The Joint API Legislative Caucus would like to see more detailed projections on what specific API groups would decrease under the new proposal. The Caucus would like to reiterate the importance of disaggregating data on API students at the University of California. It is important to recognize the discrepancies among API ethnic subgroups in their educational attainment and to address the challenges that especially low-income or first-generation API Students face in higher education. - From CA API Legislative Caucus to UC Regents, 02.03.09

Hello... Day 4! More than halfway done. Now that we've reviewed the current policy and the new policy on how students can become entitled to review (ETR) in the UC admissions process, and we've discussed the UC analysts' numbers predicting admit numbers (and how these are mostly irrelevant), we turn to the issue of ethnic disaggregation. Finally, something that I think the Caucus' letter hit on the head... almost.

The Caucus is totally on the money about the disparities in ed attainment between different AAPI groups. In 2006, when there was a lot of media attention about UCLA having less than 100 African American students enrolling (that's different than the # who applied and the # admitted), there was also only 6 Pacific Islander students who enrolled as freshmen in that same class, with no media attention. With Pacific Islander numbers aggregated into the total number of AAPI students, their realities definitely get covered up.  Same goes for other ethnic groups, and that's what led to the successful "Count me In" campaign in 2007, which got the UC to further disaggregate its data collection of AAPI demographics.  Just because the UC is ethnically disaggregating data doesn't mean other public education agencies are doing the same.  Plus, we have to remember to look at education disparities through a critical SES class lens too. Don't forget that all of our ethnic communities have folks on both ends of the SES spectrum (See Louie's book and Lew's book for more on this). So let's look at 2 things in the quote from the Caucus' letter:

1. Availability of disaggregated data.
2. "What specific API groups would decrease under the new [policy]."

The tables in all of my earlier posts use data that is publically available through the UC's website... not exactly the most user-friendly website on the Internets. I could give folks some basics on finding stuff on it, but that's beyond the scope of this 6-day crash course, but I hope folks will putz around on it... there's FASCINATING things on it... FASCINATING! Anyway... back to those tables of data I was talking about... all those predicted numbers reported are generated by UC worker bees who created really nerdy statistical models.  They inputed data from the CA Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC), which is the state agency that keeps all the data about students related to college pathways.  Unfortunately, CPEC doesn't really disaggregate its data a whole lot. They have "Asian," "Filipino," and "Pacific Islanders." So... technically, the UC could provide data analyses predicting ETR and admissions that is at least disaggregated to that point.  But... they often don't, and that's a beef I've definitely had for a long time with the UC.  If they regularly reported disaggregated AAPI data even to that point of 3 groups, I wonder if there would have been a little more attention paid to the fact that there were only 6 Pacific Islander freshmen that enrolled at UCLA in '06. Who knows? I mean, of course that would also mean that politicians and the general public would care about small groups like PI's and their higher ed access issues in general. What a day that would be! [Hit "Pause" on data disaggregation and available data for a second.] Issue 2: What groups would decrease? Yea... we already talked about how AAPI's DON'T decrease in their ETR number compared to their currently "eligible" number. They actually increase by almost 4,000 ETR students (19,188-15,266=3,922). So then who are these 3,922 additional students who, under the new policy, get the right to apply to the UC?  While the worker bees in the UC Office of the Prez (UCOP) do crunch a lot of numbers using the three AAPI groups from CPEC (Asian, Filipino, and PI) and they know the the break downs for these 3 groups, they don't report it. So... booooo to the UC for not reporting these numbers publically. However, as a citizen of California and as an education research nerd, I do have exclusive access to this data. Actually NO, I'm not that special and I don't have exclusive access. Actually, any of you fair readers can request data from UCOP. Last I heard, the UC is still a public institution. So... I've done some work for you, and you don't need to go searching for the right people to ask for this analysis that was done. The 3,922 AAPI students that now get to apply to the UC break down like this:

