undefined | Better HN

0 pointslogicallee9y ago0 comments

No, I'm not from Baltimore. The article says "a few dozen" kids will go to college from Frederick Douglass High School, which is one of the 6 named high schools and middle schools. If we take "a few dozen" to mean 25, and apply it to the 6 schools, that is at least 150 college-bound students.

Out of 150 college-bound students, you believe that exactly 0 had a 4 out of 5 in both math and English?

We are not talking about generalities or averages here. The article makes the extraordinary claim of "exactly 0." This is simply an extraordinary claim. Like saying nobody is over 6 feet tall in an American city of a population of 500,000. I mean sure, the average could be lower - but not one?

Since you seem to know a bit more about Baltimore, could you expand on the reason for this extraordinary fact?

Maybe it is a statistical anomaly based on the total number of high schools and middle schools, that 6 should happen not to have any students with an over 4 in math and English. Plus I note that they say math and English. Perhaps if they said "math or English" they would have.

So it definitely seems a bit fishy to me.

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

linkmotif9y ago· 2 in thread

> Out of 150 college-bound students, you believe that exactly 0 had a 4 out of 5 in both math and English?

Yep. I'm sorry my previous comment was flip. But I totally believe this figure.

I'm from Baltimore. I didn't go to one of these schools. These schools are in totally broken communities where maybe some people do graduate high school but those graduations aren't meaningful in any sense. Those schools aren't schools. They are pre-prisons. The teachers have no chance and kids who may want to learn have no chance either. These are brutal, lawless environments policed literally by city cops.

That there could be exactly 0, zero people who succeed in the environment seems not only possible but actually necessary. These aren't schools. They are pre-prison holding facilities.

logicalleeOP9y ago

thanks for starting to respond more seriously, but I just don't understand and would like your further clarification. You call them pre-prison but what does the "few dozen" of them going on to college mean? Prisons don't produce college diplomas, so what is that figure? I am totally confused. Please direct your attention to the cited figure of a few dozen of each of these schools going on to college. That is not anywhere near 0.

linkmotif9y ago

So college in the US is overwhelmingly just more of high school. Also 50% of people who go to college drop out. Being college bound doesn't mean anything. Especially if you are a URM and even more so from a place like one of these schools. People are anxious to give these people a chance and some opportunity to succeed, which I think is great but doesn't mean they are prepared for college. At least not what college used to be. College really is just more high school, or what high school used to be. There are remedial algebra and English courses in college. People I know with college degrees don't know the difference between their and there and definitely can't articulate thoughts in writing. That's the situation in the US in 2017. Unless you graduate from a top college, college just means to went to high school twice. Even top schools are full of basically illiterate people who are just wealthy. Ask them to write something and you'll get a bunch of gibberish. I'm not exaggerating. It's pretty sad.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse