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"Stop the presses: Upper West Siders don't practice what they preach when it comes to their own children"

72 Comments -

1 – 72 of 72
Anonymous DaveinHackensack said...

There's something odd about the UWS's demographics. 63% black "reflects the flavor of the neighborhood"? I don't know what the actual numbers are, but the flavor of the neighborhood seems decidedly more vanilla. I've been there on warm days when the only blacks I saw on the street were the occassional bike messenger, or Carribean nanny pushing white kids in a stroller, and nearly everyone else was white or Asian yuppies. Maybe the blacks who live there hangout elsewhere? I once saw a few boisterous black teens sit in the outdoor seating area of an UWS cafe until a hostess came out and told them it was closed. Then I saw them seat a white party a few minutes later. Maybe that sort of thing is common in the neighborhood?

1/13/13, 2:22 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The concept of disparate impact should only be applied to bad people, like New York City firemen, not to good people, like Upper West Side parents.

You know, if the GOP had any serious, coherent political leadership, then they would hammer home this point 24x7 from now until the end of time.

And the beauty of it is that this message would be a double-edged sword: Not only would it help to lure in the votes of the upper Midwest & central Northeast White Catholics, who still refuse to vote GOP, but it would also drive a wedge between the Scots-Irish puppeteers and their low-IQ NAM marionettes [the Negroes and the Mexicans and the mixed-race Carribean Islanders] who constitue the modern DEM party.

Jesse Helms, in his race against Harvey Gantt, back in 1990, was the only politician I've ever known to have had the gonads to pull it off, however.

1/13/13, 4:29 AM

Anonymous Joe Six-Pack said...

There is a BBC documentary about NYC in the 1970s.

The most interesting part for me was the role of Rupert Murdoch in supporting Ed Koch mayoral campaign. Ed was the most fiscally conservative Democrat.

The Documentary made very clear that NYC was on the road to ruin in the mid-70s.

1/13/13, 4:36 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The author of the article only accounts for 96% of the total student population of 652:

27% white: 176
6% Asians: 40
63% blacks/Hispanics: 410
96% total = 626

Assuming a normal distribution, a SD of 15, and a mean IQ of 100, 107 and 85, for whites, Asians, and blacks/Hispanics, respectively, how many students in each of the populations above could be predicted to have an IQ above 100, versus the actual number enrolled in the "gifted" class?

predicted white: 88 / actual: 97 (+9 more than predicted)
predicted Asians: 27 / actual: 31 (+4 more than predicted)
predicted blacks/Hispanics: 65 / actual b/H: 65 (exactly as predicted)

1/13/13, 4:57 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

“Certainly there was concern with keeping middle-class families involved in public schools,..."

You see, it's not their [the elites'] fault; the devil made them do it. Just love the way they blame it on the middle-class.

1/13/13, 5:24 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

In reading this article I came across this gem: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/247908gb#page-6 evidently there is a better way to identify gifted and talented students via DISCOVER (discovering strengths and capabilities through observation while allowing for varied ethnic responses).
The study is just...bizarre.

1/13/13, 5:59 AM

Anonymous Silas said...

"As I explained in VDARE in 2007, to get your kid into the magnet middle or high school of your choice, they have to first be rejected when applying to a magnet elementary school. So, you have to pick an extremely popular magnet elementary school where the odds are there won't be room in order to build up "points.""


Its an obscenity that you have to play these games to get a fair shot at something that should be based entirely upon merit. I never understand why the hell America put up with these damned fool liberals who were far in the minority (in terms of numbers) to begin with, coming in and screwing around with things that have such significant impacts, especially when it comes to their kids.

The real distinction should be in making schools that cater to the fools who proclaim that they want to 'enrich' themselves and their kids with diversity vs. those who want their kids to have a normal experience and be placed into tracks based upon merit.

Make 2 types of schools in each area- For those that scream for diversity, many of whom hail from the upper crust, let them send their kids to a school where all of the minority students go. That'll solve their demands, and it will stop the whining of minorities that they aren't being put into schools that are as good as whitey's.

The rest of the white kids who have sane parents, can go to the second school where their parents, being rational, can relax knowing that their kids are safe and able to learn in peace.

1/13/13, 6:02 AM

Anonymous Darwin's Sh*tlist said...

...[S]ince nobody is allowed to explain that they want what they want, the system has lots of mindless churn in it.

Thought Laundering.

1/13/13, 6:27 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

How many of the 'white' kids are Jewish?

