Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

The NY Times Discovers Virginia, Casteen Discovers the White Working Class

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James A. Bacon
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The New York Times has visited Charlottesville and Chilhowie, Va. — Chilhowie, for those not lucky enough to have visited SW Virginia, is a small mill town not far from Bristol — as part of its ongoing “Class Matters” exploration of America’s class divide. Writer David Leonhardt provides a sympathetic portrait of a college drop-out Andy Blevins, who works at a supermarket warehouse, using Blevins to illustrate the factors that work against upward economic mobility for working-class youth. The great barrier today, according to the Times, is getting that college degree.

Of special interest to Bacon’s Rebellion readers are the observations of University of Virginia President John T. Casteen III, who, after years of favoring legacies (to help with fund-raising) and minorities (to correct historical injustices) seems to have awaken to the plight of the white working class. Sayeth the Times:

“The system makes a false promise to students,” said [Casteen], himself the son of a Virginia shipyard worker. Colleges … present themselves as meritocracies in which academic ability and hard work are always rewarded. In fact, he said, many working-class students face obstacles they cannot overcome on their own. …

No flagship state university has a smaller proportion of low-income students than Virginia. Just 8 percent of undergraduates last year came from families in the bottom half of the income distribution, down from 11 percent a decade ago. That change sneaked up on him, Mr. Casteen said, and he has spent a good part of the last year trying to prevent it from becoming part of his legacy. …

Like Virginia, a handful of other colleges are not only increasing financial aid but also promising to give weight to economic class in granting admissions. They say they want to make an effort to admit more low-income students, just as they now do for minorities and children of alumni.

(Thanks to Joyce Dodd for bringing this article to my attention.)

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  1. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Let’s see. UVa wants to admit more students from low-income families, just as it wants to admit more children of alumni and more minorities. Who does that leave as the lowest priority? There’s only one group left: Students from higher-income families who are not alumni… In other words, UVa is creating a series of demographic silos: We’ll take the top students from this silo, and from that silo — but not that silo. Hmmm….

  2. EmailHosting.com Avatar
    EmailHosting.com

    That’s great if they do!

  3. Will Vehrs Avatar
    Will Vehrs

    When 8 or more students are applying for each spot at a university, choosing a class is tough under any circumstances. It’s not helped when pressure, implied or otherwise, is applied on behalf of certain groups. At the same time, a secretive process that results in a class with not much in the way of diversity, broadly defined, probably isn’t a good thing.

    At the end of the day, admissions is a subjective process. I daresay at least half of applicants are capable of succeeding, so judgements on a wide variety of criteria must be made to pick those who get the chance.

    I believe that highlighting minorities, or poor whites, or alumni can’t help but skew the process. If using the “whole person” concept doesn’t bring in a mix of promising students from all walks of life, I don’t know how focusing on certain sub-groups will improve things.

  4. Valerie Avatar
    Valerie

    I would love to know the nature of the obstacles that working class students face. If it’s not a meritocracy, what are those obstacles? The answer is in the university finding ways to overcome them, not in enrollment quotas.

  5. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Cara, according to the NY Times, the primary obstacle for lower-income students is affordability. But the article also mentioned cultural factors. There’s an expectation among upper-income families that their children will go to college, and they will persevere until they gradudate. By contrast, there’s an attitude among lower-income families, don’t worry if you can’t hack it, you can always come home to us. Finally, in the case of the individual profiled by the NY Times, there’s an issue of willingness/unwillingness to defer gratification. In the working class ethos, it’s very tempting to get a job right away. You’re making good money (by the standards of a 19-year-old) while other kids are working their butts off in college and racking up college loans.

  6. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    You know…nothing angers me more than when I write a long comment and Blogger eats it up and deletes it……..

    I’ll just say this: the UVA application process works roughly like this (numbers are guestimates):

    8000 applicants for 3000 spots.

    Of those 8000, 2000 are shoe-ins and 2000 are completely unqualified.

