Chief Delphi - Does Affirmative Action fit under the values of FIRST

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Originally Posted by eagle33199 (Post 1078048)

Define student to teacher ratio in the FIRST context... does it have to be teachers filling the role, or do volunteer mentors fit the bill as well? Is there some way to leverage that unique feature of FIRST to help your team fulfill the district's rules, while allowing everyone who wants to participate do so?

Is it possible to structure your team and your meeting times to allow everyone to be a part? Obviously, if you have 60 people on the team, I don't care how big your build space is, you're going to have trouble getting everyone time on the robot. If you organize the team schedule, you could have different subgroups meet at different time (One example would be everyone working on the robot, versus those that aren't, like PR, or animation, or website, etc. Another would be two different groups who need dedicated time working on the robot, when you know you can't physically fit more than a few bodies around the robot, regardless of how big your space is), thus limiting the total number of students present for most meetings, while giving everyone a chance to participate. Alternatively, could you "borrow" a classroom for use as pure meeting space (a normal classroom for the PR team, or a computer lab for the programming team, for example) to get around the size limitations of your room?

Asking specifically here about affirmative action is really opening a can of worms... It's a rather political subject, and a lot of people can be touchy about political subjects. I would highly encourage you and your team to look for creative ways and to engage your district leaders to allow everyone to participate, rather than look for the best way to tell a subset of people that they can't be on the team.

That said, I know that some teams have tryouts, others have an interview process... I'm guessing you'll find just about any way imaginable in FIRST to pick out a team amongst large schools with an absurd amount of students wanting to participate.

1.) They must be trained technology education teachers. As far as I know, this requires a degree, so we can't ordain anyone. Mentors, other teachers, and parents don't count.

2.) So far, we have a system that allows everyone to be doing something, be it machining, design, videography, etc...

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Originally Posted by Tristan Lall (Post 1078052)

I'll postpone discussing FIRST's values and/or the values of FIRST participants, and instead draw your attention to a few more general concepts.

First, look to Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, which were 2003 United States Supreme Court cases that clarified limits on the ability of a school (in that case the University of Michigan) to apply affirmative action policies. If your team belongs to a public school, or is incorporated through a governmental agency, you're probably affected. (NPR has provided a summary.)

For details upon which you can rely, you'll probably need to speak to a lawyer or a school administrator. My inexpert appraisal of those rulings would be that it is constitutional for you to weigh factors like race and ethnicity "to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body", but that you shouldn't have a quota or automatically give certain minorities a numerical advantage in scoring their applications. If you (or rather, the people acting on behalf of the school) frame the desire for diversity in terms of attracting funding for an additional supervising teacher, I have no idea how it will turn out.

The other issue is related to the theory of apportioning scarce resources. If you follow utilitarian reasoning (i.e. Jeremy Bentham's philosophy), you should seek to maximize the utility of the society (not just the team; maybe instead the entire school community), even if that means dropping team members who are deserving. But John Rawls might argue that you should not put any person in a position where they are excessively disadvantaged, even if that means a lower aggregate utility level for the society—in that case, perhaps you might be justified in taking into account the possibility that certain minorities tend to be exposed to fewer opportunities, and that by dropping members of that group, you might harm them to an unacceptable degree.

I think that first and foremost, this is an ethical issue, then a legal one, then a political one, and only lastly a question of how the FIRST community would view it.

Aside: You'd be surprised how a school might end up with an uneven male-female split. For example, I believe Woburn C.I. had rather more males at one point, because it was composed in large part of a special education program in which males were disproportionately represented.

Thanks! Thats really useful information. And I agree, it is more of an ethical issue than a legal one.

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Originally Posted by sanddrag (Post 1078055)

Does everyone on your team have a meaningful job? Will they still at a large number of team members? If not, I'd say cap enrollment.

Yes, as answered above. As long as we keep it at around 50, everyone is doing something all the time, since any given night, only 40-45 will show up.

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Originally Posted by Trent B (Post 1078062)

While normally I fall under a mix for affirmative action eg:

Jobs/College admissions - pick the best candidate.

Scholarships - having extra scholarships for characteristically lower income groups is fine by me.

I am puzzled by this, because while I would normally say pick the best candidate the purpose of FIRST gives me mixed feelings. If you pick the best candidates, those who aren't the best may never get a chance to learn and get into the engineering world and struggle more in the future. Whereas if you don't pick just the best, you may be hindering the growth of some of the best.

I would be inclined to say a mix of Skill & Enthusiasm, perhaps conduct an interview with them. Regardless make sure you give legal issues a very wide berth.

It's the exact same brick wall we're running up with.

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Originally Posted by compwiztobe (Post 1078066)

To me, FTC (and Vex, and other programs) seems like the best thing for teams in this situation. It's a way for the masses of students to get involved in something more hands-on, in a smaller group, particularly when they're just starting out. They can absolutely still show up to whatever FRC meetings they want, but the other, smaller program will make sure they have have something to do and are still learning.

