Inclusive Education 2.0

If we accept that college degrees are a fair predictor of economic success, then the beneficiaries of the affirmative action policies which have been in effect for several decades should be seeing increased socioeconomic success. 

Affirmative Action: A Thing of the Past

While President Johnson’s executive order expressly prohibited race based discrimination, it also directed all federal contractors and agencies to take “affirmative action to promote the full realization of equal opportunity for women and minorities.” 

The policies which followed ultimately led to a broad-stroke preference of Black and Hispanic Americans over other races in admissions to institutions of higher education, according to the landmark Supreme Court ruling decided on June 29, 2023.

Though well-intended and compassionate in theory, these hiring and admissions practices have a major shortcoming: they often fail to account for socioeconomic variation within broader racial categories. 

Racial Groups and Sub-Groups

Data shows that there is significant variance in the socioeconomic outcomes of sub-groups within commonly recognized racial categories. 

Pictured: Common Application demographics questionnaire section

31% of immigrant Black Americans hold bachelor degrees as of 2019, comparable to US immigrants of all races. 

It is possible that Black immigrants are benefiting from affirmative action policies. 

However, Migration Policy Institute notes that, of data collected between 2017 - 2021, recently arrived immigrants already hold bachelor degrees at rates higher than even US born adults - 47% vs. 35%). 

This is mainly due to the US’ immigration policies incentivizing highly educated, and well trained applicants to the immigration process.

While it’s difficult to isolate the educational status of recently arrived Black immigrants from the general immigrant body, Pew wrote in a 2018 article on education levels of U.S. immigrants that 40% of foreign born Sub-Saharan African immigrants held bachelor degrees or higher. 

These well-educated, and often well-trained, immigrants then fill well paying jobs which allows them upward economic mobility. The children benefit from the higher-than-average socio-economic status, but are still beneficiaries of affirmative action policies due to their race.

Source: Migration Policy Institute

If the intent of affirmative action is to include factors such as race as a major criteria of college admissions policies, then other immigrant groups have as much claim to the support as Black immigrants and their families do.

So, who is affirmative action intended to benefit?

Asian Americans are generally accepted as an overwhelmingly successful immigrant population. However, the term “Asian” is nebulous, and includes an estimated population of about 4.56 billion people globally from 51 different countries, of various religions and cultures, under a singular term, that are fractionally represented in the US.

Of American born Asians, 72% of Indian Americans graduate college, whereas only 9% of Bhutanese Americans do. Burmese Americans experience poverty at rates as high as 35%, compared to ~19% among Black Americans.

Among the Asian American population, too, there is stratification of economic status: Asian Americans in the top 10% have 10.7 times the income of Asians in the bottom 10% [Income Inequality, Pew]. Asians in the bottom 10% of that income distribution earn less than all other races captured in the survey: less than the White, Black, or Hispanic population. 

Race-based criteria may have been needed in the past, but America itself has changed a lot since these policies were first introduced. It’s time to move past the race-based myopia and toward criteria which seek to ease access to higher education for any American that needs it. 

Expanding currently existing programs such as scholarships, academic grants, university jobs intended for enrolled students, and other financial awards in concert with lowered tuition costs would ease the financial burden of a college education. 

Instead of using affirmative action for admissions, the policies should instead focus on identifying students in need of varying levels of financial assistance.

Yes, these programs already exist. However, there is scope for expanding the programs as well as redefining the criteria used for selecting beneficiaries. 

Funding for these expanded programs should be left to each university’s discretion, but would likely require a restructuring of university administration, reduction of non-academic programs, and a shift in federal accreditation criteria toward academic performance, among other institutional changes.

An Elementary Problem

Further, mitigation of socioeconomic stratification through education would be better served through changes much earlier in the education process. Unfortunately, effective changes at this level would need to be done with greater precision and attention to detail than any government has proven itself capable of.

In fact, governments and large institutions have an incentive to trade away precision for greater standardization, which makes it easier to scale their programs. 

For example, a common criticism of the Scholastic Aptitude Test points to differences in performance along racial lines. Critics blame imbalances in access to crucial preparatory training between groups.

