Sshhh… We don’t talk about that.
When pointing out the obvious becomes racially divisive, the problem isn’t with racism: It’s with the ability to face facts.
Now, competitive middle-schoolers in Florida are flocking to sign up for high-school classes.
For parents and students, it’s a great chance to get ahead. And school districts have something else to brag about: seventh- and eighth-graders completing courses such as Algebra II Honors and biology that had been reserved primarily for ninth- and 10th-graders.
But the nation’s foremost scholars in middle-school education are worried the fast-growing trend is leaving minority children behind. They also question whether the practice is legal because, nationwide, it has tended to result in students being segregated by race.
Legal? These courses aren’t mandatory. Parents and kids sit down together to decide what courses the kids should take, if any. If the parents or children (or both) show no interest in speeding up the learning process voluntarily, then that’s their choice. It certainly isn’t illegal.
When those in social jobs like teaching and counseling talk of equality, they don’t mean equality of opportunity. We already have that: All kids, black, white or green, can go to school and get a basic education. The social nannies mean equality of outcome. Give everyone a medal, even if they played poorly. Get everyone into advanced education, even if they can barely read or have no interest. And if that advanced education is too hard for them, either dumb it down or cancel it altogether.
Just finished Charles Murray’s “Real Education.” If you agree with the above blog entry, you’ll appreciate Murray’s fresh views. Highly recommended.
Comment by Jeff Hasselberger — February 23, 2009 @ 3:58 pm
Athletic performance can be measured by schools to the millisecond but IQ..why that is invalid, racist and discriminatory.
And Obama’s education appointments find written testing anathema.
Look forward to even more social promotion in schools.
Comment by james johnson — February 23, 2009 @ 4:19 pm
I see. It is illegal that “minority” students are not volunteering for higher-level courses.
What they have done is equate fairness and legality. As we know, this is a meme of the Left. That which results in unequal results–many of us call it ‘life’–should be legislated and monitored by a government agency.
I placed “minority” in quotes because you will never see Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or the like, called a “minority”.
Comment by addison — February 23, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
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This is less about racial sensitivity and more about teachers unions. They don’t want standardized testing, because the tests don’t really show which students are failing, instead they show which TEACHERS are failing their students. And we can’t have teacher’s jobs based on their performance, now can we? That would be “unfair” somehow.
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Nothing breeds contempt in a liberal’s heart more than success does. In fact, liberals will frequently refer to Asians as “essentially white”. Do they mean to say that Asians are culturally interchangeable with whites, or face no discrimination, historical or otherwise? Of course not. What they mean is that Asians, unlike Hispanics and blacks, just don’t NEED the Democrats.
Comment by TheDudeAbides — February 23, 2009 @ 5:53 pm
And these are the same people that are watching the economy go to hell in a hand-basket and figure the only fix is to throw everyone else’s money at the problem. God help us all.
Comment by Bob Devine — February 23, 2009 @ 6:51 pm
I’ll make this short and to the point. Early nineties, Scientific American magazine: Study on Vietnamese boat kids in our schools. Poor and with no English they went to the same schools that are “failing” everyone else. Five years later these kids scored 58% in English and a whopping 92% in math! It was also found that after dinner in these homes the kitchen table was cleared and homework was the agenda of the whole family, older helped young but significantly, the parents, with little or no English or education, remained in attendance the whole time “so the children would understand this was important.”
Imagine for a second, after passing through whatever VietCom re-education program, then escaping their clutches, evading Tai pirates, spending however many months or years in a refugee relocation camp and then getting here and finding free schools, free books and extra help if needed! Then imagine little Vu coming home with a scowl, throwing his books across the room and declaring that, “I hate school and the teacher doesn’t like me and I’m not going back.” Try now to imagine how long little Vu will be allowed to keep that attitude… you many use a stopwatch.
Coleman found in ’68 and Murray (cited above) states the single decisive predictor of academic success is the family. This is incontrovertible. Holder is right we are a nation of cowards and we are getting just exactly what we deserve.
Comment by peter38a — February 23, 2009 @ 7:18 pm
“They don’t want standardized testing, because the tests don’t really show which students are failing, instead they show which TEACHERS are failing their students.”
