both instances, the problem is operational. That is, the means in place to obtain the objectives. If these means are solely the purview of the local school administration, it is almost sure that what arises is Passive Discrimination based upon local community means. The tax base in a ghetto is not that of a leafy suburb, where parents work at well-paying jobs.

This is passive discrimination, but discrimination nonetheless and, by law, should be forbidden. If it takes Federal subsidies to assure the level playing field , where NO child is left behind in America, then they should be made available by means of a National Educational Program that guarantees them as a basic human right.

It's as simple as that.

As for tertiary education, this too should be available free, gratis and for nothing by means of state schooling, either in occupational training or college/university – funded by Federal subsidies were necessary to guaranty a base level of quality.

In a country that can go to the moon, we certainly have the means to assure a uniform educational policy across the country. What is lacking is the will to implement a program funded with the necessary investment to arrive at a given result.

And, who's to blame? We are. Politicians keep harping on jobs, jobs, jobs. Well, the problem is actually skills, skills, skills. And, there, we have failed in the mission of educating this population to the skills levels now required in a globalized economy.

It can be done, had we the will to do it. Now that is affirmative action but has nothing to do with income. It has everything to do with a federally subsidized National Education Program that guarantees secondary/tertiary schooling.

Make education a national guaranty by law, with federal funding where necessary. Like we build roads, we can build schools. Roads are for all cars, regardless of price. Schools should be the same.

[Icarus]

Actually, why stop at redistributing wealth amongst those already living in the OECD?

We have 3 billion people living on less than $2/day. Why not finance the education of all of them? Why not offer free healthcare to all of them, despite cost? We should send each child born to the best schools possible, and tax the rich to do so, right?

We shouldn't be bounded by the limits of National boundaries. There are kids all over the globe who need health care and formal education.

The French have a great system...why not ask them to finance this? Why limit the spoils of redistribution to citizens of the West?

[BJ Feng]

Problemwithcaring, wait a minute, why would a rich Black or Hispanic person live in a place associated with poor and dangerous schools? High income Black and Hispanics live in the same type of neighborhoods that high income Whites and Asians do. And those neighborhoods have schools with lots of AP classes, in other words, good schools. Currently, these privileged rich minorities would still get a boost from Affirmative Action, why?

And there are plenty of White and Asian students that live in very bad school districts due to their poverty. Many are minorities within those schools and face discrimination due to their race. And the worse the school district, the worse the discrimination thanks to the type of students and the bad environment.

Race based Affirmative Action is by definition racist and cannot continue in a nation that wants to end racism and create a colorblind society.

If you want to help disadvantaged children by giving them easier access to top schools, then socioeconomic status is the most logical and best measure. No, disadvantages cannot be eliminated, the poor will always have less than the rich by definition.

[Lafayette]

Icky: There are kids all over the globe who need health care and formal education. The French have a great system...why not ask them to finance this

You've gone of the deep end.

Take an aspirin and go to bed. You'll feel better tomorrow.

[Lafayette]

BJ: Race based Affirmative Action is by definition racist and cannot continue in a nation that wants to end racism and create a colorblind society.

Your definition, BJ ... yours.

Not ours.

[BJ Feng]

Lol, a program that awards benefits based on skin color and race isn't racist? Sure, then the KKK's platform isn't racist either. I suppose it all depends on what is is.

[Icarus]

Lafayette,

Yes, an aspirin is what I need. Perhaps that can be financed too? Should we handout aspirins to all?

Do we have any ideas on the left beyond handing out the staples of living? Is confiscating the accrued wealth of the successful the limits of progressivity?

[Zero Cost]

Icarus:

Remember when the government steals from a person with a high income in any given year the opportunity cost is 0. It is the only way to believe unfounded faith based statements like the one reproduced below....

"It seems we create 'shortages' where they shouldn't exist.

The human and economic loss associated with a lack opportunity far exceeds the human and economic cost of providing opportunity.

Opportunity should not be rationed."

[Patricia Shannon]

says...

S. Brennan,

The poor have lost, that was the point of liberal policy. The second half of the game is to keep them their.

Where did you get this silliness? From super-rich Rash Limburger?

http://abajournal.com/news/rush_limbaugh_divorce_details_secret_but_salary_isnt/

Posted Oct 4, 2007, 07:27 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Details of Rush Limbaugh’s 2004 divorce settlement will remain secret because of a Florida appeals court ruling yesterday.
...
Undaunted, a Palm Beach Post blog reported today on Limbaugh’s earnings, detailed in a Florida Department of Corrections file. The amount: $2 million to $3 million a month.

http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/2008/07/rush-limbaugh-in-sunday-nyt-cover-story.html

Meanwhile, a key industry source confirms speculation that Limbaugh has signed a stunning mega contract renewal deal with Premiere Radio Networks and parent company Clear Channel Communications.

Said to be Limbaugh's most lucrative deal ever by far, the new agreement runs through 2016 and includes a previously unheard-of nine figure signing bonus. For those of you in Rio Linda, that means more than $100 million, upfront.

[Somebody is jealous]

"For those of you in Rio Linda, that means more than $100 million, upfront."

