This was an incredible scene at this week’s California Assembly Higher Education Committee.

Assemblyman Jackson speaking, sometimes yelling, directly into the face of Bruce Lou, and concluding that people like Lou “unfortunately believe that they have the same standing as us”.

https://twitter.com/realbrucelou/status/1915916864921997472

Other noteworthy moments:

The Assembly majority leader promoting his ancestral preferences bill as a novel form of “legacy” admissions for the University of California, with supporters wearing t-shirts emblazoned with “Its About Legacy”

(The UC has never had legacy admissions)

I’m finally starting an analysis of the data on 2023 University of California admissions by source high school released last month, beginning where I left off last year with data on all public high schools in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/infor… I am primarily using this metric to compare high schools:

- Number of students at the high school who were offered admission to the UC (“Admits”)

divided by

- Number of students at the high school who exceeded state minimum standards at the end of 11th grade (“Exceeders”)

Harvard and Yale have racial preferences that harm only Asian Americans and have no net effect on the number of white applicants admitted.

The University of California has figured out how to suppress both Asian American and white applicants, while claiming no racial preferences.

https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC/status/1652318398238576640

All California public high school students take the same English and Math tests (the “CAASPP” tests) to determine whether they are meeting the state’s standards and given a grade of 1-4 with 4 defined as “exceeds standards”

Statewide, 20% and 16% of students “exceed standards”.

This data is a litigator’s dream.

Huge racial disparities in changes to acceptance rates at most of the 6 University of California campuses that are ranked among the top 50 national universities.

But the explanation has to be one that doesn’t apply to UCLA or Davis. Source: universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/infor…

Given the University of California’s plummeting acceptance rates from high schools with many top scoring students, and increasing acceptance rates from schools with few such students, the average student rejected by UC is likely more qualified than the average student admitted. We can test this assumption at the extreme if we assume that the University is being completely merit-based on standardized measures of academic preparation (AP, CAASPP) *within* each high school.

A fun project for today while daughter studies for APs in our hotel room…

In 2020, the number of offers UCSD extended per graduating senior at LA/OC public schools (regardless of how many applied) was positively correlated to the number of top scores that students at the school earned on their AP tests.

In 2022, that correlation was obliterated. This uses AP scores for the last year that they were made available.

In addition to making dramatic changes in admissions policies and forbidding submission of SAT/ACT in 2020, California also started hiding all AP data for its public high schools.

More fun with UC admissions data from OC public schools:

The more students exceeded English and Math standards, and the higher their average AP test score, the lower their UC Berkeley 2022 acceptance rate at their school.

(test score data from ed-data.org) Some additional details since this is gaining attention:

1. The dots represent data about all students at each school, not individual students.

2. The Y axis is # students admitted from school / # students who applied from school. I will address effect of application rate soon.

I am personally aware of one student who has a high GPA, took Calculus BC as a freshman and higher level college math courses, and was rejected from every Univ of California engineering school this year incl UCD.

I know another National Merit Finalist rejected from every UC.

https://twitter.com/FriedrichHayek/status/1639680589233274880

These results concerned me, and I took the time recently to analyze some publicly available data.

The results made it clear that the University of California has moved to crush the dreams of students they deem “over-represented” despite California voters telling them NO in 2020.

I can hardly believe the end of overt racial discrimination at top universities is almost here.

Supreme Court oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions vs Harvard College and UNC

Monday, October 31
10:00 am ET

I will be listening live:
supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments… The Supreme Court justices are primarily arguing about what universities would still be able to do if SFFA prevails.

A very good sign. 😎

South African study of 16,753 people controls for the effects of vaccine and prior infection to find:

- Omicron only about 25% less intrinsically fatal then Delta.

- Most of the reduction in fatality was due to vaccination and prior infection.

medrxiv.org/content/10.110… Out of people infected in the Omicron wave:

- 11% had a diagnosed prior infection

- 43% were vaccinated (38% fully and 5% partly)

Back to the Beginning?

Omicron encounters a population with little prior immunity to infection. Like the first wave.