    This leaves 4000 borderline students vying for 1000 spots. All students are equally likely to thrive at UVA, but the univerity needs to choose among them.

    This is where they use racial preferences, preferences for legacies, preferences for tennis players/ham radio enthusiasts/violin players/runners/foreign students/etc. to create a diverse college environment.

    The important point here is that all of these students are roughly qualified. There is very little that distinguishes them besides their personal attributes. In other words: black people aren’t getting in over more qualified white people – they’re getting in over equally qualified white people. Teh interesting thing is that if you run a statistical analysis of this process, the benefits to blacks (because they make up a small section of the applicant pool) are huge – preference programs increase their changes of attending a college by 10-15%. Meanwhile, the effects on white is very very very low, because they make up such a large part of the applicant pool – maybe less than 1%. Here’s an explanation of that math:

    Let’s say that 800 of those 8000 applicants are black. That’s 10%. Of those, 400 might be in the shoe-in category and 200 are completely unqualified. That leaves 200 out of 8000 people in the middle category. If you give this group a slight preference and let in 100 more african americans, they’re benefiting by a 13% margin.

    Meanwhile, this preference will displace 100 white people. However, if you estimate that the white portion of that “borderline” group is roughly 3000 students, that means you’re only hurting white people by a 3% margin.

    What are you getting out of this slight reshuffling? A diverse college. I can’t even begin to tell you how important this is to the business community…they want workers who can interact with the world at large, and attending a diverse college prepares you for this.

    “Shape of the River“, by Derek Bok, is a wonderful book on college admissions, for those interested.

  7. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    My father was a teacher, but we were still well off compared to working families. Our conversation about college consisted of “You want to go to college? Good.”

    I worked (mostly) a full time job in school and carried a 3/4 to full class schedule through graduate school. I avoided scholarships because they were tied to loans. Eventually I landed a job with tuition reimbursement. I graduated with no loans and enough money to buy my first home. I was fortunate, because I learned a skilled trade while I was working in high school.

    It used to irk me that some kid driving a sports car and carrying a half-load got recognition for making deans list. Later, during the inflation years, my classmates that graduated with loans got hammered. They got out a couple of years ahead of me and with better grades, but it may have been a losing deal, overall.

    Tough as it was for me, it was nothing compared to some of my classmates and friends. Percy, who happened to be black, labored under handicaps that I could simply never imagine. I came to understand that the cultural factors are larger than even Jim explains.

    Combined with the costs involved I became aware that the two can combine to form a socio-cultural trap from which escape is very difficult. I can’t fully describe all of the features of this trap, but I saw enough people in it to know it is very real.

    There are enough people who manage to escape it that the Horatio Alger myths have some ring of truth, but for every one that manages it, hundreds fail.

    Just as we need balanced communities, we need balanced workforces: if everyone graduated from UVA we would be in deep do-do because an awful lot of jobs consist mainly of picking something up and putting it somewhere else. I’m not so sure there is anything wrong with making admission difficult, nor with helping to spring the trap when appropriate.

    Immigrants anyone?

  8. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Correction – the benefits to black students are 50%. That’s 100 of of 200 in the borderline group admitted because of racial preferences.

    For whites, as I said, it’s 100 out of 3000 displaced. That’s only a 3.3% disadvantage for whites!

    If we can all agree that diversity at universities is important (I think most of us can) then our only point of disagreement will be how we get there. I share some uneasiness with points systems or racial preferences, but I think their benefits outweight their negatives.

    Do non-quota based racial preference programs violate the civil rights act? Well, the supreme court has decided that they come close, but that the value of diversity in college environments outweighs this negative 10-fold.

    Could we get diverse colleges in other ways? Well, Texas tried admitting the top 10% of every high school class…this has had disasterous results for diversity at the elite texas schools. Sure, a diverse crowd of people go to the texas university system as a whole, but individual schools lack the balance that they once had.

  9. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    Paul: I disagree with your diversity. If you see diversity as a function of skin color, then you have simple renamed racism. If universities are dedicated to learning, then diversity of ideas trumps diversity of skin color.