1/13/13, 6:40 AM

Anonymous anony-mouse said...

It's not 'Half Sigma'. It's 'Lion of the Blogosphere'.

1/13/13, 6:46 AM

Anonymous Chicago said...

It seems like a complicated rat race. The point is to avoid having ones children fall victim to other peoples politics. Racial politics appears to have been the one major reason for the destabilization and ruination of the public school systems throughout the country, thanks to people like the Kennedys and other hypocrites.

1/13/13, 7:09 AM

Anonymous a Newsreader said...

The new test "relies on abstract spatial thinking and largely eliminates language" because, as we all know, African Americans are at an unfair disadvantage with use of the English language, but are aces at abstract spatial thinking. That's why so many topologists are black, but practically no rappers.

Indeed, but topology also requires high verbal and mathematical ability.

Perhaps this "abstract spatial thinking" is meant to correlate with the types of visualization skills that help the best basketball and football players.

1/13/13, 7:18 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You need a label for all these posts about how the elite are doing things which would be racist if non-elite whites did them - NY kindergarten admissions, Chicago housing etc.

"Do as I say, not as I do" or "for thee but not for me" ?

1/13/13, 7:38 AM

Blogger elvisd said...

Wouldn't it be great if there were some kind of encounter meeting called "Heartlanders talk/New Yorkers listen", where the marginalized get "space" for their 200 million affinity group to have one hour to disrupt the elite echo chamber?

1/13/13, 7:45 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"But one afternoon at the school, Ms. Lindner, the fifth-grade teacher, said she was “always surprised” when she saw more than two or three white children in her general education classes. 
As a parent herself, and a resident of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, she said, “there’s no way I’d put my kid in a general-education class here, no way, because it’s right next to the project and all the kids in general education come from the projects.” 

I hope Ms. Lindner has tenure. But speaking so bluntly signals that she is from a special group that is allowed to speak freely, if her name was Ms. McAnybody, her comment would have been sent via a dog whistle or made anonymously.

1/13/13, 7:58 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"And they are mostly white.".
This is why the Scots Irish never lobby for their own box on the census; they can hide their privileges (and hypocrisy) under the "white" heading. But, if you say anything disparaging about the Upper West Side Whites in general, the Scots Irish will hear the whistle loud and clear.

1/13/13, 8:30 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

None of this would have surprised Malcom X. And no, white liberals who are at the top of the political and financial establishment aren't stupid in any way.
Gloria

1/13/13, 8:36 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"they managed to almost wreck the world's most important city"

Sweet mother of Jesus I am disappointed in you, Steve Sailor. In retrospect the most important place in the world a half century ago was Silicon Valley, Ca. Even in the New York metropolitan area places like Long Island (Grumman Aerospace), Upstate New York(IBM,Kodak,Sperry-Rand-Univac and others), Suburban New Jersey (Pharmaceuticals) were more important that New York City which was described as the hole in the doughnut.

One thing to think about is the financial bailouts of NYC industries. They remind me of attempts to keep Detroit alive during what was assumed to be just another cyclical downturn. These days nobody even uses the phrase Big Three.

1/13/13, 9:34 AM

Anonymous Nick Diaz said...

@Steve Sailer

"In their lack of hypocrisy, they managed to almost wreck the world's most important city."

London, Hong Kong and Xangai all surpass NYC in stock exchange net trading value.

Paris, London, Berlin, Turin and Barcelona all surpass NYC in number of cultural attractions, important theatres and relevance to the World of the arts.

Mexico City, São Paulo, Tokyo and Mumbai all surpass NYC in sheer population size.

It is amazing how your über-nationalist American chest-thumping never ends. I dont think you comprehend how arrogant and yet at the same time pathetic and petty your bragadocio is.

1/13/13, 9:38 AM

Anonymous Urban Mom said...

Is it really so important to keep these middle class people in the city? I stay in the city pretty much because my kids benefit from special treatment, and I'm not sure it's justified. (I'm not talking about having gifted programs with admissions tests, I don't have a problem with that. I'm talking about e.g. keeping class sizes low in gifted classes while underperforming schools are more and more over crowded every year.)

I can't really point to what I do for the city that is so great. I pay taxes, but they would get the payroll tax even if I lived in the suburbs, and proprty taxes are quite low. I don't generate that much sales tax for the city, since I'd rather drive out to the suburbs to shop or use Amazon than deal with parking downtown. Okay, by occupying my house I do prevent it from falling down or turning into a crack den. But is that valuable enough to justify the city catering to people like me in a way they wouldn't cater to other residents?

