Nothing works to destroy self-esteem quite like telling a black child he will be held to a far lower standard than whites, Asians, or Hispanics. Recognition that poverty plays a role in lower test scores is one thing; codifying that difference by telling students that you are expected to underachieve compared to other children is tantamount to surrender. The problem is too large and too complex to solve so we will hide our failure by simply dumbing down the standards by which we judge our own progress.
Reading “at or above grade level” is hardly challenging students to rise above their own environmental obstacles, but is probably a good first step. So why not challenge all to achieve a standard that doesn’t take race into account? And if you’re going to establish different standards, wouldn’t it make more sense to base them on income level rather than race?
Common sense obviously escapes the Florida education bureaucrats. No doubt we will see similar programs in the other states granted a No Child Left Behind waiver as schools seek the path of least resistance to meeting federal standards.
Well, you’ve got to generate success somehow, even if it is a magician’s trick. Then everyone can go home and sleep well, moron’s will still fail, and I’ll still be blamed for it, which will generate more tricks, sleep, etc.
” . . . even if it is a magician’s trick . . .”
The trick is the magician’s. Apostrophe usage correct.
“… moron’s will still fail . . .”
No possessive apostrophe needed there.
for speaking out about the incessant pattern of misusing apostrophes. It really hurts to see intelligent, articulate posters make this sort of mistake.
You’re welcome.
“It really hurts to see intelligent, articulate posters make this sort of mistake.”
You do see the irony in that, I’m sure.
You know what E.M. Forster said about pedantry and the Library of Alexandria. Maybe. Sadly, it’s not on Google. Who interpreted my post for you? A linguist?
Fail, one of the enemy’s tools is the dumbing down of the language. The reason for this, though not articulated by Marx, is that we think with words. If we cannot use words well, we cannot think well.
The enemy has been attacking our education system for more than 100 years now, and he’s done a pretty good job.
Those who defend the misuse of language, those who attack those who defend the proper use of language, are aiding and abetting the enemy.
One mark of maturity is the willingness to accept correction.
Well it’s certainly mature to posit there’s an “enemy” out there and point to an misplaced bit of a dot in a single word to arrange the idea around. Language is one thing, stupidity another.
Would it not be great that all could be so perfect? Granted, it would be nice if more people would pay closer attention to spell check,(;?) but alas, they don’t! But then again, even spell check, like humans, is not perfect and does not always cover commas, apostrophes and the like.
Now back to the article. My personal opinion on that is that the States should just tell the feral government to just get the hell out of their business. The federal government has no Constitutional authority to involve itself in the educational matters of the States.
“…said that setting goals for different subgroups was needed to comply with terms of a waiver that Florida and 32 other states have from some provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.”
This is government control of the education system. It is also a plank of the Communist Manifesto. It is also the fault of the States (and the People) for allowing such control in the first place. For giving up their Rightful authority and personal responsibility.
Would “No Child left behind” be part of a Communist plot ? I thought it was G. W. Bush’s idea ? As a foreigner, I confess that I am a bit confused with American Communism.
Would it not be great that all could be so perfect? Granted, it would be nice if more people would pay closer attention to spell check,(;?) but alas, they don’t! But then again, even spell check, like humans, is not perfect and does not always cover commas, apostrophes and the like.
Now back to the article. My personal opinion on that is that the States should just tell the feral government to just get the hell out of their business. The federal government has no Constitutional authority to involve itself in the educational matters of the States.
“…said that setting goals for different subgroups was needed to comply with terms of a waiver that Florida and 32 other states have from some provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.”
This is government control of the education system. It is also a plank of the Communist Manifesto. It is also the fault of the States (and the People) for allowing such control in the first place. For giving up their Rightful authority and personal responsibility.
Sorry for doubling up on this. Forgot to put a name and e-mail on it and did not realize it would post anyway as anonymous.
Hi gag, are you, by chance, from Rio Linda?
And ‘possessive apostrophe’ is a tautology here.
Appears the libs are using the Bell Curve they’ve so vehemently screeched about. The Bell Curve is accurate and the truth is that blacks collectively have the lowest I.Q. of any race, with hispanics being the next. Asians are at the top with whites 2nd. I’m a big time conservative but we can’t fix a problem that we refuse to acknowledge. There are other types of education for the diversity in kids but the NEA wants the one size fits all kind. All cultures are as a whole quite different from one another. Why is Africa or the mid-east like it is? It’s certainly not much about financial status. Lots of us grew up poor or from broken homes but still did very well in school and in life.