    The Liberal holy trinity for the cause and effect of all things is race, class and gender(s). Multiculturalism is an umbrella word that the liberal trinity fits under and that is used as shibboleth.

    What a crock. And what a step backward, to the same arguments – although spoken in better pronounced , nasal English – of the worst white racists of Jim Crow days. Like color matters in 2005 in Virginia.

    The young, wealthy black girl who was my daughter’s roommate at U VA in her first year had an SAT of around 1000. She did take a seat from a more qualified Asian kid – or white. That is why that out-of-state Yankee daddy started a lawsuit because of the 200 point delta between Black and White median SATs at U VA.

    Finally, if you think The University teaches diversity, then why do they have segregated First Year parent breakfasts – Black, Asian, Hispanic (Can’t remember if that had this category or not), and all others (actually White)? Why do they have offices of advocacy based on race? Then, there is other University supported and student initiated self-segregation. How does learning this kind of diversity supposed to help in the real world?

    Liberal diversity is just politically correct division by race. Admissions should be color, class and gender blind.

  10. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    I could have predicted that a conservative would lash back at me with (1) an anecdote about some dumb minority who a friend of a friend knows who didn’t deserve to be admitted (2) lots of references to jim crow/accusations of racism. I was going to put it in the original post but that might have prevented your comments.

    Anyway…here it goes:
    Race is a real thing. It has a meaning. It’s not just a construct…racial differences obviously don’t translate into biological differences, but they certainly translate to cultural/perspective differences. Can you honestly tell me that white people and black people (on the whole) are exactly the same? We may get there some day, but we’re not there yet.

    You also seem to imply that I support affirmative action as a corrective remedy for “today’s racism”. I never said that. And I don’t.

    And yes. The media GPA is much higher for whites than blacks at UVA. But this is due to the fact that most blacks fall into the “borderline” group that I described and more whites fall into the “shoe-in” group. Furthermore, your 200 point difference isn’t even true. it’s much closer than that.

    James, perhaps you don’t know it, but most business interests virolently support affirmative action. The military supports affirmative action. They desperately want workers who can interact with different races, cultures, and perspectives. Why? Because the world isn’t completely made up of white people or UVA legacies.

  11. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “Liberal diversity is just politically correct division by race. Admissions should be color, class and gender blind.”

    I sort of agree, but at the same time I shudder to think what would have happened to my friend Percy, had he not been given the opportunity to demonstrate his tenacity, courage, and smarts. What he was “given” wasn’t anywhere near enough to compensate for even the residue of cultural oppression his family endured.

  12. Terry M. Avatar
    Terry M.

    SAT is most closely correlated to income than anything else. Study after study at the institutional and national level have shown this.

    Student success in the critical first year of college is most closely correlated to high school GPA.

    High school quality tends to be most closely correlated to median family income.

    It looks to me that the objective criteria most often used all come back to family income levels.

  13. Jeremy Hinton Avatar
    Jeremy Hinton

    James, I agree that the statement “Admissions should be color, class and gender blind” is a valid goal to work towards. That is once those three factors no longer impact the primary qualifier of earlier academic achievement. But right now, your “liberal trinity” continue to have a strong impact on academic acheivement in secondary education. Until that changes, it makes sense from both directions (Paul’s effect argument and the liberal cause argument) to make them valid considerations of accesability to higher education.

  14. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    Paul: I know about the military experience with race and racism. I lived it. Things got better when we quit the group gropes, confessions etc special racial advocates etc – and treated people like individuals. The residual racial preferences and gender for promotion and civilian contracting in the military are a function of politics.

    I taught research and analysis so I’d love to see the analysis that makes links SATs to income. Any bivariate analysis is bogus for causality. In other words any single thing can be explained, statistically, as a function of the moon phase.

    There are many sub-culture, familial and individual differences among Virginians. Religion is probably more important in how it shapes ideas than race. Ideas are more important than race.