With increasing student interest the thing to do seems to be creating more opportunities. However, it sounds like this would also require more faculty, but you might be able to make the case to the district to help you expand the program (in a very affordable way such as FTC/Vex) instead of excluding the majority of people who are now interested. Having to exclude anyone in any way is just no fun, so I would try to avoid it.

The school does have a TSA option, but I don't know how much we want to form an FTC of VEX program. It doesn't really solve the funding problems. It also raises the issue of there being a higher level of the team that some people aren't on. It could even turn into an equality issue if more minorities were on the FTC team.

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Originally Posted by Tristan Lall (Post 1078067)

The definition of "best" is at the heart of the issue. I think you're using it in terms of "most skilled"; others might interpret it as "most valuable". In terms of affirmative action, part of a selected person's value is said to come from the likelihood that they have experiences and perspectives that are distinct from the majority, and the presumption that they can usefully contribute those things to the endeavour.

Another facet of affirmative action is to compensate for a history of discrimination or marginalization (such as with lower-income populations receiving scholarships). This is perhaps less compelling, because many past wrongs were committed against other people from the same group, rather than personally against the person being selected. Nevertheless, by choosing to improve the condition of one member of that group, it can be argued that affirmative action ought to (even in some small way) improves the condition of the whole group.

When I use the term 'best' I mean most inspired. Most ready and willing to be enthusiastic in FRC.

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Originally Posted by Peter Matteson (Post 1078088)

Is there any way you can leverage having technical/build and non-technical/marketing/awards/animation meetings seperately so that you can keep more students but have a non-build group meet at a diffferent time and still maintain the ratio?

Then you would just need an extra teacher when you travel to regionals which would drastically decrease the cost.

Our team is pretty heavily built upon everyone having a role in the team, and coming to most, if not all meetings during the build season. There are some members who are essential, and would be there every day. I worry that we would be unable to propagate a new crop of 'essential members' if everyone couldn't be there every day. It also adds a whole new level of complication and headache.

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Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz (Post 1078093)

Grim,
With sixteen seasons behind us, I can tell you that the makeup of students varies widely from year to year. To attempt a strategy based on team makeup is a short term goal and may go awry in just one season as students leave for reasons unrelated to the competition. While I cannot know your school district policies, often a compromise involving a part time assignment can cover the needs without incurring significant expense. We are very lucky to have a school board that recognizes the significant contribution First has on their students and supports us for those efforts. More team graduates will advance to college or university from robotics than any other program in our schools. That is a significant statistic to encourage support from parent groups, school board and school admin. While I am not an advocate for affirmative action, students that fall into that category need encouragement to join robotics teams. You may need to pare down the team in the short term to give some students a quality experience while you prepare and plan for a future where more students can be involved. I know that this is tough decision. Good luck.

They gave us the extra teacher last year, by executive order, so we're hoping for it again this year. We've also prepared a presentation for them, hopefully we'll be able to give it!

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Originally Posted by Carol (Post 1078105)

Is the goal of your team to be as competitive as possible or to influence the most students? What is the age breakdown of the 60 prospective members? Instead of trying to pick members by "value" to the team, which can be defined many ways and is hard to judge, why don't you just eliminate all freshman? Or limit it to juniors and seniors? I would like to see a senior get preference over a freshman, knowing that is the senior's last chance to be on the team, whereas the freshman has 3 more years.

And playing devil's advocate, I can certainly understand the school's policy of mandating a teacher/student ratio and insisting on only district employees. They have to think about safety and liability issues, no matter how unfair that mandate seems. Do any of your students have parents who are district employees of any type who could volunteer their time? Or does the teacher have to be paid?

1.) We want to influence the most people in the best way each. Essentially a net goodness. So, for example, if we can influence 20 people with 5 units of arbitrary goodness, that is not as good as influencing 10 people with 10 units. Or atleast to keep it equal.

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Originally Posted by sdcantrell56 (Post 1078127)

Affirmative action doesn't fit under the values of any self respecting organization. Time to move on.

It's not 100% up to us as the team.

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Originally Posted by Chris is me (Post 1078130)

FIRST is irrelevant to any discussion of affirmative action. Any decisions regarding affirmative action on a team shouldn't have any hazy knowledge of "the spirit of FIRST" in mind at all.

I don't believe telling one person they can't be on the team because of their race, gender, or socioeconomic status is ever good, unless your team is specifically set up for something (i.e. an all girl's team).

I also think there is some merit to looking at your gender ratio and asking "why".

I believe at this point, socioeconomic status has more to do with diversity than race.

Socioeconomic status is another thing we are being asked to help include on the team, as well as race, sex, etc...

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Originally Posted by Jared341 (Post 1078138)

Note that many potential sponsors (such as the company I work for) will refuse to look at any grant or sponsorship application for organizations which discriminate on the basis of race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, disability, national origin, etc.

Just something to keep in mind.

Good point.

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Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi (Post 1078142)

Instead of asking questions about Affirmative Action, wouldn't it be a better idea to spend time looking for teachers willing to help the team without being paid for an afterschool activity? I think you should also find out why your school has this policy and if mentors can be counted as part of the ratio instead of just the teachers.