1/13/13, 9:41 AM

Anonymous Cail Corishev said...

Why don't they just put all the kids in the gifted class, so they can all be gifted?

I'm a race realist who was bored to death in school because we didn't have gifted programs back then, but I can't say I'm a fan of them. Public school (if it exists at all) should be like public housing or government cheese: provide a base minimum of education that a person needs to function in society -- reading, writing, arithmetic, some basic life skills like balancing a checkbook -- and let everyone who wants more than that take care of it himself.

Using taxpayer money to teach calculus to smart kids is like picking out people with sensitive palates and giving them lots of food stamps they can use on fine wines.

1/13/13, 9:44 AM

Anonymous Thomas O. Meehan said...

Your excellent piece also points out a phenomenon that I've witnessed in the suburbs.

Urban elites are less inclined to found private alternatives to public education. Once in the suburbs they seek to get preferential educational services within public institutions. Getting one's children private school attention on the public fisc at the expense of the whole community seems to be trait they carry with them.

When these people move en mass to our suburbs, Their demands on local educational infrastructure drive up property taxes to a degree that locals must flee.

To add insult to injury, many of the new transplanted elites end up working in the bloated educational bureaucracies they create. So in a sense they actually get paid to bankrupt their neighbors.

The only corrective to this is to shame these people into starting their own private academies. Of course, this may be asking too much of such people, given their backgrounds.

1/13/13, 10:04 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The ruling class are a bunch of hypocrites, yawn.

Great article though

1/13/13, 10:21 AM

Blogger pat said...

I read Jensen's article in the 1969 edition of the Harvard Educational Review. I read it when it came out.

It seemed well reasoned and thoughtful. I was convinced. Blacks were always going to be hard to teach because they had inherent learning disadvantages - probably genetic.

I've been waiting now 45 years for the rest of the world to catch up. I expected that it would take maybe twenty years for the notion of black genetic differences to fully take hold in the public mind. Wrong.

There must have been ten thousand media articles since then that have promoted other often fanciful theories. The reality has always been simple and obvious.

If you assume that all peoples, races, and ethnic groups are identical in their capacity for thought, then the world is messy and confusing. You are haunted by phantoms like "the legacy of Jim Crow" for explanations. You interpret every little factoid of white and Asian superiority as evidence of a hidden racist conspiracy.

But if you simply adopt the opposite view, that there are differences, then everything like school performance, poverty rates, crime rates and state of Detroit falls nicely into place.

If you were an atheist in twelfth century Europe, I imagine you would keep your tongue and wait for enlightenment and tolerance to spread. But you would not be heartened to know just how long it would be before you could safely speak your mind.

Albertosaurus

1/13/13, 10:42 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

'upper west siders' also allow Eruvim strung up on publicly owned light posts polls, etc.
Don't know how..that violates'separation of 'church and state'... the scot irish also succeeded in blatantly banning Christians from using public schools for meetings on Sunday- saying it would make a 'hostile' environment for non Christians (*more likely for hateful scots irish)

1/13/13, 10:58 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Steve, I have close friends that live in Venice. They are non diverse and can't afford the privates. I have basically told them they need to basically move to Agoura Hills or San Marino in order to get a great school system. But based on your post, you seem to know of ways to get in to good no cost charter schools in the Venice area. is there a blog of some sort where this is discussed where parents can figure out which schools are safe and good and how to get sons and daughters in to them in the venice area

1/13/13, 11:02 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://listverse.com/2012/04/11/top-10-most-notorious-insanity-defense-cases/

1/13/13, 11:11 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

NYT reporter Al Baker buries the data in a way that forces you to reconstruct the natural frequencies, the bastard. But what I get from the data he does provide is

PS163 total: N=652
Asian: N=39=6%
White: N=176=27%
Black & Hispanic: N=411=63%

PS163 gifted: N=205
Asian: N=31=15%
White: N=97=47%
Black & Hispanic: N=65=32%

Unsurprising implication: Asians qualify as gifted at a high rate, followed by Whites, followed by Blacks+Hispanics. [Why does Baker lump them together???]

Surprising implication: the corresponding rates at which kids qualify as gifted -- Asian=31/39=79%, White=97/176=55%, B&H=65/411=16% -- imply* that this school admits you to their "gifted" program at a cutoff of IQ=98!