    Group identity, like group rights, is anathema to our Republic. It was discussed at length in the Federalist Papers.

    It is wrong for government to make differences among citizens based on their race. It was wrong under Jim Crow and it is still wrong and it will be wrong.

    My day job is with a big defense contractor and I go to CA a lot to work with our ‘diverse’ young engineers. Many are first generation Americans. They didn’t get hired for ‘diversity’. They got hired for their engineering degrees. Their race and ethnicity is meaningless in our day to day work. They are Americans and children of the Enlightenment who accept rational empiricism as the best way to solve problems.

    When Affirmative Action means outreach it is smart. But, usually it just means quotas, which is wrong.

  15. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    SAT and income? Sure. There’s a correlation. Everybody knows that.

    Is there causation (higher income leads to higher SAT)? Commonsense would predict that there is. (on average), the higher your family’s income is, the better your high school is.

    It’s not rocket science…people who have more money excel at plenty of things, SAT included. If it’s not income, then why do black people score worse than white people? Eliminating income leaves only a few other major factors to consider:

    1. They’re an inferior race
    2. Their culture is backwards and it promotes ignorance

    I’d rather not except these two…but if you’re ready to, go right ahead.

    Are you arguing that society is a completely level playing field where outcomes are determined entirely by hard work and determination? It seems like that’s the extreme opposite of the annoying liberal tendency completely refute personal responsibility.

  16. Terry M. Avatar
    Terry M.

    SAT and Income…just a handful of links. Not exhaustive, not all substantive. The correlation may or may not be causal…I never said it was, only that the correlation exists.

    If you smell smoke long enough, often enough, you will usually find a fire.

    And yes, if you look at the detailed studies, you may find that parental education is even more strongly linked to a child’s SAT score. But, given that we know a person’s income is strongly correlated to educational attainment, mom and dad’s educational attainment also explains their income, perhaps as much as or more than their direct impact on a child’s SAT score.

    http://www.unh.edu/nhcpps/education/sat/satscore.html

    http://www.vermontinstitutes.org/equity/data/00sat_math_inc.html

    http://hypertextbook.com/eworld/sat.shtml

    http://www.unmc.edu/Community/ruralmeded/underserved/standardized_tests_income_ethnic.htm

    http://iume.tc.columbia.edu/downloads/everson/everson04.pdf

    http://bernie.house.gov/pc/briefs/satscores.pdf

  17. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Disclosure:

    Often I wonder if I support AA so strongly simply because of a combination of psychological factors:
    1. the white man’s guilt and
    2. my own personal amusement at white people who get riled up about so-called “reverse discrimination”. As I demonstrated with my figures, the cost to white people is nearly negligible and the benefit for black people is huge.

    Another thing – nothing brings the closet racists out like an AA discussion. This is not to say that AA opponents are racists. Most aren’t. But I’ve heard enough indignent stories from white parents about how their children missed out of college because of some stupid black kid from the ghetto to know that a subtle racism still exists in Virginia and elsewhere.

    Oh and speaking of that – racism still exists. It’s not kosher to admit publicly, but it exists. I’ve canvassed neighborhoods in Virginia before, people. I’ve sent African American volunteers into white neighborhoods and heard the stories of “get off my property!”

  18. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    When people say that SAT scores are “correlated” with household income, there’s an implication that the fact of higher income has somehow accounts for the higher SAT scores. I question that. High SAT scores are the result of environmental influences — i.e. positive habits and behaviors begun early in life that also lead to higher incomes. If the members of a household stress self discipline, academic achievement and a deferral of gratification over sloppiness, watching TV and immediate gratification, (a) the parents will tend to be more financially successful, and (b) their children will have higher SAT scores.

    Thus, we see the undeniable phenomenon of Asian immigrants — many of them nearly penniless when they come to this country — achieving way above-average SAT scores on the way to college, and way above average incomes in the workplace.