The situation is ironic because standardized tests were first conceived to judge students by a standard performance measure that is not biased by idiosyncratic differences in the type of education different students receive. 

Critics of standardized testing fundamentally misunderstand the problem: applying uniform teaching methods to culturally different populations and expecting similar results is a recipe for failure. 

Different student populations have different requirements to be successful, and being in the same age group or grade is not an indication of similar academic performance.

It’s like taking a freshwater fish and expecting it to thrive in a saltwater ocean; it simply won’t work, the environments are completely different.

An elementary school in the inner city will have a student population with different needs than a school in the suburbs of the same city, and both of these are going to have a different kind of student population than a rural school.

A student living in a single parent household will have different requirements than a student living in a traditional family where both parents work, or one parent works and the other performs the dedicated duties of a homemaker.

The public education sector recognizes these factors, and have made attempts to address them. 

Nonetheless, it is still bound by government regulations and policies. Measures of success, such as standardized test scores or graduation rates, drive school district policies because they are tied to funding. 

Innovations in education and tailored approaches are exactly what are needed for student success. 

But, by subtly mandating compliance to national standards (e.g., No Child Left Behind, of the Bush/Obama era), the federal government inhibits public schools from solutions which could be more adept at educating young Americans.

A step in the right direction might be “community schooling,” with small class sizes, staffed by members of the community who understand students’ needs, and held in facilities that are organic to the given student population. 

This approach has shown to be successful in reducing absenteeism, increasing trust among students, parents, and staff, reducing racial achievement gaps, and increasing graduation rates when effectively implemented.

Source: Learning Policy Institute

Community school staff and teachers live in the same neighborhoods as their students, have relationships with their students’ families, and are uniquely positioned to refine approaches for individual students.

These teachers have an intrinsic understanding of their students, and the parents trust that teachers want their students to succeed but are able to hold them accountable.

The Learning Policy Institute elaborates that students who benefit from the innovative and tailored community schooling perform at (or above) government mandated levels for their grades. 

Success in primary and secondary school education, in combination with aptitude testing where appropriate, would contribute to increased rates of success in college programs, and acceptance into economically forward careers, generating economic mobility, and promoting racial equality as a result.

Further, when a generation of community schooling produces a crop of economically productive adults, the community is further empowered to continue the practice of community schooling. As neighborhoods grow economically, they garner more support for the community schooling which prompted the economic growth. 

This beneficial cycle of growth, based in community trust, benefits everyone involved over time.

Sticking to our Principles

It’s no revelation that education reform is at the heart of social change. 

However, it is important that we do not let short-term policies needlessly concretize into long-term principles. 

Affirmative action policies may have played a role in introducing greater diversity into many college campuses, thus proving its value. But the principle underlying it is to get to a place where race-based admissions are no longer needed. 

That said, affirmative action-like policies at private universities are fair game as long as they do not accept any government funding.The policies of strictly private institutions should be free from government intrusion

But it is simply unfair for taxpayer dollars to be allocated to programs that are arguably out-of-date, not beneficial (or even harmful) to many taxpayers themselves - e.g. the Bhutanese American population - and ineffective in generating the socioeconomic equality they were created for after over half a century of implementation.

For the same reasons, students attending universities which use affirmative action admissions policies should not have access to government-backed student loans.

The nature of the world is stratification, and any attempts we make to create an equalizing policy will doubtless still result in stratification. 

Nonetheless, we should still strive to reduce the level of disparity between groups; that kind of sincere striving will be beneficial to society at large. But we can never hope to eliminate it completely.

By promoting socioeconomic diversity on campus over racial diversity, and tailoring primary/elementary schooling to student needs, we continue to work toward an American society that is truly inclusive of those wishing to participate in it. 

Innovation and patience is key: centuries of socioeconomic injustice and inequities won’t be remedied overnight.

Keeping this need for patience in mind will allow us to generate inventive and reasonable solutions. And though I believe the time for affirmative action is over, I do appreciate it as a noble experiment. 

It should continue to act as a reminder of a sincere attempt our society made to fix glaring socioeconomic disparities. It is an experiment from which we can learn and which encourages us to keep trying.  

Opinions expressed are solely the author’s own and do not reflect the views of their employer.

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