• 1,090 Filipina/os
• 438 Pacific Islanders
• 2,394 Asian Americans

True... we don't know who the 2,394 Asian Americans are, but at least we know that there are big increases in ETR for Filipinos and Pacific Islanders, 2 groups that could use increases in this area. But... breaking down the 3,922 AAPI's, that can't apply in the current policy, in another way... Remember how the Caucus was worried about the UC getting rid of the SAT-S instead of getting rid of the SAT-R? Well, it turns out that 2,488 of the 3,922 newly UC eligible students are in the ETR pool because they won't need to take the SAT-S anymore.  What if the SAT-R had been dropped instead? Apparently only 86 more AAPI's (over the 15,266) would have become ETR based on their SAT-S scores. Also... among the total 29,346 additional students who can apply to the UC under the new policy, 5,868 are from high schools with low API-scores. No, not Asian Pacific Islander scores... but Academic Performance Index scores. Hmmmm... what would an "Asian Pacific Islander" score for schools look like? ... I digress. Assuredly, there are many AAPI students attending low API scoring high schools.  Unfortunately CPEC doesn't report on student household incomes, so a class analysis becomes impossible, and we use things like API scores as a speculative proxy. [OK, "unpause" on the available disaggregated numbers.] So... why doesn't the UC regularly report on disaggregated AAPI numbers? Back when I was really involved with UCSA and attended Regents meetings on a regular basis, it totally bugged me that UCOP reps, Academic Senate reps, etc. never reported on disaggregated numbers for AAPI's. And, none of the Regents ever asked for it. FYI... there's one token Asian American Regent, who isn't on the Ed Policy committee, and rarely pipes up about issues... BUT, it shouldn't all fall on her to care about AAPI groups. *Note to the Governator and the next Governor: Can we get some more AAPI's on the Regents?!?! And could it be someone who is progressive, and maybe even has some education experience? Oh yea... I forgot, why should any UC Regent have any working knowledge of higher ed issues? So silly of me! [Back to issue 2] What about the ETR-guaranteed students? Oh... how perceptive of you fair readers! As we saw in post 2, EVERYONE's ETR-guaranteed numbers drop. So, who are the 4,446 students that would have been guaranteed admissions had this pool had not become so much more competitive? Presumably, the students who are still in the guaranteed pool are ones with much higher test scores and grades to be in the top 9% of the state or their graduating classes. This is a question that needs to be asked for every population, since every group's guaranteed numbers drop, especially for African Americans. Because the ETR-not guaranteed pool is kind of a wild card pool of students, and their chances of getting into the UC are obviously less (about 35.9% chance[=19.2% admitted from/53.5% of the ETR-total]) than it is for the ETR-guaranteed (100% chance[=46.7% of ETR-total]), it will be important to see who will get in through this admissions path down the line. Sorry... I don't have the answers here... just another question for UCOP! But really, it's kind of one step back and 1.9 steps (=3,992/4,446... har har!) FORWARD for AAPI's in the ETR projections... 15,266 AAPI's were UC eligible (and guaranteed) in the current policy; 10,820 are predicted to be ETR-guaranteed; but we go up to 19,188 in the total ETR. Or in another way, AAPI's have a 4,446 decrease in the ETR-guaranteed (but everyone else goes down in this group too), but another 3,922 AAPI's (39% are PI and Filipino) that can apply to the UC in addition to the 4,446 who can also still apply to the UC just like before. OK... so that's what I've been thinking about regarding the disaggregation issue. Now on to the Recommended Actions: Action #3: Get all public education stats (CPEC and CA Dept. of Ed... I hope you're listening!) ethnically disaggregated. And get them to increase their reporting on SES stats... but this would cost money, and there's that crazy thing called a budget meltdown going down in CA. Good luck John Chiang and of course the API Legislative Caucus on this monster battle! Action #4: Get the UC to have all public reports summarize data with AAPI's as disaggregated as possible for all Regents meetings and public releases of analyses. Action #5: To find out which students would no longer be guaranteed admissions in the new policy (but would still be ETR), get the UC to release more of their data and analyses on this. In other words, what factor(s) most likely dropped students from ETR-guaranteed to the general ETR group? This is something that affects every population, and could be a good coalition building issue. Knowing this information can also give more information to students, families, and schools to support students toward UC admissions. Action #6: Push for more AAPI Regents to be appointed, preferably with progressive views and an inkling of education issues. (A girl can dream!) Oh yea... so another reminder... AAPI's do not decrease in admissions or eligibility! But I guess this is in how you read things. Personally, I'm going with the happiness that comes with the additional almost 4,000 AAPI  (39% of them = Filipinos and PI's) Cali high schoolers who could apply to the UC, and who currently cannot! Let's start wrapping up this discussion in the next entry in this series and discuss the persistent problem of the lack of AAPI's in UC leadership or even in general education advocacy nationally. Yes! we're gonna actually talk about things outside of the Cali in the next post!