It’s time to check place as well as race when we measure the disparities between Māori and non-Māori that influence government policy. Maybe we can discount claims about colonisation and institutional racism.
PoO suggests this on the strength of American research which finds the distance a student must travel to get to college – or to university in this country – contributes to educational disparities.
In Texas, disadvantaged students often forgo college entirely when far from a community college while more advantaged students substitute towards four-year colleges.
Proximity to a community college impacts college enrolment and degree completion, particularly for minority and low-income students. Consequently, disparities in geographic access to higher education contribute to educational attainment gaps across demographic groups.
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The study has been brought to PoO’s attention at a time when ACT MP Pamrjeet Parmar has drafted a member’s bill – the Education and Training (Equal Treatment) Amendment Bill – which she says aims to “ensure universities do not allocate resources, benefits or opportunities based on race”.
It follows on from a Cabinet directive last year to create a “colourblind” public service, which Public Service Minister Nicola Willis said was “a direct result of the coalition agreement” National had with ACT to form the government.
The bill will be given a first reading only if it is randomly selected.
Sure enough, it was denounced by Opposition politicians and Māori academics as racist.
Labour’s tertiary education spokesperson Shanan Halbert says it ignores real issues like underachievement.
“I think it really doesn’t address the issues at hand. We know that Māori and Pasifika are still underachieving in the tertiary sector. We want them to do well, and most of all, we want them to culturally be who they are in a university environment that is largely colonized,” says Halbert.
More instructive was the xenophobic reaction of the Dean of the AUT Law School, Khylee Quince, who posted on Facebook: ‘Alternative headline: Immigrant forgets where she lives.’
Quince obviously missed out on courses at Charm School – or perhaps she failed them – while she was accumulating the qualifications that landed her a job as head of her Law School. She previously attracted media attention for saying Gary Judd KC “can go die quietly in the corner” for opposing compulsory tikanga studies at law schools.
This time, Parmar responded by declaring:
“I am a New Zealand citizen and I am not here at Ms Quince’s mercy, or anyone’s mercy. I know exactly where I live: in a democracy where everyone has the right to freedom from discrimination. Including immigrants.“
A Google search by PoO did find these statistics on the matter of disparities:
In New Zealand, persistent disparities exist in university access and achievement, particularly for Māori and Pasifika students, compared to their Pākehā and Asian counterparts, despite efforts to address these issues.
Here’s a breakdown of the key areas of concern:
1. University Entrance (UE) Achievement:
- Lower UE Rates for Māori and Pasifika:
Māori and Pasifika students consistently achieve UE at lower rates than Pākehā and Asian students.
- Data Highlights:
For example, in 2020, only 34% of Māori and Pasifika students achieved UE, compared to 59% of New Zealand Europeans and 64% of Asian students.
- Non-attainment Rates:
The non-attainment rates for UE are alarmingly high: 70% for Pasifika students and 78% for Māori, compared to just 25% for Asian students.
The data referenced by Google show students from low-decile schools (those serving disadvantaged communities) are significantly less likely to achieve UE compared to students from high-decile schools.
School factors, including resources and teaching quality, can play a crucial role in student outcomes, potentially leading to Māori students leaving school before achieving UE.
Māori and Pasifika families experience higher rates of poverty, which can compound educational inequities.
Māori and Pasifika students are less likely to participate in university education compared to Pākehā and Asian students.
Does the American research bring another factor into considerations?
Riley K. Acton, Kalena Cortes, Lois Miller, and Camila Morales have written a paper titled Distance to Degrees: How College Proximity Shapes Students’ Enrollment Choices and Attainment Across Race-Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status (NBER Working Paper 33337).
They analyse administrative data covering all Texas public high school graduates from 2013 to 2017. They focus on “community college deserts” — areas where students must travel for at least 30 minutes to reach the nearest public two-year college.
The researchers link student records with driving distances between Texas high schools and college campuses to examine relationships between distance to college and postsecondary outcomes.
Their comprehensive dataset, which also includes information on student demographics, academic preparation, and high school characteristics, allows them to track enrollment patterns, credit accumulation, and degree completion for up to eight years after high school graduation.
The NBER Digest reports –
The researchers find differences related to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status in how students respond to living in community college deserts.
White and Asian students who live far from community colleges tend to substitute by enrolling in four-year universities instead. When these students attend a high school in a community college desert, they are 4.4 percentage points more likely to enrol in a public four-year college and at least 1.3 percentage points more likely to complete a bachelor’s degree compared to their peers who live within 30 minutes of a community college.
In contrast, Black and Hispanic students living in community college deserts are less likely to pursue any higher education: they exhibit 5.9 percentage point lower overall college enrollment rates and 1.1 percentage point lower bachelor’s degree completion rates. Similarly, economically disadvantaged students show a 5.4 percentage point reduction in college enrollment and a 2.6 percentage point drop in degree completion.
