Sure, but the reality is that such conditions do interfere with the potential of academic success, as much as proponents of equity like to argue otherwise. If I had a severe brain injury as a child, or my mom drank and did a ton of drugs while pregnant with me, or any number of other reasons, I will probably be far less academically successful than in the counterfactual reality where I didn't get a brick dropped on my head as a child.
Equality proponents argue that brick-on-head and no-brick-on-head should be judged by the same standards. Equity proponents argue that brick-on-head should be given advantages over no-brick-on-head to make them obtain substantially similar educational outcomes.
Once again, from your own link:
>Equity recognizes this uneven playing field and aims to take extra measures by giving those in need more than those who are not. Equity aims to achieve equal outcomes for groups, also called substantive equality. Equity aims to ensure that everyone's lifestyle is equal, even if that requires unequal distribution of access and goods.
> Equity proponents argue that brick-on-head should be given advantages over no-brick-on-head to make them obtain substantially similar educational outcomes.
The problem is that the solution that they're proposing is to force _everyone_ to have that brick-on-head. With maybe two or three bricks for especially "advantaged" categories.
>In your scenarios, equity proponents would tend to advocate for things like extra testing time, access to tutoring, etc.
So you claim, but in reality proponents of equity instituted a system that gave Black students a roughly 450 point advantage over Asian students on the SAT:
Note that the NYT, in their pure, non-partisan spirit of fairness and equity, somehow found a way to describe this as an unfair advantage for White students.
> somehow found a way to describe this as an unfair advantage for White students
Make up your mind? If their having to score higher than Black students is unfair, how is "Asian-Americans had to score 140 points higher on their SATs than whites" not also unfair?
What if raw SAT score doesn't perfectly reflect lifelong achievement? As I noted elsewhere in the thread, wealth (translated to parenting time, tutoring access, better schools, etc.) can help do better on the SAT. How does one account for that?
I didn't say it was fair, I was pointing out the NYT being racially biased (as per usual). Imagine at a school that Jenny gets 10 cookies from the teacher, Timmy gets 3, and Johnny gets two. Billy sees all this, but he has a crush on Jenny, so when he tells everyone on the playground about it he doesn't say "Jenny got way more cookies than Johnny, that's so unfair!" Instead he says "Timmy got more cookies than Johnny, that's so unfair!". That's the ridiculousness that I'm pointing out here.
>What if raw SAT score doesn't perfectly reflect lifelong achievement?
It was never intended to?
>How does one account for that?
It's impossible to account for everything. As much as the thinkers of the Enlightenment and their successors have attempted to quantify and measure everything, it's simply not possible in reality. If someone could devise a better means of measurement than current standardized tests like the SAT and ACT, I would happily welcome them.
But one thing is pretty clear and certain: the SAT is a far better measure of mathematical aptitude that high school grades, and until better measures can be found and implemented I fully support continuing to use it for college admissions and college math placement.
>But we apparently agree that "somehow found a way to describe this as an unfair advantage for White students" is actually accurate on their part?
I agree that Whites also got an unfair advantage over Asians in college admissions, yes (I haven't kept up with the state of things since some recentish supreme court decisions so I don't know if this is actually still the case).
>Then we shouldn't use it as such.
It isn't used as such. It's used to measure a student's current aptitude in math and English, hence the discontinuation of its use in California leading to the poor math outcomes for students described in the article this entire thread is about.
> Sure, but the reality is that such conditions do interfere with the potential of academic success, as much as proponents of equity like to argue otherwise.
This is a bizarre claim in the second clause. Proponents of equity do recognize that various conditions impact academic potential; otherwise, they wouldn’t attempt to ameliorate them.
You even quoted, “Equity recognizes this uneven playing field. . .” so where did “. . . as much as proponents of equity like to argue otherwise,” even come from?