I thought NYC had a cutoff of 97%ile (IQ=128) or higher! (Baker, 10/29/12) It's all very strange.

-SWPH

* Under standard assumptions: IQ for Blacks+Hispanics = -1SD, Asians = +0.5SD; population sample reflects general populations; blah blah blah.

1/13/13, 11:19 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The other gem from this article is that the bureaucrat (Dr. Pepe) claims that white parents value diversity and were drawn to PS163 because of it, but the white parents themselves say they hate diversity -- and "fear" speaking openly about their concerns. A (presumably) white teacher agrees with them!

Do bureaucrats ever actually talk to their customers? Do they permit them to speak honestly? Do they listen?

-SWPH

1/13/13, 11:31 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Aaron Swartz, an Internet savant, committed suicide in Crown Heights on this dreary weekend. He was 26. I had never heard of him before today.
Being an indefatigable Wikipedia Fan Boy, I was especially saddened (and humbled) to read this piece he wrote when he was 19:
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia

1/13/13, 11:52 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It helps that NY is Jewish-dominated. No one dares take the fight to Jews. If NY were wasp-dominated, it might be different.

Lesson: If white urbanites want protection, hand over power to Jewish elites. Jews can get away with anything. Under the Jewish umbrella, white liberal urban privilege can thrive.

1/13/13, 12:13 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Them riggaz sho is baaaaad.

1/13/13, 12:14 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Seriously, if you conceive of the Bloomberg Administration as essentially a conspiracy to drive African-Americans out of New York City, much that would otherwise be inexplicable begins to make sense."

Yup.

1/13/13, 12:16 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let's unleash Django on the Upper West Side.

1/13/13, 12:16 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

how dare you ask SWPL liberals to live up to their own standards, that's for flyover racists...

1/13/13, 12:22 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Upper West Side Story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exGJsv6ZNlo

When you're a Jew,
You're a Jew all the way
From the first jet you flew
To the last goy you slay.

1/13/13, 12:27 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jetsets vs the Darks.

1/13/13, 12:29 PM

Blogger Steve Sailer said...

Have your Venice friends Google

Sandra Tsingh Loh Magnet Yenta

1/13/13, 12:37 PM

Anonymous Auntie Analogue said...


NIMBYpocrisy writ large.

1/13/13, 12:40 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Seriously, if you conceive of the Bloomberg Administration as essentially a conspiracy to drive African-Americans out of New York City, much that would otherwise be inexplicable begins to make sense
bloomberg is one of the most corrupt mayors in history, totally covered by his scots irish bretheren the amount of public land and public assets he has turned over to his co-ethnics is staggering.

1/13/13, 1:19 PM

Anonymous Cail Corishev said...

"Do bureaucrats ever actually talk to their customers?"

Bureaucrats don't have customers; they have subjects.

1/13/13, 1:24 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

In retrospect the most important place in the world a half century ago was Silicon Valley, Ca. Even in the New York metropolitan area places like Long Island (Grumman Aerospace), Upstate New York(IBM,Kodak,Sperry-Rand-Univac and others), Suburban New Jersey (Pharmaceuticals) were more important that New York City which was described as the hole in the doughnut.

Yeah, it's always been rather shocking to me that just about NOTHING of any significance in any important human endeavor has come out of NYC in my lifetime.

Off the top of my head, I'd say that literally the last truly important human event in NYC would have been Glenn Gould coming down from Toronto, in May of 1981, to re-record the Goldberg Variations.

And that was more than three decades ago - nowadays, quality recording equipment is so ubiquitous that he wouldn't have even needed to have left home.

EDIT TO ADD: Just remembered that Jon Manasse sometimes comes down from Eastman, to teach at Julliard, so when he's in town, I guess they've got that going for them.

1/13/13, 1:25 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...


Unsurprising implication: Asians qualify as gifted at a high rate, followed by Whites, followed by Blacks+Hispanics. [Why does Baker lump them together???]

Surprising implication: the corresponding rates at which kids qualify as gifted -- Asian=31/39=79%, White=97/176=55%, B&H=65/411=16% -- imply* that this school admits you to their "gifted" program at a cutoff of IQ=98!


Yeah, I noticed that, too. I mean, come on, 79% of Asian and 55% of white kids are not gifted. The problem is that if you do it like we do in Texas, and cut it off at the 85%ile, then the program will be more heavily Asian with just a few token NAMs. Here we just give NAM's 15 extra points for being NAM's and move on with it. As it is, those parents of the 65 black kids are probably just smart enough and easily aggressive enough to demand the program continue. Others may just hide behind them saying that here you see them really making some progress and now it is going to be taken away! Maybe they will redefine gifted even lower, like IQ 95, so they can trumpet even more success and diversity and get even more "middle class" parents involved in public schools.