Despite what the PC multiculturalists would like us to believe, some races ARE more intelligent and advanced than others. Obviously, there are many exceptions in the black and hispanic communities, but let’s face it, those of European background have contributed to the majority of the world’s accomplishments in every genre for the past 1,000 years. Can anyone name one white country today that is 3rd World? More than any other group in the history, the Judeo-Christian White European (male) is almost exclusively responsible for the advancement of education, science, literature, technology, art, music, mathematics, travel, etc, etc. The world would still be in darkness (literally) if not for the White man.
It is absolutely the case that leftists pretend what is isn’t, and for many reasons which would make a whore blush.
On the whole, the average leftist attempts to shore up their post racial bonafides by backing untenable racial schemes. However, politicians use them as electoral fodder. Either way it doesn’t change a damn thing, other than sow discord.
Whereas there are many Blacks who are as successful as whites, it is also the case that a preponderance are very low achievers. There are many reasons for this, but pandering to them as a group, and instilling victim hood status, surely hasn’t worked. In fact, affirmative action has only proved, access to higher ed does nothing to solve the problem, but leave them unprepared for the workplace.
Regardless, the two most powerful Blacks in the world – the Radical-in-Chief & his Racialist AG – have set the stage for Florida’s racialist decree, as well as so much more which is bubbling to the surface. This duo set Blacks back like none other.
Thus, is the following shocking too? http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/30/the-racialist-potus-seeks-transformation-via-raced-based-classroom-edicts-say-it-aint-so-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
Yet the vast majority of people in Palm Beach County will continue to push the ‘D’ button in Nov. as they listen to the non-stop commercials vililfying Romney for (purportedly) cutting early childhood education programs. He should create a commercial that highlights this lunacy with a faux school funding program that matches the BoE proficiency targets. Pathetic.
Unfortunately, this development is likely to be buried in the current news cycle.
The local news stations in FL are frantic in their efforts pump up the Dem base with some already predicting how Obama will win round 2, pounding the get out the vote drum, etc. There is real panic that thier “One” in blowing it…
Wasn’t Florida the birthplace of “ebonics”? This is racial condescension in the spirit of “The Blind Side.” Insulting.
I think it was Oakland that wanted to legitimize “Ebonics.”
Yes, I think it was Oakland. Well, Oakland was the first to go public with it.
It was the school board of Oakland Taxifornia that coined ebonics.
They also stated that it was a ‘hereditary trait’.
jerry brown was the mayor of that failure of a city.
The school board seems as intelligent as the pupils of whom they are responsible.
The ignorant are teaching the unteachable and unreachable.
adios,
Harv
TaxMeMoreVille, Taxifornia (illegal alien drug gang sanctuary state)
push 1 for English ONLY in the USA
The insight and lucid analysis based on the competence in cognitive skills of black americans( youth and adults) deserved serious attention . Lowering standards to achieve quality academic levels actually diminish the grade of intelligence in several studies . Blacks that demonstrate these limited abilities must consider that the ” scapegoat ” clamorus declaration glorified from the bias media impede the growth and development within the black community . This is a artifical structure rather than observing the reality that they ( blacks ) need to make the sacrifices and encouraged discipline in history , math , science , social skills , ( common sense ) and good old fashion forty acres and a mule ! . I blame the liberal agenda in fostering this fetid poison into the ignorant and stupid individuals that think they deserve special treatment because of past inequities due to race and sex . An old saying , to keep something from a black individual , put it in a book .
“thier”
I hate to be a spelling nitpicker, but:
I before E, except after C and when you hear a long A.
This is an elementary mistake and it pains me to see it in so many well-reasoned posts. It underscores again the deficiency in English instruction (as well as in all other subjects) in today’s schools.
Have of these problems’ can be blamed on hour over use of spell checkers.
Turn off the spell checkers.
Turn off the calculators.
Turn off the iPods, Ipads, Kindles…. hand the kids a book, pencil and paper.
Oh yeah… give them a baseball and tell them to have fun.
Oh, hey… how about making them use a typewriter and correction tape? Give the little buggers a library card instead of an internet connection!
I’m either getting old or becoming a Luddite. Most probably both.
Are you going to stop using your computer to provide an example?
I befroe E except after C
Or when pronounced “A” as in neighbor and weigh.
The Florida Board of Education is simply doing what bureaucracies do. Such departments, being a part of government, set standards made from whole cloth, without any justification. When those standards are codified, then those standards are what must be met, whether they can be or not – thus it is written. When the standards, impossible to meet or exceed, are in fact not met, the Board will seek scapegoats for its own failure by taking punitive action, verbal or legal, against those who were dictated to bring about those impossible standards – teachers, first and foremost, then the parents, and, last, the students themselves who are in truth the only ones who can bring about improvement – but then only to their ability, not their fancy.
Boards of education, like governments themselves, will do whatever they deem necessary to justify their existence. They have a mindset – ‘So let it be said, so let it be done.’ Voila, it’s done!
