Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

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> So what, red lining robbed most black families of the ability to finance homes, and decimated the equity of entire neighborhoods.

If someone is poor, why does it matter what historical circumstances caused that result? If two people inherit their grandmother's houses, and both houses are worth $100k, what difference does it make that one house is worth that much because of redlining and the other because of rust belt deindustrialization?

You keep circling back to economics to justify treating people differently based on race, and it makes no sense. If you want to help poor people, just do that directly.

> Property tax funding primary school through high school has resulted in broad under investment in minority schools and over investment in white schools.

False, and has been for decades: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Reber_S.... See page 27:

"This report documents nearly five decades of changes in school funding patterns across the United States... Districts with the highest non-white enrollment shares maintained higher spending throughout the entire period studied, although their advantage was smaller, and in some years reversed if spending is adjusted using CWIFT. Like high-poverty districts, districts with higher non-white shares also experienced disproportionate spending growth after the mid-1990s."

> Legacy admissions has preserved a egregious preference for affluent students that is a far larger distortion to a meritocracy than affirmative action ever was.

Legacy admits have slightly academic scores than the average person admitted: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/upshot/ivy-league-legacy-...

It matters specifically because there is a coordinated effort to prevent minority communities from building wealth and achieving equality. And the results suggest it remains effective. Look how quickly southern states disenfranchised black communities of equal voting rights when the Supreme Court gutted the voting rights act.

You’re also assuming I wouldn’t agree that low income families deserve support in a similar fashion. I do. I think it’s important social policy to balance the scales across different issues that cause inequality. I think affirmative action can and should factor in geography and income levels regardless of race.

That brooking paper doesn’t support your thesis or undermine mine. Here is a quote: “ We also find that low-poverty and predominantly white districts were more protected from spending cuts during the Great Recession, and high-poverty or predominantly non-white districts were the least protected.”. So when society is cutting budgets they cut minority education first.

Here is another: “ differences in average spending between states remain a major driver of spending inequality overall, even though policy conversations often focus on within-state differences.”. That means the more money spend the more equal outcomes tend to become.

Now this quote supports your thesis that property taxes are less of a determining factor in overall spending and I am open to revising my opinion: “ School finance systems are complex, and local taxes are salient to the public. By contrast, funding from the state or federal government, which disproportionately benefits more disadvantaged districts, is less visible.” But later the authors state that “ We agree with the authors of those reports—and the broader consensus—that high-poverty schools need more funding than their low-poverty counterparts to fulfill their mission; equal is not equitable.” Which think, read fairly means that it may take more spending in low income underperforming communities to achieve equal outcomes. So it may mean than minority communities need 3x the spending to white communities to achieve balance. The reason makes sense when you stop to think of the world outside of the classroom and the effects of poverty and racism. If a child doesn’t have enough to eat, is surrounded by instability, is mistreated in most social interactions their performance in school will suffer. If a high school student is the first in their family to apply to college they may need to figure it out on their own as opposed to a family that guides a student to their legacy Alma Mater, helps them write their admissions essays, connects them with references for letters of recommendation etc all for free. Those support systems cost money for communities that don’t have them built into the fabric of their communities.

> It matters specifically because there is a coordinated effort to prevent minority communities from building wealth and achieving equality.

Coordinated by who? The applicants who are applying to colleges? Because if not there's no justification for discriminating against them based on something someone else is doing.

> Look how quickly southern states disenfranchised black communities of equal voting rights when the Supreme Court gutted the voting rights act.

Nobody did any such thing. You seem to be confused: Voting rights are individual rights. There’s not such thing as voting rights for “communities.”

> So when society is cutting budgets they cut minority education first.

Your claim above was that minority school districts get less funding. But the headline result of the paper is that they don't, and haven't for decades. In fact, they specifically call out the "popular narrative" you repeated: "The findings are broadly consistent with recent academic work on patterns of school spending, which finds within-state progressivity (increasing since the mid-1990s) and usually modest national-level differences in spending by poverty and race (Tyner 2023; Corcoran et al. 2003; Corcoran and Evans 2015; Candelaria and Shores 2019). However, our findings are contrary to popular narratives that often assume that high-poverty or predominantly non-white districts have lower-than-average spending."

> Which think, read fairly means that it may take more spending in low income underperforming communities to achieve equal outcomes. So it may mean than minority communities need 3x the spending to white communities to achieve balance.

You also sound racist like Biden saying "poor kids can be just as smart as white kids." You're flipping back-and-forth between "low income underperforming" and "minority." Even if you're correct that society owes poor communities even more spending than rich ones, that doesn't justify your focus on race. There are low-income underperforming white school districts too, lots of them.

> Look how quickly southern states disenfranchised black communities of equal voting rights when the Supreme Court gutted the voting rights act.

No such thing happened.

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