1/13/13, 1:31 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...


Yeah, it's always been rather shocking to me that just about NOTHING of any significance in any important human endeavor has come out of NYC in my lifetime.


Bravo.

I told a friend who works at AEI that growth in the financial sector is not growth. Likewise achievement in the financial sector is not achievement. It is just usury.

1/13/13, 1:33 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ms. Lindner certainly does not mince her words. Will she be allowed to keep her job?It seems insane to speak so truthfully to a reporter.

1/13/13, 2:11 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

New York is only important for banking and the MSM both of which are almost entirely malign.

1/13/13, 2:25 PM

Anonymous Soldier Dan said...

"London, Hong Kong and Xangai all surpass NYC in stock exchange net trading value.

Paris, London, Berlin, Turin and Barcelona all surpass NYC in number of cultural attractions, important theatres and relevance to the World of the arts.

Mexico City, São Paulo, Tokyo and Mumbai all surpass NYC in sheer population size.

It is amazing how your über-nationalist American chest-thumping never ends. I dont think you comprehend how arrogant and yet at the same time pathetic and petty your bragadocio is."



Nick my boy, for someone who complains so much about people thinking negatively about modern immigration (esp. the hispanic variety), it is truly astounding how blind you are to how much your own comments refute your own views. NYC used to be a leader in these categories (with the possible exception of size, but who really gives three fs and a damn about that), but has changed since then. What difference has occurred? Well, a major one has been the influence of immigration of NAMs.

1/13/13, 2:25 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Of course NY is the "world's most important city", it is the biggest city in the most important country in the world - that's my view. Sure the SF area has been more significant in my lifetime. Many people prefer the LA life and weather. Massachusetts, California, and, I feel, Pennsylvania outclass us in higher education. I wish we were #1 in everything - it would be great for us, but maybe not for the country as a whole. Geographic distribution of talent benefits us in the event of a hurricane, earthquake, terrorist strike, famine- name your calamity.

1/13/13, 2:38 PM

Anonymous Cail Corishev said...

Unsurprising implication: Asians qualify as gifted at a high rate, followed by Whites, followed by Blacks+Hispanics. [Why does Baker lump them together???]

To keep/encourage them thinking of themselves as a united voting bloc, of course. If they all think of themselves as NAMs, then even if their voting patterns average out at about 80% Democrat (halfway between 90% for blacks and 70% for Hispanics), that's a huge gain for the Dems, especially after they amnesty another 11 million. They'll do anything they can to make Hispanics more comfortable being allied with blacks.

1/13/13, 2:54 PM

Blogger Average Joe said...

I think one of the reasons why this sort of thing can happen in the Upper West Side of Manhattan is because of its large "Scotch-Irish" population. Places with fewer "Scotch-Irish" people are generally not going to get away with this sort of thing.

1/13/13, 3:50 PM

Blogger Average Joe said...

You know, if the GOP had any serious, coherent political leadership, then they would hammer home this point 24x7 from now until the end of time.

What? And risk alienating all those millions of blacks who are really Republicans who just don't know it yet?

1/13/13, 3:52 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Paris, London, Berlin, Turin and Barcelona all surpass NYC in number of cultural attractions, important theatres and relevance to the World of the arts."

Turin and Barcelona over Rome or Florence in art and architecture?

I always thought Rome was above Turin in art and architecture attractions.

Maybe Turin and Barcelona are more important for modern times.

1/13/13, 5:00 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"..were upper income, well educated.."

The old school class/caste systems had one nice feature - They admitted they were there.

1/13/13, 5:52 PM

Anonymous Deckin said...

A couple of commenters are around this point, noting that too many Whites and Asians are admitted than their mean IQs would seem to dictate.

But this is strong evidence that they're using not IQ distributions broken out by race, but rather the IQ distribution of the student population in NYC as a whole. Given that, it's no surprise the numbers you see. 55% percent of White kids are in the top 10% or whatever of all kids in NYC sounds totally unsurprising.

But this leads to something else. I think Steve isn't giving Bloomberg enough credit. This strategy of using Gifted Programs is not just a means of keeping intelligent White and Asian parents in the city, it's a way of drawing in those kinds of parents from the suburbs.