The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves

[Lafayette]

Icky: Do we have any ideas on the left beyond handing out the staples of living? Is confiscating the accrued wealth of the successful the limits of progressivity?

In a country with a Gini coefficient of Income Unfairness the highest in the developed world, confiscating accrued wealth at the upper levels is wholly acceptable.

You are blinding yourself to the facts. Which surprises no one.

BTW, if you know any social democratic country in Europe that is "handing out the staples of living", please do tell me. I'll move there. This notion is ridiculous.

[V. M. B.]

The reason that all types of affirmative action are harmful is that America was built on the notion that anyone can do anything, regardless of his ancestry, and that is what we should be looking for. We should fix education instead of affirmative action.

Think of it as a race. The rich are taught how to run faster, have better shoes, have more time to train, etc., and the poor have to overcome these to win the race. Affirmative Action moves the finish line. It says "The rich boy has to run 100m, and the poor boy has to run 75m". What we should do is teach the poor boy how to compete, how to run faster, give them a chance to train, etc. In the end, the rich boy might have the better shoes, but the poor boy has a much better chance to compete.

We should fix inner city and rural schools instead of affirmative action. Give teachers more money to teach in harder areas, and give better teachers more money. Lets get everybody to compete instead of move the finish line.

[the problemwithcaring]

Recently, Barack Obama gave an interview with Essence magazine in which he commented that America and the media in particular has an unnatural fixation on race. Like sex and violence, we are hyper-attuned to race to the detriment of larger social issues.

While the premise of the economic article Income-based Affirmative Action promises to offer an easy way to hit the “Reset Button” on our hypersensitivity to race, all it really offers is just more of the same. Most Americans profess to want - at least -the supposed benefits of a “color-blind” society. However, it is improbable we will get there by pretending racism is somehow no longer a real social obstacle to people of color.

The Problem With ONLY Means Testing-
The fallacy here is not that the means-based policy is immoral, unjust, illogical or wrong. The problem is, like most economic analysis, it likes to ignore fundamental reality. We can pretend that the life, opportunities and future of every 18 year-old of the same IRS federal income bracket, bright enough to make the grade to get to college and smart enough to want to go, looks exactly the same whether you are white Black or Hispanic. Reality shows that this is not the case.

The Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics tells us a lot about the average 18 year-old in a low family income in this country.

The average low-income white or Asian 18 year-old male grew up in a suburban, urban or rural area in a (at some point) two-parent household, both of whom graduated from high school. The 18 year-old went to a predominantly white- or Asian-majority schools all his life – typically starting with day care. At those schools he has access to more educational resources, such as more AP, college-prep and music instruction courses than a typical non-majority white school.

His teachers are some of the most highly credentialed in the state and the highest paid. he is accustomed to his classes having teachers’ aides and credentialed substitute teachers. He also has access to the kind of sports resources and extracurricular activities that increase college eligibility and the likelihood of admission. Though he is probably won't make use of it, he has access to plenty of extra academic help. He grew up in a community that *expected* him to either achieve or overachieve. His immediate peers all have had a similar background.

The average low-income 18 year-old Black or Hispanic male has experienced education very differently over the course of his life. On-going housing discrimination and job discrimination keeps many minorities communities ghettoized . Statistics show that typically these 18 year-olds, like their parents before them, were warehoused into overcrowded High Schools with the greatest proportions of African American and Latino students. These schools offer fewer AP courses, fewer college prep classes, and fewer credentialed teachers. These schools also typically have the lowest teacher retention rates and therefore, cycle through many inexperienced and un-credentialed teachers and the teachers who are year after year after year.

Those schools are most likely dangerous – for the teachers who are asked to take pay cuts to “referee” in them – as well as for the students, who must navigate the typical terrors of an American High school like bullying and harassment, with the added detriments of guns, gangs and poverty. Their parents are undereducated, have low-skilled, low-paying jobs with little time off, spotty transportation and/or language difficulties that make it more difficult to navigate the system on their children’s behalf. Their children’s schools do even a far worse job of accommodating parents.

Policy Prescriptions vs Policy Band Aids
Most affirmative action policy, including this latest iteration as (another) highly subjective form of the existing “needs-based” test to admission is, to the challenges of educational policy and the Achievement Gap in particular, simply a band-aid. Just as the State Children’s Health Plan (SCHIP) provides limited, uneven and selective relief to some but not nearly enough of the uninsured, affirmative action in all its forms, offers uneven and subjective answers but no real systemic relief to inequality in education.

Some policy programs are meant to maintain the status quo and not meant to take on the social forces at work that created these inequalities in the first place. Affirmative Action, in all its incarnations, is designed to be such a policy program. (See the book by: Arthur Fletcher’s, Nixon’s Assistance Sec. of Labor and the grandfather of Affirmative Action, “The Silent Sellout” for more on how the policy was historically conceived mainly as a political tool.)

America succeeds when all American children seize real access to a quality, 21st century education as their birthright.

[V.M.B]

All that i am saying is that we should fix education instead of try to fix it with Affirmative Action. We should use merit-based pay for teachers as well and pay teachers better who teach in inner city schools. Also, blacks and Hispanics have overall lower grades in suburban schools as well, so maybe there are other factors.