Little boxes, drawn by bureaucrats
Little boxes of racist learning goals
Little boxes, little boxes, of the “diversity” game
There’s a black one, and a white one
And a brown one and a yellow one
And they’re all to build “diversity”
And they’re all a badge of shame…
Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.
In their sties with all their backing
They don’t care what goes on around
In their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damn good whacking.
-George Harrison
Many interpreted Harrison’s song to mean the British police, and others have interpreted it to apply to greedy bureaucrats, rich people, and more. It could also apply to a school board.
As always, Jefferson’s flights of literary fancy continue to eat at common sense. Would that Adams, a true lawyer, would have written the Declaration! Then we wouldn’t have all this idiotic “equality” BS, because he would have defined “equality”. But, it certainly would have been boring, and that might not have served the Declarations’ purpose. Thus are the little tiny broken overgrown steps upon which our ever shaky civilization is built.
Alas, it still would have worked, but for universal suffrage, which brought voters with no brains and no skin in the game into power; ripe picking for demagogues.
It’s all been downhill since then.
Besides, why is “diversity” so important, if we’re all “equal”, anyway? And if we’re “equal”, how can we even BE “diverse”?
I guess I’ll have to go find me a lib to answer that. My mind actually works.
Some need to be more equal than others. For that you need a sliding scale.
Just affirmative action wrt reading levels to prepare them for future college entrance criteria and public sector employment.
I’m not sure I understand the problem. Other than this is laying open the guts of current affirmative action. In the past, the true implications of affirmative action were kept hidden with wink, wink, nod, nod of placing unprepared students in the “advanced” classes. Now, with objective testing, that lie is revealed. So in keeping with treating people different based on the color of their skin, they had to set separate standards based on race.
So good news, that kids should be held to different standards based on race has gone completely mainstream. Bad news, the new adherents don’t feel the need to hide their beliefs in complex race-based selection programs. They just set separate standards.
So the only shocking thing here is, the uproar over affirmative action being laid bare for all to see its racist underpinnings. Apparently the adherents can’t handle the truth of their beliefs.
Right. This is only offensive if you’re not an educrat. To an educrat, it makes perfect sense. Since the black kids are going to be admitted to college based on a racial sliding scale, there’s no reason not to have diminished standards all the way back to kindergarten.
What this really does is take the schools off the hook for performance of minority students. The schools are washing their hands of any responsibility to narrow the performance gap.
Keep voting for the donkey. He hasn’t changed his stripes since 1865.
“The schools are washing their hands of any responsibility to narrow the performance gap.”
You are absolutely correct. The educators are saying, “We have failed and plan to continue to fail. Rather than admit this and FIX the real problem, we will selectively set the bar lower. Whew, now we can feel better about ourselves.”
There should be a nationwide roar of outrage, but will there be?
What’s next? Higher/lower standards in the workplace based on race? Variable hurdle heights and “win” times in the next Olympics based on race? Variable standards for surgeons?
This is a despicable strategy, one that insults everyone of every race.
This has the look, feel and smell of the teacher’s unions.
Hi Robert, it sure does. What a swell way to grow the union. Now we have to hire X new teachers to adjudicate our new scale and insure full and accurate grading. We will need new guide lines written, and new listing of interpretations and acceptance of deviation from our new policy. We will need new teachers to monitor our progress and to assure fairness. We will need additional counselors to advise the children of the new guidelines and to assuage their self esteem issues if one of the little creeps gets onto the fact that we are running with melanin as the determining factor in intelligence. We’re doomed. We really are.
Glad you said it. Because the way I see it, they are responding to the obvious. It’s a question of what came first: the inability to keep up and the subsequent dumbing down or the dumbing down. If other racial groups consistently score higher, then why not blacks and Latinos? If Asians and whites are doing better, why? Or are we not allowed to ask the question. Here’s a stark answer: maybe the testing HAS TO BE RECONFIGURED to conform to the skill levels of each group. Those performing better have been subjected to all kinds of educational quackery to mask the fact that others can’t perform as well. And that has been done for years. The others continue to do well. No matter what is done it always comes back to the fact that some racial/ethnic groups perform on average better than others. Statistics aren’t RAAAAACIST.
Math should be about ‘feelings’. 5 + 5 should = [any damn thing you please].
5 + 5 = Twentety
5 + 5 = This many (pulls down pants and bares hiney). Two, two, two butt cheeks!
5 + 5 = Goat [ba ba baaaad example, I know]
Contrary to what Mr. Moran suggest, the plan is quite sensible. The proposed academic standards result from the real world observation that Asians value education and that Blacks do not. So, the schools have two choices:
- accept that a larger number of Blacks will under-perform and set standards accordingly
- use the same standards for all students and just pass Blacks (and Hispanics) at the same rates as you would Asians (or Whites) and further devalue a Public School education.