The effects persist over time and remain significant even after controlling for academic preparation.
Living in a community college desert reduces overall degree completion by 16.9 percent for Black and Hispanic students and 15.7 percent for economically disadvantaged students, compared to their peers who do not live in community college deserts. Approximately half of this effect stems from reduced initial enrolment in college, while the remainder reflects lower persistence and completion rates among those who do enrol.
Fair to say, Texas is bigger than New Zealand.
It is the second largest US state by total area (after Alaska) with 268,596 sq mi (695,662 km2) and population (after California) with nearly 29 million people as of 2019.
New Zealand has an area of 101,660 sq mi and a population of 5,478,400.
That doesn’t mean we should not bother finding out the influence of distance on our educational statistics.
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.
4 comments:
The key impediment is a lower average IQ: SE Asians 103, Europeans 99, Maoris 90 and Islanders 85. Reference Race Differences in Intelligence by Richard Lynn
Barrie Davis
You are correct. Egalitarians believe that because everyone is basically equal in every respect and start from the same point, differences in outcome must necessarily be blamed on "oppression" "racism" and so on. But there is no reason other than ideological commitment to believe that egalitarianism is empirically verifiable.
For example, you will never hear anyone claim that the NBA or the NFL are systemically biased against Whites and Hispanics, given that African Americans are so vastly overrepresented in the teams. The reason is the, on average, superior physical suitability for these activities enjoyed by African Americans.
If the brain is also a physical attribute, then why would brains (and their capacities) not differ between both individuals (which we seem to accept as obvious) and between groups of individuals with common genetic tendencies (which we will be shunned and ostracised for even suggesting, despite years of average group IQ data confirming the truth of the matter).
No, the reason for this disparity (as well as all other disparities, say in economic success, or the award of Nobel Prizes for physics and the like) is because egalitarianism is false and groups of individuals, like individuals themselves, experience different outcomes because of inherent and ineradicable disparities.
This is why, despite decades of "affirmative action" (i.e. discrimination mostly against Whites) nothing much has changed in the academic outcomes of non-White people, because disparities in average group IQ are a brute fact, not a socio-political phenomenon.
It seems any excuse for academic underachievement is amplified in order to take emphasis away from the fact that we have an education system that actually disadvantages those from poorer homes.
Literacy is the crucial subject that mainly determines future academic success and it has now been proved conclusively the Whole Language ( WL) reading method is wrong , based on a myth that we can naturally acquire reading as we do language. Those who benefit most from the alternative structured literacy aka systematic phonics are low decile children and boys.
IQ , I believe , is strongly influenced by reading ability. I have observed NZ school psychologists declaring a child had failed to learn to read , because they had a low IQ. It was in my opinion an excuse for having a defective reading method.
There are several aspects working against low decile ( high equity) children achieving in our schools , based on flawed methods , even besides WL . These are the knowledge teaching vacuum in our schools , constructivism ( child centered learning) , lack of effective discipline and a lack of commitment to Universal Literacy and numeracy ( every child achieving at the correct level for their age ).
All these helpful aspects of teaching , now absent , in our schools were present in our education system earlier last century.
Maori and Pacifica are over represented in the lower deciles and our education system should be made responsible for reinforcing this status with the iniquitous ideology they are seeped in.
Consider the astounding academic success of the Michaela School with intake from the poorest suburb of London , but which has success better than private schools.
I believe in the plasticity of the human brain and schooling with correct methods increases IQ. I have seen this occur.
Eschaton, thank you for your comment. Here is some further information about race differences in intelligence.
Intelligence is what IQ tests measure. IQ is an indicator of educational, occupational, economic, and social outcomes. Lynn’s book is a meta-study of many IQ studies; IQ being the most studied of the psycho-parameters. It is a matter of asking three questions at the beginning of an IQ test: What is your Age, Sex and Race? None bats an eye when it is found that IQ declines with age but they are wide awoke when it comes to race.
These data are from the second edition (2015) of Lynn’s book. The first edition (2006) is available on the net and has a chapter on Pacific Islanders which includes a section on Maoris. The results for the four groups I have given is much the same in both editions, see Table 3.
https://intelligence-humaine.com/Documents/Race%20Differences%20In%20Intelligence.pdf
Few doubt there are race differences in intelligence, the controversy is with respect of nature verses nurture. Everyone agrees that there is a cultural component, which can be changed, but not everyone agrees there is also a genetic factor. The subtitle to Lynn’s book is “An evolutionary Analysis”, so he thinks there is; and so does Charles Murray in Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race and Class. I confess I am not sufficiently read to give a definitive view, but I expect that genetics plays a role, including for the reasons you have given.
PS I made a mistake in my first post. It should say North East Asians 102, not “SE Asians 103”. Figures given are for New Zealand, back home NE Asians have an average IQ of 105. Similarly, I find it convenient that Asians have a higher average IQ than Europeans and note the higher attainment by Asians mentioned in the above article.
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