Thats our last plan if all else fails. I responded earlier why mentors can't be included.

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Originally Posted by smurfgirl (Post 1078144)

I think the best answer might involve thinking about creative ways to continue to allow interested students to participate. For example, do you have to meet in the school? Maybe a sponsor or some other organization in your local community has a larger space they would be able to offer to you to meet at certain times. Would there be rules about teacher to student ratios if you meet offsite? There are plenty of teams that aren't actually affiliated with the schools their students are from as well - you could potentially become an independent entity and these restrictions would go away. You could also consider other options like having different subsets of the team meet at different times so that there are never too many students at any one time.

We really do have to meet at the school; we do homework at the school until the meetings start, have an excellent machine shop at the school, and our space is sufficient enough. I responded earlier about subsets meeting at different times.

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Originally Posted by Chris Hibner (Post 1078146)

A lot of these issues may have to do with union contracts. For example, it's possible that a teacher may not be able to do it on a voluntary basis due to union restrictions. The 35:1 ratio might also be dictated by the union contract (since if they hold the school to that ratio, it will require more teachers to be hired which equals more job security).

With all that being said, I know absolutely nothing about the school district in question, but I know similar union policies are in effect elsewhere. And not just in teachers unions - similar job security provisions are in place in pilot unions, skilled trades unions, etc.

Our school district is the Ithaca City School District. There has been quite a lot of conflict in the last few years about the teachers union here: Most all teachers are part of it, and there were some serious issues with getting their contract renewed.

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Originally Posted by dtengineering (Post 1078151)

When our team was experiencing rapid growth we instituted a process whereby team members had to fill in an application form, indicating which roles they were interested in filling and what experience they had to support their ability to perform those roles. They also had to get signatures from two teachers attesting to their ability to work in a group setting and to have demonstrated good work habits in their classes.

From this we selected the applicants based solely upon their skills and experience. (Strangely we were able to find a space for everyone who applied... the simple process of having to fill in an application form helped keep a lid on numbers.)

It would be ideal to include everyone who wants to be on the team, but it is likely far more important to ensure that everyone who IS on the team has a quality experience.

Not all of the teachers sponsoring our team were technology education teachers. One of the most important adult mentors on our team was a business education teacher. She organized a number of students with business interests to manage our communications, finance and fundraising. Remember... it's not all about the robot.

Finally, in regard to affirmative action, it can be implemented in a number of ways. The negative responses to a.a. usually come when it is implemented by selecting one candidate over another because of some characteristic... gender, ethnicity, etc. that is unrelated to the job at hand. A different approach, being taken by a number of police departments and fire departments here in Metro Vancouver, is to work hard to recruit applicants from under represented groups, but then to select the very best applicants from the entire pool based on job-related criteria (and yes, the ability to speak multiple languages, in a multicultural city, is an important job related criteria).

Basically, however, if you look at affirmative action from the point of view of "why are some groups underrepresented", and "how do we increase our appeal to underrepresented groups", it is possible to have a valid, meaningful, non-discriminatory selection process that selects the very best candidates on the basis of merit, but from a larger pool of applicants.

A good question... one of those learning experiences for the team members that reinforces the idea that FIRST isn't just about the robot.

Jason

1.) We've noticed this too, but we're not going to weed 30 people out by making them fill out forms.

2.)Good point, but since we've already had our first new members meeting, the recruiting phase is pretty much over.

3.)True, but we still want the most dedicated, interested people on the team, if their interest is in the robot, then great. If it's in web design then great. If all they want to do is community service, thats great too.

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Originally Posted by sanddrag (Post 1078157)

Here, we have a volunteer mentor (parent) who went through the steps to become qualified to supervise children. The person is also able to hold keys. It basically consists of a background check, and a bunch paperwork. You may be able to do something similar if your school agrees to it and you have someone willing.

Not possible at our district, as aforementioned.

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Originally Posted by thefro526 (Post 1078158)

You should never make any decision in life based on a superficial demographic, and especially not when dealing with High School Students. If someone gets cut for a reason that they cannot control, then it usually results in a nasty situation.

A long time ago, someone I know was cut from a drive team because 'The Drive Team needed a female member' - even though, he was a much more qualified human player than she was. He and his friends weren't very happy for the rest of the season and that negative attitude infected the rest of the team.

I would be so mad if that happened to me.

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Originally Posted by Madison (Post 1078166)

Systematic oppression of people based upon "superficial" criteria is a real thing that happens in the real world. Sometimes, throwing someone a bone and giving them a shot -- even if they're not the best candidate for the task -- will save their life.

If you had $1 million dollars to give away, would you give it to a person that already has $10 million dollars or to a person that has $10?

An interesting perspective, but will the person you give the 10 million to squander it?

So, that should cover responses. I will write up my opinion later tonight, but I have to leave right now. Thanks for all who took the time to put in their opinions, it is very much appreciated.