The Florida Plan is simply the recognition that not all cultures are equal. The problem here isn’t the School Board, it’s the culture of victimization and the utter depravity that is Black America. Learning is a voluntary activity, I can force a child to sit in a classroom but I cannot force that child to learn. If the greatest ambition a Black family has is a welfare check then there’s not much we can do, except end welfare. You can’t help people intent on destroying themselves, the best you can do is minimize the collateral damage.
The schools have one choice and that is to teach. So studies show some groups of students welcome education more than others. Which means that teachers must work harder to teach some groups of students. Hiding their failure to teach by simply dumbing down the standards is not helping the students to learn. And we wonder why are kids can’t spell or read or write.
More to the point, the public schools have the responsibility to either perform as advertized or get out of the way and let charter schools do it. This is complete abrogation of any responsibility to produce a quality product.
Either they should do what they say that they can do, or stop advertizing their wonderfulness, and allow some competition. What they’re saying here is basically: this isn’t Burger King; you don’t get it your way, the take it our way, or you don’t get the son-of-a-bitch.
Revoke their monopoly.
The Florida school board is to be applauded for making the logical deduction: there are RACIAL DIFFERENCES in intelligence. That is not to say that there are not BRILLIANT black students, or on the opposite pole, stupid Asians. But It is a fact that intelligence varies depending on race.
I know, I know. This line of thought is to be expunged from our collective mind, controlled as it is by a liberal, leftist, elite. Why, we are RACIST to even broach such an idea.
Go ahead. Ask Thomas Sowell what he thinks of this. Let him be the one to tell you that to promote UNQUALIFIED black applicants to university is a recipe for failure — which hurts whom? The unqualified black applicant. And hurts whom? The QUALIFIED applicant who is pushed to the side so that LIBERALS can feel GOOD about their leftist egalitarian goals; so they can believe life has meaning. Pathetic, if it weren’t so destructive to the lives of QUALIFIED applicants. But perhaps they are merely collateral damage in the minds of the left, thrown over for a “noble” goal.
The cause is not genetics rather culture. Why do blacks from other countries outperform American blacks? Culture. Asians whose families have been in the US for several generations perform at the same level as whites. Until the culture changes poor performance will continue.
Anna, they don’t actually perform better than American black people. They do ‘better’ in school. But the gap is still there, both in IQ and performance.
Black students in many majority black countries get the education left over from colonialism. It is uniformed, rote, and there is strict physical discipline. They learn.
And still believe that gang-raping virgins will cure AIDS.
This sounds a lot like what I have heard described as “the soft bigotry of low expectations”. Democrats keep telling people that they are unable to succeed without the help of a nanny-State government, run by the elitist Left.It has become a self-fulfilling prophesy, creating a generational dependency sub-class. They have been “programmed” to think that they owe the Democrats their votes for maintaining them at a minimum-level lifestyle.
This Country grew to be the greatest power in the world because of independent-thinking rugged individualists, not a bunch of nanny-State wimps.
So, you really believe that blacks don’t do well because they choose not to? Hardly! That may be the case on occasion, but the truth is they’re not able to keep up with any other race because of their collective low I.Q. Why is it that we can admit the blacks are better at some sports, and that’s not racist, but to admit they aren’t very smart…well, that’s racist. Every culture has their particular good points. It’s just that the blacks have poor impulse control and tend to be more violent than other races as well as having the lowest I.Q.
maybe they’re right.
what we need to do is either treat everybody equal, or fall back to a complete affirmative action world. it appears we have chosen the latter.
first step: in adherence to a.a. and title ix requirements, all sports teams should be set up to meet these guidelines. football, basketball, etc. should all (including college and pro’s) have the correct numer of each racial group included, and play, at all times. no athelete left behind.
result: complete failure of current sports to survive financially. gov. gets to step in and finance. sond familiar?
second step: all professions will only allow so many of each category of person (race, gender) to be educated and licensed. the number needed will determine the number graduated/licensed.
result: bridges fall, patients die. however, on a positive note, with the forced injection of more males into teaching …
affirmative action is socialism gone wild.
Or, we could emulate the Leftist version of Leftist Utopian equality, found in “Harrison Bergeron”. See: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
Sorry, it should read : “Or, we could emulate the Leftist version of Utopian equality”
Lower expectatin based on race are nothing new. In 1054, the Supreme Court held, Brown v. Board of Education, that black school children were too dumb to learn unless surrounded by white clase mates. That not the way the Supremes phrased it, but is the only conclusion one can make from the court’s argument that segregated school were inherently unconstitution. That isnothing, better funding, better teachers, can compensate for lack of white classmatss.