Think of it, if you're in the suburbs (all my evidence comes from the Bay Area), the Gifted Program will draw from the distribution of students there, heavily White/Asian. White parents (and even Asians) can't guarantee access to a Gifted Program, though they will be in a generally decent school.

But move to NYC, and you can basically guarantee acceptance to the Gifted Program against the minority population there and you get to stay in the Big City! Free public school and great culture; that's a nice draw for lots of young striving parents.

1/13/13, 6:07 PM

Blogger Scrutineer said...

Nick Diaz: London, Hong Kong and Xangai all surpass NYC in stock exchange net trading value.

Data + link, please.

1/13/13, 6:10 PM

Anonymous William Boot said...

"London, Hong Kong and Xangai all surpass NYC in stock exchange net trading value."

Uh, no they don't. Not even close. The volume of trading on the NYSE and Nasdaq combined are greater than the combined trading volume of all other world exchanges:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/166143/largest-stock-exchanges-worldwide-by-trading-volume/

"Paris, London, Berlin, Turin and Barcelona all surpass NYC in number of cultural attractions, important theatres and relevance to the World of the arts."

Uh, that's nearly as moronic. London beats New York, nearly across the board, culturally. The rest of those cities are not even in the same league.

Museums? The Louvre is a better art museum than any in NY and the Orsay is probably a better second-best museum than the Frick, but New York dominates after that. Moma demolishes the Pompidou. And the combo of the Guggenheim, Whitney, Morgan, and Hispanic Society crush the smaller museums of Paris. And, of course, New York has a major science museum, which Paris lacks.

No other city comes close. Dallas-Fort Worth has better museums than Barcelona and Turin.

Architecture? If you're talking about general quality of buildings, all the other cities win, simply because they were built before architecture self destructed after WWI.

If you're talking about great buildings, only London and Paris win. I love Barcelona but a few important buildings by Gaudi and a few more better ones by Domenech do not come close to matching New York, which has more significant buildings from 1850 to present than any other city.

Theater? New York has more of that than all the cities you mentioned (save London), combined.

How about music by sales? Again, London is in the hunt here, depending on how far back you want to go, but other than than, New York beats the rest combined.

Modern art, particularly among living artists? New York sales are higher than all the other cities, by far. See the excellent "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark" for an explanation of just how dominant NYC is in modern art.

1/13/13, 6:32 PM

Anonymous CharlotteNC said...

Did the minority students have to score the same, or less, than white students to gain entrance into Gifted and Talented classes?

I was a student in the Charlotte Mecklenburg (North Carolina) school system in the late 1970s.
There were four different attainment levels for entrance into Gifted and Talented classes back then.
White males had to score the highest, followed by white females, black females, and finally black males.

1/13/13, 8:34 PM

Anonymous Silver said...

Uh, no they don't. Not even close. The volume of trading on the NYSE and Nasdaq combined are greater than the combined trading volume of all other world exchanges:

Just as funny was his attempt to sound knowledgeable with the use of the pseudo-specialist phrase "net trading volume."

And Nick, "most important city in the world" is not a ridiculous way to refer to New York, but it's more likely Sailer's ironic reference to New Yorkers' view of themselves than a deep-seated belief of Sailer's.

1/13/13, 9:17 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure the average white IQ in NYC would be much higher than 100, especially in Manhattan. Probably more like 110.

1/13/13, 10:20 PM

Anonymous ATBOTL said...

The question is why is the mass media not talking about the increasing leeway on the most sensitive issues being afforded to the Metropole?

Open racial profiling and violation of constitutional rights on a mass scale, a private illegal worldwide spy network, 99% segregated Scotch Irish neighborhoods with private security patrols to keep the schvatzes out and so on.

1/13/13, 11:34 PM

Anonymous TH said...

In "global city" rankings, only NYC and London get the highest rating. You can of course always squabble about the criteria, but they seem reasonable enough.

1/14/13, 12:59 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

this school admits you to their 'gifted' program at a cutoff of IQ=98!

Yes, I noticed this too. At first sight, it seems rather ridiculous that over 30% (205 out of 652) of the students are considered "gifted", when the usual percentage of consensus is between 2% and 5%. But it is actually a brilliant plan, as Steve alluded to in this great post. By placing almost a third of the students in "gifted" classes, and counting on the sheer force of the normal distribution curve, as it pertains to IQ, Bloomberg guarantees that at least 50% of those studends will be white; at the same time, the percentage of black students is forced down to its "natural" level, about 16% (since only 16% of blacks have equal or greater IQ than 50% of whites).