    Liberals like to emphasize the SAT-income correlation because it bolsters their view that society stacks the deck against the underprivileged. And I don’t deny that financial privilege might play some small role. But financial privilege can cut two ways. Rich kids are rarely “hungry”. They don’t apply themselves as hard. They take their good fortune forgranted. Ultimately, achievement in school and achievement in life is mostly about cultural attitudes, not income.

  19. Terry M. Avatar
    Terry M.

    Jim, if high SAT scores went hand-in-hand with high HS GPAs and high rates of college completion, then I would agree with you.

    High school success and achievement is more the result of discipline, sacrifice, and hard work than a high SAT is. The fact is that some people simply test better than others, and by and large those people tend to be wealthier than those that don’t test well. You can call it a liberal perspective or whatever, but when you look at the data day in and day out as I do, it becomes clear that family income plays a tremendous role into getting college and then being successful.

    Further, as I said in my initial post, that HS GPA is more strongly correlated with college success than SAT score. Once again, that is about hard work, effort, etc. over 4 years as opposed to taking a single test on a Saturday morning.

    A recent national study from NCES shows that 20% of students who get loans, dropout after the first year…more than twice rate of those that do not get loans, and in this group it is predominantly the poorer kids dropping out, not the rich kids taking loans to buy new toys.

    Another recent study of the 50 state flagship universities in the nation showed UVA dead last in the proportion of undergraduate students on Pell (as a measure of need). UVA is simply getting credit for finally doing what it should have done decades ago.

  20. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Terry M, I’d be interested to know your professional background. You seem to speak with authority. I agree with you that there may not be tremendous correlation between H.S. GPA and SAT scores. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about habits and attitudes that begin in infancy and are instilled for a lifetime. How much do the parents engage an infant in verbal interplay? How much time does a 2-year-old spend in front of the Boob Tube. How much time does a 6-year-old spend playing Nintendo? Does a child’s parents read him/her to bed every night? Does the 8-year-old get books for presents? Is the 10-year-old required to finish his homework before watching television? I’m talking about a lifetimeof habits and deeply ingrained attitudes that reflect a family’s values and priorities, not just a child’s willingness to apply himself in high school.

  21. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    P.S. Terry M, If cultural factors aren’t paramount, then how do you explain the phenomenon of high-achieving children of penniless Vietnamese right off the boat?

  22. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    Correlations are meaningless for causality. That is why anything can be ‘correlated’ to phases of the moon. High correlations are descriptive analysis that suggest a picture but don’t establish cause and effect.

    Thanks for the studies links.

    The other reasons Paul gave to explain why there is group delta on SAT are the not the universe of possibilities.

    Here is the problem with Liberal theology posing as science: race, class and gender are not independent variables causing all the dependent variables – like SAT scores, income, etc.

    Why do Black first generation immigrants succeed above native Black Americans? It isn’t race. It isn’t class – when they are penniless and speak very accented English if they come mastering English at all. It isn’t gender(s).

    It is individual achievement/experiences, family support and culture.

    Culture ‘commands’. (We have to define culture and I don’t have time now – but allow me to say that Black Americans are several sub-cultures, just as there are many white sub-cultures in our American mosiac – which is in fact one culture (one consensus until 1962) now being rent by a bonafide Culture War – I call ACW II)

    Black and White and Hispanic and Asian and, one supposes, Eskimo racism exists in human hearts. But no Virginian is a victim of de jure or de facto racism as an excuse for failure to compete in getting into universities. It was true in the past, but not now.

    Plenty of Virginians start out behind in the racetrack of life, but it isn’t a function of race.

    The way out of poverty – and to greater opportunities – is one generation away from anyone with the right behaviors – choices. I listed them in my recent op ed. (Ward Connerly sent me an attaboy email) Walter Williams is saying the same thing.

    I love it when Liberals talk about affirmative action. Their insistence on defining, thus judging, a person by the color of their skin instead of the content of their character shows the racism that is integral to thinking of people as groups. Furthermore, Liberal affection for permanent classes of vitimhood indicates the condescending racism inherent in their thoughts.