Your grasp of Constitutional law and American philosophy is fully the equal of your ability to type clear, correct sentences.
Wow, and he also cites 1054 as the date of Brown. That must have been when kids used stone tablets & teachers got to school via chariot. Yeah, I remember my grandfather telling me stories about taking tests on stone tablets – carving his answers into stone with a chisel was hard! And don’t even get me started on how hard he said it was to learn about the U.S. Constitution!
Yeah, and what about when the teachers had to run those stone tablet exams through the mimeograph machine!
Well, your typing, grammar, and syntax don’t make a particularly compelling argument for white classmates. The court said that separate but equal was inherently unequal and thus unconstitutional. One can get good faith disagreement with that premise and with the Court’s logic in Brown, but if you believe the separate black schools in The South were equal, I have a really good deal for you on my bridge I’d like to sell. Far more devastating to academic standards than integration of black students into the white schools was the integration of black teachers from the black schools into the white schools. My sister was a teacher in the rural South from the mid-’70s and she can tell some truly frightening stories from the faculty lounges of those days.
my experience in school reflected what you say above. In my case, the black teachers were imported into our school after Christmas break during my sophomore year (1970); the subpar quality of standards under which the new black teachers carried out their duties was quite palpable.
I believe that you have confused Brown v.Board of Education with the supernova that gave rise to the Crab Nebula.
Oh come on. You’re not actually this thick are you? This is an act, right? This is a seminar-caller training assignment, surely.
Yes, those tablets are pretty thick. They’re working on it, though. Some Korean company got a DoE green energy grant for $100 million to make thinner stone tablet batteries.
Seeing these past achievement percentages posted by …gasp!….race…..is one thing…do those figures lie or were they manipulated? Are they so, over and over and over again? Year in and year out?
Why not study the social/cultural background reasons for why these wide disparities keep showing up time and time and time again? That tragic evidence can’t be continually evaded. Casting bales upon bales of cash upon the Blacks and their schools simply hasn’t been working. The individual study habits/efforts simply must come from within.
Why not admit that Asians have a demonstrably terrific productive cultural ethic of “education” for education’s sake worthy of emulation?….look at Japanese, Korean, and Chinese students mesmerized by study-for-exam fever/pressure, while the Blacks evidently have little or no parental involvement….single or otherwise…and depend upon the public schools to be surrogate parents. Actually implementing these needed changes is politically difficult.
Black education, or lack thereof, is indeed a severe and persisting sociological problem continuing despite the earnest efforts of the “Great Society” and subsequent buzz-words, and extremely expensive for those “others” who must support them in the name of public safety, if for no other reason.
It’s hard to ignore, or gloss over, or re-categorize “race”.
I’m confused. I thought democrats believed that black people were the smartest?
Affording to red bull Joe, that’s only when they’re clean and articulate without any discernible negro accent. I gotta go get tome donuts now. I can speak with a slight Indian accent.
You’ve got that turned around. Democrats think — indeed they take it as an article of faith — that “blacks” are stupid, and childlike, and prone to emotional outburst, but also docile and loyal when correctly manipulated. In short the Democrat party of today embraces the same “racial” beliefs of the Democrats of yore. They still embrace (and I’m talking about the Democrat elites here) the pro-slavery argument, including the holy “one-drop” rule — which is why Barack Obama is identified as a “black” American, even though his mother was really quite “white.”
In the old days, Democrats held “blacks” down by force — fugitive slave laws, Jim Crow, etc. Today they do so by never allowing them to just be Americans. No more, no less. It is my belief that if all these liberal Democrat race-baitors could be put in a holding tank for ten years, “black” SAT scores would improve tremendously. Because ALL of this is just a state of mind.
Yes, minds that have been thoroughly washed and spun dry. The quota system we have keeps the spin on.
The mistake is to believe that the only place a child’s education takes place is inside a classroom.
Children are constantly learning. Every person in their life is a teacher. The child may be learning that the world is an interesting place worth learning more about. The child may be learning to become indifferent, as those around her are indifferent to education.
Bureaucrats are among the most destructive teachers, as they teach children that they are nothing more than a number, or a file in a caseload. The bureaucrat may not realize that she is teaching this lesson, for it may never have occurred to her that every interaction with a child is a lesson in that child’s education about the world.
This decision becomes part of the education of the children of Florida. They are being taught that more is expected of some children, less from other children.
This is despicable.
This is also precisely what one should expect from an ever-growing centralized bureaucracy.
Boy, ain’t that the truth. I agree with every statement you said here. And I don’t know you from Adam.
God bless.
Yes, “Children are constantly learning.” And it is decided, long before they meet the first “bureaucrat”, if they will appreciate education or not.