This plan should be put in place wherever a high level of "diversity" is found.

1/14/13, 1:30 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you ask "cui bono" (and you always should) you'd think that this piece was sponsored by the real estate brokers of Scarsdale and Chatham -- insofar as it basically warns people who can't afford Manhattan private school that their Plan B will be taken away from them and they have no choice to move to the burbs.

The implied math is also just terrible. Your choices are not just (a) bias against URMs and (b) URMs are stupider than whites. Instead, you have different subsets of the population. The URMs who live on the Upper West Side are mostly project dwellers -- far less likely than average among their own racial / ethnic demographics to be smart or raise their kids rights. The white and Asian people who live on the Upper West Side are, by contrast, among the best educated and most ambitious (for themselves and their kids) of all white and Asian people in the world. The "apples to apples" comparison would be the children of African diplomats to the UN or the residents of the richest Argentines in Buenos Aires, and I'd guess you'd find that those black and latino kids would do just as well as the whites on the Upper West Side.

1/14/13, 9:33 AM

Anonymous International Jew said...

That PS 163 is only a block away from a public housing project (the Frederick Douglass Houses) of over 4000 residents that few of us would enjoy walking past. So let's give those white parents (however hypocritical for having probably supported Obama) some credit for sending their kids to that school at all. Might not be so smart in fact; the kids might be safe in their gifted class but the hallways, bathrooms, stairwells and entrances might be dicey.

Also, if those parents seem politically effective, that could have a lot to do with the fact they live in a dense and walkable city where they have many frequent informal encounters with their neighbors and thus opportunities to share information and organize. Compare that to a typical car-oriented suburb where even if you know everyone within 100 yards that's still not many people, and as everyone comes and goes by car you rarely see anyone spontaneously.

1/14/13, 11:08 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's like Israel gets to do whatever it wants.

1/14/13, 1:57 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, I noticed this too. At first sight, it seems rather ridiculous that over 30% (205 out of 652) of the students are considered "gifted", when the usual percentage of consensus is between 2% and 5%. But it is actually a brilliant plan, as Steve alluded to in this great post. By placing almost a third of the students in "gifted" classes, and counting on the sheer force of the normal distribution curve, as it pertains to IQ, Bloomberg guarantees that at least 50% of those studends will be white; at the same time, the percentage of black students is forced down to its "natural" level, about 16% (since only 16% of blacks have equal or greater IQ than 50% of whites).

More political manipulation of so-called "gifted" programs. I am willing to bet that most of the real gifted kids (IQ 160+) of gifted parents are being homeschooled - most likely for their own protection, in addition to the educational benefits.

1/14/13, 2:34 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous 1/14/13, 1:30 AM:
At first sight, it seems rather ridiculous that over 30% (205 out of 652) of the students are considered "gifted", when the usual percentage of consensus is between 2% and 5%. But it is actually a brilliant plan...

I agree that this is clever (and necessary) in any place where whites & Asians confront NAM hordes, especially given IJ's observation that PS163's NAMs in particular come from the projects.

Shhh. Don't tell SPLC.

-SWPH

1/14/13, 4:45 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Deckin:
they're using not IQ distributions broken out by race, but rather the IQ distribution of the student population in NYC as a whole. Given that, it's no surprise the numbers you see. 55% percent of White kids are in the top 10% or whatever of all kids in NYC sounds totally unsurprising.

I agree with Deckin's judgement about the benefits of gifted programs - or indeed any program, like charters or magnets, that have the effect of re-segregating schools in NAM-heavy areas.

But I was unclear when I presented my facts: it's not just whites & Asians that are getting a leg up on gifted designations. Hispanics and Blacks are, too. The cutoff I posited of IQ=98 best fit the data for all three groups:

Group / Assumed Average IQ / Predicted Pct / Actual Pct
Asian / 107.5 / 74% / 79%
White / 100 / 55% / 55%
Black&Hispanic / 85 / 19% / 16%

So PS163 is clearly practicing some sort of Gifted Affirmative Action, or Defining Gifted Down, across all three groups.

(Though note that I chose the lowest estimate of combined Black & Hispanic average IQ (85), and still the actuals come out one-sixth lower than predicted. If it were a more credible IQ=87 then we'd predict 23% - half again the actual - to reach even the IQ=98 threshold. So IJ may be onto something, that the NAMs around PS163 are even dumber than usual.)