  23. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    One item on SATs – which is why I so appreciate the studies. When I was teaching at West Point our brainiacs – Statistical analysis – found that the math SAT was predictive – but still on a bell curve so there are individual exceptions either way – for success in the engineering courses – half the curriculum – at USMA. It was hard and fast – I think the number was 630 Math. Less than that and you could predict that the kid would be in summer school or flunk out. Many graduated, but painfully, at longer times and less success. FYI.

  24. Terry M. Avatar
    Terry M.

    Jim, I guess my argument would be that I don’t disagree that culture is paramount. At least family culture. Then again, it was nearly 20 years ago that I sat in a public policy class on ethics and argued quite vocally that perhaps American culture is based on economics (and income) moreso than any other set of values.

    And honestly, I am not above saying that I am ignorant enough to believe that is possible that not only are some individuals smarter than others, but so are some groups. I can say that simply because I do not know.

    Also, if you note the language I have used, I have been fairly careful not to present things as a hard and fast rule. Lots of students have high GPAs and high SATs, lots of students have matching scores all the through to the other end of the spectrum. There are all sorts of anomalies and variations, so no single rule accounts for everything.

    Let me pose this: If success breeds success, why is it a bone of contention to suggest that children of economically successful parents tend to be much more successful at getting into college and finishing college?

    The reason that I ask, is that, if I am correct about statements income/SAT/GPA/college success, doesn’t that imply that creating more opportunity for under-represented groups to get into and (successfully) out of college, would create more wealth generally and create more successful families?

    Or should we just say no to the current generations of students whose families have not learned and passed on the value of hard work, commitment, etc.?

    As for my background, I have been doing higher education policy research and institutional research for about 15 years. I prefer not to say where I work. I was a faculty brat and literally grew up on college campuses. I also did time in the service as an NCO.

  25. Becky Dale Avatar
    Becky Dale

    I think parents reading to children is a crucial factor in academic success. And continuing to read to them even after they are reading themselves. My daughter got a 1600 on her SATs (and went on to get an engineering degree at Rice). When she was a toddler and preschooler we went to the library every week and brought home armloads of books. We read hundreds of picture books, many of which are quite imaginative. I was reading chapter books to her early on. She was reading herself before going to school. But I continued to read to her for years, which we both looked forward to and enjoyed. I’d read and she’d listen for hours. There were so many good books to share! Books I would have loved to have read as a child but missed. She of course read even more books by herself. I think all that reading and the fascination with books had to have something to do with her academic success. She went to Richmond Public Schools at a time when West End Richmonders generally avoided them. Mary Munford Elementary was fine while Albert Hill Middle did not provide any challenges. Luckily, she got to go to Governor’s School for high school, which undoubtedly helped her excell. By the way, I’m reading out loud to my elderly parents nowadays. Currently reading a 959 page biography of Winston Churchill to them.

  26. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “The way out of poverty – and to greater opportunities – is one generation away from anyone with the right behaviors – choices.” I have no doubt that the children of my friend Percy will do well. But he was penniless and spoke highly accented English and he lacked the “individual achievement/experiences, family support and culture” which could have guaranteed his success.

    I have Asian, Vietnamese, and Persian friends who have succeeded well her, but from the time they landed on the beach, they were miles and years ahead of where Percy started.

    Sure, there are people who succeed against heavy odds, but using that as an argument against helping those who are truly caught in a socioeconomic trap strikes me as using social Darwinism to pat oneself on the back.

  27. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Thanks for your personal story, Becky. A child’s cognitive development starts at infancy and is greatly influenced by the amount of time and energy that its parents are willing and able to put into it. The investment in a child’s cognitive development may have some connection to income–a single, working mom may not have as much time or energy to invest, for example, as a stay-at-home mom with a working husband. But that makes my case only stronger. Some strands of American culture place a higher priority than others on maintaining intact nuclear families, which happens to be best the family structure yet devised to support the labor-intensive task of stimulating a child’s cognitive development.

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