Your little romantic poem “The Culprit is the Bureaucrat” from above is total crap.
Perhaps you do not realize that this often spans generations. At the time the child is born the mother and perhaps even grandmother have already been dehumanized by bureaucrats. Girls who have been made indifferent to circumstances do have babies. Now the schools wish to reinforce this impression of inferiority.
Go left far enough, end up a Stormfronter. Fitting.
Soft bigotry of low expecttions, anyone???
Absolutely despicable!
The real problem stems from the return to teaching reading as a whole word sight approach at every college of education I have seen in Florida. With the SE regional ed lab at Florida State now and Florida State receiving $20 million of a $100 million grant to push sight reading every district is pushing that approach in earnest.
Since people from differing backgrounds vary in their ability to throw off the effects of lousy reading approaches, you end up with wildly varying rates of literacy among various groups. The real fix is to teach reading properly.
It’s not hard but it does bolster individualism and the rational mind and the ability to weigh alternative scenarios in the privacy of your own mind. All outmoded 19th century concepts from when literacy was close to universal.
The fix we are going to end up with is to deemphasize print fluency altogether and to redefine what constitutes Literacy. Communicating with visuals via computer will count. That’s what I am already seeing in the NCLB waiver definitions and the UN definition of Literacy and in something called UDL-Universal Design for Learning that was incorporated into the required Common Core classroom implementation.
I commend the Florida Department of Education for adapting to a reality which is sadly obvious to everyone except ideologues with brains on lockdown.
The word “racist” is thrown around too easily these days but if there was ever a truly racist official policy, this is it. This is a government agency officially declaring that races can be differentiated and graded differently, implying that some races are incapable of mantaining basic levels of competency at home, at work or at school. Someone pointed out above that this schoolwork that is being graded on a racial curve is not exactly hard. There is no reason any group of people, including poor folks, should not be able to keep up with the minimum that is required to maintain basic standards.
I am relying on memory here, but I recall hearing that around 1910, about 50 years after the Civil War, black school children in Washington DC were almost equal in school with white children. Moreover, legitimacy rates between the races were getting closer. With no “40 acres and a mule”, just hard work and self-reliance, the black population was doing fine all by themselves. But what happened a century ago to change that pattern? Progressivism! The Bastids!
Seperate but equal was unequal and wrong. Integrated but unequal is wrong.
Some may say the culture has changed and it is not racial but cultural. This is true but the ability to learn has not changed; just the programming. A friend of mine was a math and computer teacher in an inner city middle school, one of the worst in the city. I asked him “Why?”. He said most of the kids were great and a few were very intelligent. The problem, invariably, was 2 to 4 kids in every class that caused all the problems. I asked if he could get rid of them. “Yes” was the answer, but the process takes most of the school year. And you can’t say those kids and their parents are not knowledgable; they know every in-and-out of the system to keep and maintain their “rights” They come with $200 sneakers but can’t afford pencils and paper (which the teacher supplies out of his own pocket). I could go on but to put a cap on the tale, my friend had to quit after the third assault (he is over 6 feet tall, over two hundred pounds, and this is a Middle School)put him in the hospital, crippled with a severe back injury.
I blame the Progressives of a century ago but I also blame the modern Progressives such as the idiots that proposed this policy, the ones that maintain this stupid system and the fools like Sandra Day O’Conner who vote to legally maintain preferences based on race. The United States of America endured the worst war of our history based on the notion that there should be no racial preferences or penalties in this country; and that hard work was casually tossed aside by the evil and empty. Truly disgusting.
What a wonderful opportunity to and bring back such charming classifications as quadroon, quintroon, octoroon in order to put the right person at the right social level.
I’d love to see a new Puddnhead Wilson written wouldn’t you?
I may be in the minority here, (and long time PJM readers will know I am no liberal), but I do not see a problem with this.
The goal of these new guidelines is to try and close the racial performance gap. At least they are willing to confront this gap and do something about it, rather than just cry about “institutional racism” and let things fester. These goals may set lower passing rates for black and Hispanic students, but it is setting much HIGHER RATES OF IMPROVEMENTS for them as well.
If anything, for a liberal educational establishment, at least admitting they have a problem, and trying to at least partially solve it, is progress.
To my mind, this double standard is a reflection of the soft bigotry of low expectations that is now, apparently, politically correct. In what way does this serve to help black people compete? I think it would be better to dig down to just what factors are at play here that cause these people to fall behind everyone else & set up a means to address said factors. But nooooooo. What should be treated as a problem to be solved is instead embraced as “the new normal.” NTS, this approach will do nothing but promote & perpetuate the problem. But first though this soft bigotry of low expectations has to be expunged from the “zeitgeist” before any progress can be made.
This is institutional racism.