-SWPH

1/14/13, 4:54 PM

Anonymous ATBOTL said...


"Also, if those parents seem politically effective, that could have a lot to do with the fact they live in a dense and walkable city where they have many frequent informal encounters with their neighbors and thus opportunities to share information and organize. Compare that to a typical car-oriented suburb where even if you know everyone within 100 yards that's still not many people, and as everyone comes and goes by car you rarely see anyone spontaneously."

They way UWSiders live is the opposite of the atomized, hyper individualist, homogenized, red state exurban model. The former is grossly superior in building political, financial and cultural power.

1/16/13, 2:17 PM

Anonymous Charlesz Martel said...

Everybody, I think Steve was referring to New York City in the 60s and 70s when he made his comment about it being the most important city in the country. He is absolutely right about what happened.
I attended PS 6 at that time. For those who know New York City, this was considered the absolute best public school in the entire city at the time. ( if not the country!)I went to the IG classes, this meant "intellectually gifted". You simply would not believe what happened when bussing actually came along.
5'10" black sixth grade girls physically assaulting female teachers while screaming "honky bitch" while rich white kids cowered in fear. We had quite simply never seen anything like it. We had all been told that being sent to the Principal's office, and having something on your permanent record, was about the worst thing that happened to us in school. Boy, we learned fast!!
From what my parents told me, I learned of a whole bunch of parents screaming for more integration of the school while they kept their kids in private schools. My problem was solved because my family left the city. But every return to New York saw it getting worse and worse and worse. Steve, go check out statistics for the great blackout of 1965 versus the great blackout of 1977 – tells the whole story right there.
Mayor Lindsay allowed his friends to loot the city, as Bloomberg apparently does( see an earlier post- I don't keep up with NYC politics- too depressing). By the late 70's NY's decline was obvious to all. A succession of idiot Mayors kept making things worse, until Koch and Giuliani took charge. But getting blacks out was key. I believe that Manhattan now has the lowest percentage of blacks under six years old that it has had in 5O years.
It is, indeed, astonishing how people have managed to not see the obvious cause and effect for the last 50 years.

1/17/13, 12:56 PM

Anonymous FredR said...

"There's something odd about the UWS's demographics."

There are a few projects in the UWS (I think there's one on 88th and one down somewhere in the 60s), but generally it's a pretty white (or, if you prefer, Jewish) neighborhood.

1/19/13, 8:52 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I didn't realize this when I first posted, but it's shocking:

Principled gifted-ed professionals typically set the cutoff around IQ=130. This of course yields gifted programs with far more Asians & Whites than Blacks & Hispanics, even in districts where the general school population has more Bs & Hs. The result is a comfortably segregated gifted program for the small number of kids who test in, but the problem is that it also leaves the majority of Ws & As out in the cold of Namville. That won't fly in NYC.

But taking a hint from La Griffe, even with a fair test you could engineer any ethnic mix you want simply by adjusting the cutoff.
a) Want racial equity? Set the cutoff low.
b) Want the fewest NAMS? Set it high. Simple...
c) But if an Evil Genius with forbidden knowledge of HBD were to set out deliberately and secretly to abuse GATE in order to create a shadow school system with the maximum degree of segregation of As&Ws from Bs&Hs, he could do that too simply by adjusting the cutoff. It turns out that in order to create a shadow public school system with the maximum absolute gap in enrollment between Whites&Asians and Blacks&Hispanics, (that is, simultaneously the largest number of As&Ws and the smallest number of Bs&Hs) you'd want to choose the cutoff in the mid-to-upper nineties.*

Now compare which model better fits the observed cutoff (IQ=98) at PS163:

the Principled Professional Cutoff (130)
or
the Evil Genius Cutoff (96)

Voila. Lots of happy W & A parents, and no one's the wiser. Plausible deniability is maintained: "Oh, Reverend Bacon, we'd just love to have a more diverse gifted program - but, well, a test is a test and the process is completely objective." Snicker.

-SWPH



* Let A(x) and B(x) be the number of students enrolled from groups A and B at cutoff x. Assume A(x)=erf(x,meanA) and B(x)=erf(x,meanB). The absolute gap in enrollment G(x)=A(x)-B(x) reaches maximum where A'=B', or norm(x,meanA)=norm(x,meanB), which happens at x*=(meanA+meanB)/2. If we lump together W&A and B&H we get meanA=103 and meanB=89, thus x*=96.

2/21/13, 10:43 AM

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