Anyone who honestly believes that doesn’t know of what they speak. With a mother teaching elementary grades, I’ve had a front-row seat of the fear even the best teachers live in regarding standardized testing. When your salary and, for non-tenured teachers, job are placed on the line with these tests, you do not teach students what they need to learn. You can’t. Instead, you “teach to the test”, trying to make sure even the dumbest student can manage a decent result, even if it’s by rote memorization of useless facts. The unfortunate truth is that some students refuse to learn, and, bereft of any real means of discipline, teachers cannot force them to do so. Standardized tests do not measure a teacher’s performance anywhere near as much as they measure the class’s willingness to be taught.
Comment by Cortillaen — February 23, 2009 @ 9:06 pm
“The unfortunate truth is that some students refuse to learn, and, bereft of any real means of discipline, teachers cannot force them to do so.”
Fine, Cortillaen, have it your way. The problem is students who refuse to learn no matter what the teachers do. We believe you. However, in exchange for that concession, I expect the teachers’ unions to agree that they will never again scream at Congress about a “lack of funding,” since an increase in funding will (by their own admission) serve no purpose. Seriously. Not ONE peep.
Comment by Sean A — February 23, 2009 @ 11:02 pm
“Though officials at the federal Office of Civil Rights wouldn’t speculate about whether local schools have broken any rules, some of the country’s leading scholars say it could be just a matter of time before such disparities trigger an investigation.”
Incredible. Thanks for this, Wendy.
I just told my husband, “So it’s against the civil rights of black and Hispanic kids for white kids to get ahead!”
My husband said, “It’s worse than that: it’s against the civil rights of black and Hispanic kids for white kids to want to get ahead.”
Comment by Joanne — February 24, 2009 @ 8:17 am
Sean, you’d be surprised just how many teachers detest the NEA. That union has gone beyond most others, to the point where it exists simply to preserve itself, no longer caring if its actions help or hurt teachers. The NEA stopped listening to its constituents quite a while back, but it holds so much power that teachers don’t have many options other than joining anyway. The problem is that teaching, in general, is a very hard job three fourths of the year, and the other fourth is spent trying to catch up and get ready for the next year. Good teachers don’t have the time needed to influence the union, so it’s ended up being run by lawyers, lobbyists, and the few retired teachers (more commonly administrators) who are interested, all to their own gain, not that of common educator.
As for the money issue, I ran a survey amongst teachers from three schools (part of a high-school class) asking whether they would rather see a 5% pay increase or be allowed to personally select the books their classes would use. 78% preferred the latter. By and large, teachers would love to be paid a wage more suitable to their job, but they would forgo that simply to be rid of some of the idiotic bureaucracy dictating how they do their job. In my home district, there are currently three people pulling six-figure salaries essentially for spying on the teachers and school staffs. They are directly sanctioned by the NEA, though paid by the district, and their job is to roam about collecting information under the pretext of “evaluating areas of improvement”. In reality, they look for anything that is going against the will of the NEA, any teacher who dares to spurn the mandatory posters, anything they can use to maintain or increase the NEA’s power. As for administrators, anyone above the level of principle is likely vetted for the position by the NEA, and they receive salaries far larger than any educator’s while doing jobs far easier. The biggest money problem tends to be absurd amounts frittered away on ridiculous salaries for glorified secretaries and bureaucrats, pointless projects, and the sums that simply go nowhere (save into certain pockets).
All in all, most teachers would love to do their job, but they have to deal with an oppressive, overpowered union; idiotic and wasteful bureaucracy; and arrogant, overpaid administration.
Comment by Cortillaen — February 24, 2009 @ 9:30 am
The outcome/opportunity dichotomy is a conservative cliche. Nothing too original there. The fallacy is that ‘outcome’ and ‘opportunity’ both suggest that life, and its basic needs, are some kind of game. Maybe they are at the moment, but should they be? Ask yourself if you could look someone in the eye and say, “whoops your career kinda bombed. Guess you gotta starve…”
Comment by Some Guy — August 12, 2009 @ 4:15 pm