Yes, it is, but if the left wants to impose it, then at least they won’t cry about it.
Why would the Left cry about their own racism when they see it as justice?
Make no mistake, Eric, the school board is planning to educate blacks to the 74% level.
74% is also the out of wedlock birth rate in the black community, so unless that percentage improves and there is some rebirth of two-parent black families, that is probably the best they are going to be able to do. Even a strict private school or innovative charter school could only do so much to overcome the pathologies that a lot of these neighborhoods have.
In an ideal world, all the critics here would be right about the double standards. But look, in an ideal world, Israel wouldn’t be vilified for trying to stay alive, and successful people would be admired rather than demonized.
We don’t live in an ideal world, and until we do, this may be the best we can hope for.
“Florida Board of Education Thinks Blacks Are Dumber than Whites”
Well two thing have occurred that simply prove this to be absolutely the truth.
But so what!,
First the Bell curve, simply shows blacks have a much lower IQ,
more importantly,
Obama. he is an idiot
I don’t like a lot of things I see and read about blacks, I think blacks are dangerous, I stay away from blacks etc,
you get the idea,
but
MOST blacks are just like most whites, just not as smart
Run along, ugly troll. You pursue the same agenda as the multi-culti PC Left. You seek to divide Americans. You seek to divide us into tribes and pit us against one another. The only difference between you and the Leftists is that you’re a tad bit more vulgar in your pronouncements.
I believe that race endows nothing and takes nothing away. To me, this is about culture. The events that led to the current culture of depravity and failure among too many blacks were the result of very real systemic institutions of racism against blacks.
Problem is, the people who did that are dead, and there is no such thing as racial guilt. To believe in that principle would be to agree to turn it around and say that it is okay to profile blacks as criminals too.
Whatever the events that have led too many blacks to too many bad places, it is incumbent on them to tweak the culture into one that will yield successful paradigms. Unfortunately, the loudest voices on the Left are opting for the racial guilt and too many blacks are buying into that. It’ll never work. It’s 2012, and only the culture itself can reject failure and embrace success. Expecting failure will yield more failure. People will rise up to expectations if they don’t have the black and excuses of the Left to refer to.
A person’s intelligence is determined neither by race nor genetics. Some races do better with IQ tests because those cultures favor certain ways of thought and logic.
What is all this talk about culture? They are Americans, most of them for many generations. They are not fresh immigrants who arrived here yesterday.
I don’t deny that everyone who’s been in America for a few or a dozen generations watch the same TV shows, have the same books to read, have the same access to opportunities. I grew up in a portion of the South where you can still see the basic outlines of the old plantations by where people live. Over by that creek there are a few dozen houses owned by black folk. Their families have been living by that creek for a hundred and fifty years or so. Up on the hill are a few large houses owned by white folk. They’ve been there a hundred and fifty years or so. They all live in the same country, they all have the same opportunities, but they have allowed themselves to simply follow the pattern of their parents and ancestors. So you see intelligent men farming the same land that their slave ancestors farmed. If they are happy doing so, it’s no problem. But if they aren’t, why do they keep doing so? Even in our “melting-pot” there are some strong cultural differences that divide us.
The socialist way, beautiful aint it. I guess that’s a warning to everyone not to have a black eye surgeon or packing your parachute.
More pointedly, this is the Multi-Culti way, the mission of which is to compartmentalize humankind into tribal groupings, and to slander, in no uncertain terms, anyone who adheres to America’s old “melting pot” ethic. It wasn’t too long ago that Americans believed that putting the American People, and the American Way of Life, ahead of old ethnic loyalties was not only a good thing, it is what made us special. Multi-Culturalism teaches it students to cling hard to their cultural differences from all others, and to reject the notion of all-inclusive nationhood. They teach that all this melting-pot one-people thing is a lie. And the multi-cultis currently OWN academia, the public school system, and the media: from local papers and affiliates all the way up to the Big (White) Boys at ABC/CBS/NBC/C-NBC/MSNBC/CNN/AP/NYT/LAT/WaPo/etc., etc., etc.
This isn’t about socialism. Socialism is a proven-failed economic system that has been applied to uni-ethnic and multi-ethnic societies alike. And it has performed as well in Sweden as it has in Metropolitan Blue-State America.
“On Tuesday, the board passed a revised strategic plan that says that by 2018, it wants 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of black students to be reading at or above grade level.”
Yeah, you gotta hand it to those Asians, they’re really smart. So where do Native Americans/Aleuts/Polynesians come in on this school board’s Smart Meter? Curious minds want to know.
That aside, are liberals racist, or WHAT?!? This is gawd-awful, singling out “black” kids for humiliation, stigmatizing them. Somebody on this board needs a thorough bitch-slapping.