The person I was replying to quoted the article saying "conditions should not interfere", my point was that they do interfere, and will continue to interfere, in spite of all the efforts and hands on the scale and discrimination that equity proponents try to implement. Equity fundamentally arises from a more or less "blank-slatist" view of humans, which is why it leads to such insane outcomes when it comes into contact with reality.
> The person I was replying to quoted the article saying "conditions should not interfere", my point was that they do interfere, and will continue to interfere, in spite of all the efforts and hands on the scale and discrimination that equity proponents try to implement.
So? Name a social intervention that did achieve all its goals.
> Equity fundamentally arises from a more or less "blank-slatist" view of humans
Digging up a straw man from the 17th century is not particularly persuasive.
>So? Name a social intervention that did achieve all its goals.
That's not my argument though? In any case, I believe that many of the ideas that have been proposed (and actually implemented) by proponents of equity aren't just failing to meet their goals, I believe they are actively harmful to them (and to the health of society as a whole).
>Digging up a straw man from the 17th century is not particularly persuasive.
Blank slatism in one form or another goes all the way back to the Greeks. In any case, belief in blank slatism is effectively a prerequisite for believing in one of the primary standards used by equity proponents to judge if a system is equitable or not: disparate impact. You can't a priori assume that disparate impact is proof of discrimination unless you also discount inherent differences in human capability and performance.
> So? Name a social intervention that did achieve all its goals.
This is a complete non-sequitur.
> Digging up a straw man from the 17th century is not particularly persuasive.
It makes no sense whatsoever to refer to a strawman. Locke's conception (presumably this is what you mean if you say "from the 17th century") is obviously not what's being argued against here, since in fact the opposition to these "equity" policies generally comes from classical liberals. Rather, this is about ascribing the much more recent view of thinkers such as Michael Howe to the "equity" proponents, and rejecting it in favour of what actual scientific research demonstrates (qv. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa#Psychology_and_neu...).
That is to say: the claim presented is that equal opportunity will lead to equal outcome due to an inherently equal starting point, and that is simply false. Genetic propensities to all sorts of things are readily proven (and so is the heritability of those propensities); but even identical twins could end up with unequal outcomes through differences in individual psychology (motivations, interests, etc.) or even just sheer luck.
It is absolutely not a strawman that "equity proponents" assert this obviously false claim. We know this because of quotes like the one starting off the discussion. Again:
> Equity recognizes this uneven playing field and aims to take extra measures by giving those in need more than those who are not. Equity aims to achieve equal outcomes for groups, also called substantive equality. Equity aims to ensure that everyone's lifestyle is equal, even if that requires unequal distribution of access and goods.
If you aim to achieve equal outcomes, and you understand that equal opportunities do not and cannot produce equal outcomes, then you cannot logically claim to endorse equal opportunities. The pursuit of your goals, and your measurement of success, will necessarily entail abandonment of equal opportunity.
The claim behind
> Equity aims to ensure that everyone's lifestyle is equal, even if that requires unequal distribution of access and goods.
is "Unequal distribution of access and goods is justified by a result of equal lifestyles".
The reason there is an argument is because of the assertion:
> > the public believe that we should push for equal outcomes ("equity") over equal opportunity (usually referred to as simply "equality")
> This is the direct inverse of what's actually asserted by people talking about equity.
In other words: "Actually, people talking about equity believe that we should push for equal opportunity over equal outcomes".
The only logical way to not recognize the immediate and obvious contradiction is to suppose that these are not actually separate goals. But the equity proponents also have no excuse for such an obviously false supposition.
Equality proponents argue that brick-on-head and no-brick-on-head should be judged by the same standards. Equity proponents argue that brick-on-head should be given advantages over no-brick-on-head to make them obtain substantially similar educational outcomes.
Once again, from your own link:
>Equity recognizes this uneven playing field and aims to take extra measures by giving those in need more than those who are not. Equity aims to achieve equal outcomes for groups, also called substantive equality. Equity aims to ensure that everyone's lifestyle is equal, even if that requires unequal distribution of access and goods.