Omicron hit South Africa when cases were otherwise very low. Like the 1st wave. But unlike their 2nd (Beta) and 3rd (Delta) waves.

ceri.africa/publication/

https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC/status/1472297644714127360

Hospital data from the Omicron wave and first wave in South Africa’s Gauteng Province (compared starting in second week of increased admissions) shows:

- higher hospitalization from Omicron

- similar numbers currently in ICU and ventilated

- higher fatalities from Omicron

Omicron may be ~50% as fatal as pre-Delta variants for unvaccinated people, even if they have immunity from prior infection.

I looked at hospital admission and death totals from two comparable periods in South Africa’s current wave and their 2nd wave in Dec 2020. 🧵 I used the total number of people admitted to hospital and total number of hospital deaths, divided into age groups, as of 4 different dates from the NICD’s archived Daily Hospital Surveillance Reports found here:

nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-i…

Severe Omicron cases in Gauteng hospitals are accelerating, increasing by over 25% in the last 24 hours.

Patients in ICU:
139 Dec 6
177 Dec 7 (+27%)

Patients currently ventilated:
41 Dec 6
51 Dec 7 (+25%)

nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-i… 4 weeks after US hospitalizations began increasing in winter 2020, there were 41400 per week in a country of 329.5 Million

= 125.6 per M

Hospitalizations began increasing in Gauteng on Nov 24. There were 1904 last week in a population of 15.5 M

= 122.9 per M

Let’s revisit the claim the new math framework allows calculus.

The framework says no Math 1 until 9th grade then Math 2 in 10th.

In Irvine schools, where we’ve already adopted common core, a student who takes Math 2 in 10th cannot take calculus without extra summer classes. But the framework has a diagram showing Math 1 in 9th, Math 2 in 10th, and then ...

a cartoon cloud that includes “Calculus” !

So how would that actually work?

How does a student do what is currently not possible - going from Math 2 to Calculus with only 1 year between?

The Instructional Quality Commission of the @CADeptEd will begin its meeting soon (9 am).

The draft 2021 Math Framework is on the agenda.

Public comment begins around 10 am.

I expect IQC to deny the framework says what it says, then approve a draft that says the same things.

https://twitter.com/stevemilleroc/status/1394413490756980737

The IQC has helpfully set a specific time for public comments on the draft 2021 Math Framework at 10 am.

To make a 1 min public comment:

At 10:00 am
Call (712) 770-4993
Access Code 5906620

You can watch the meeting here:
cde.ca.gov/be/pn/lv/index…

Math Professors from UCI, NYU, Princeton:

“The new 2021 Math Framework does away with all tracking, acceleration, gifted programs... without expressing any awareness of the impact these drastic alterations would have in preparing STEM-ready candidates”

persuasion.community/p/why-america-… “The new 2021 Math Framework... will not only hinder the progress of generations of our future STEM workforce but also contribute to structural inequalities, as they are uniquely detrimental to students whose parents cannot send them to private schools”

persuasion.community/p/why-america-…

In the name of “equity”, California DOE’s 2021 Mathematics Framework attacks the idea of gifted students and eliminates opportunities for accelerated math.

- no grouping students by ability
- no Algebra for 8th graders
- no Calculus for high schoolers

cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/ Why does CA DOE want to eliminate “gifted programs” for “high achieving students”?

Here’s what they say:

“In California in 2004-2014, 32% of Asian American students were in gifted programs, compared with 8% of White students, 4% of Black students, and 3% of Latinx students”

Stay safe fellow Irvine residents!

Don’t travel north of Portola Blvd and 133. Orchard Hills under non-mandatory evacuation.

Air quality is more breathable south of Sand Canyon.

Race-based college admissions discriminate against Asian American children and have either no effect or actually benefit white students.

That is why rich white guys like this can support it to signal their virtue, while pushing down others not like themselves based on race.

https://twitter.com/CA4equalrights/status/1318948912292536321

Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Radford favor race-based admissions. But their study showed that at competitive public universities, the racial bias AGAINST Asian applicants relative to whites was as strong as the bias in favor of black students.

press.princeton.edu/books/hardcove…

The California legislature has now voted to strike these words from our state
constitution:

“The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.”

I’m speechless. If you want to prevent this from being ratified by voters in November, San Diego Asian Americans for Equality is leading the fundraising campaign for the coalition opposing #ACA5.

To stop #ACA5, donate here:

californiansforequalrights.org/2020/06/21/don…