Well, if you take this article and the following comments to their logical end you will be forced to confront THE question:
“To save the black culture, or to not save the black culture?” That is the question. (Sorry, Bill…)
We ‘mainstream’ kids, we put them in uniforms, we put them in union controlled classrooms. What has been the result? This Florida CRAP as a solution?
Maybe it is time to take the black kids out of “that culture” and place them in a cultural setting that values education. I would rather save the individual than save a culture that accepts failure in education. Apparently that new setting would not include the FL educational system.
I’ll let the readers argue over exactly what I mean by “that culture.”
” I would rather save the individual than save a culture that accepts failure in education.”
Hear hear! Bravo!
A mark of how low we all have sunk is not that Democrats do these things, but how all of us expect nothing more of them. I read something like this and think, “Oh, well, what else is new?”
I’m seventy-five years old. My heritage is Confederate. My great-grandfather and his friends fought the Federal States, and many died in Mr. Lincoln’s War of Northern Aggression and Mr. Davis’ War for Southern Independence. Like all good American children in primary school during World War II, I was formed and shaped to be a good United States of America citizen. I even enlisted in the National Guard at age 17 and served 8 years as an active and inactive soldier. After studying the history of that war that the federal victors wrote, and that southern writers preserved but could not publish until recent years, I became solely an American—not a “United Statesian.”
It is inconceivable to me that the Democrat Marxists and Fascists could win the upcoming election, but their capacity to cheat and win elections is immense. If they do win, there will no more United States. If Romney wins and he and his succesors do not completely destroy the Democrat Party and reverse the direction of the U.S. there will be no more United States either.
Everyone who is willing to go under an ‘Affirmative Action’ brain surgeon’s scalpel, raise your hand.
/sarc
And that, BTW, is why AA is such bad news for competent minorities. It make people of all background suspicious.
And this current POTUS hasn’t done much for the image of AA politicians, either. I hope that when Allen West runs for president, people don’t hold Obama against him.
Colin Powell didn’t help either by voting for Baracky simply because he was ‘black’.
I think the govt. says blacks are dumber than whites. They don’t believe they’re capable of getting a photo id.
And, yet…very ‘capable’ of gettin’ an ‘ebt’ card.
Oh da irony.
sigh/
I apologize if I’m just repeating another comment, but it seems obvious to me that the “revised strategic plan” was designed to save the jobs of incompetent teachers whose students are failing the mandated tests. Why are these teachers so incompetent? Why can’t they teach children how to read, add, subtract, multiply and divide? It’s not as though people haven’t been learning those skills for many hundreds of years.
Perhaps the teachers have difficulty with those skills themselves. Perhaps they’ve been passed through worthless politicized educational professional schools. Perhaps the educational publishing industry has been dominated by people from those same schools that survive by endlessly developing “new” ways to teach in order to sell ever more expensive books.
The comment that children are learning every minute they’re awake is obviously part of the cultural difference. As a frequent public transport rider I have daily opportunities to watch people of different nationalities interact with their children. Some talk with their kids all the time. I often can’t understand the conversation but clearly both are actively involved. Some talk at their kids with the car as their audience. Others talk to their children not at all, some are on the cell but most are staring into space. It’s stark and it’s real.
As long as affirmative action exists, minorities will never be taken seriously by whites. Only Republican and conservative minorities believe this, and yet it is 100% truth.
I’m sure whoever does the hiring at most companies knows what standards people were held to while learning and act accordingly.
Nice to know that we actually now have a mathematical formula for determining the intelligence levels of the various races.
How dare any of you posters say that the Black race is inferior!
Thomas Sowell, James Baldwin, Marian Anderson, Clarence Thomas, Fr Augustine Tolton, Hermain Cain, George Washington Carver, Katherine Dunham,& many many more Black Americans who made it because of their superior intelligence which is not to say that other races are inferior.
Everyone regardless of race or ethnicity has the capablility to learn, unless a physical handicap affects his/her aptitude, & be just as smart as anyone in any other racial group. This has been documented by examining the Catholic schools in predominately poor, Black &/or Hispanic neighborhoods. 99.99% the children graduate HS without Affirmative Action policies enforced in the school & a super-majority of them succeed in college & beyond.
Affirmative Action without discipline & accountability is the worst thing in the world for the Black community & will be, if not is, for the Hispanic one.
Wait. What? ‘Black’ is a ‘race’?
You do realize that black people originate from a lot of different tribes and actually have more ‘diversity’ amongst them than other races (maybe that’s why ya’ll still kill each other brutally…just sayin’).
Anyhoodle, black across the whole world score lowest on I.Q. tests. If that’s racist, then explain why Asians score high on those test who don’t even spreaky Engrish?
Why are blacks more violent worldwide? Why do they rape and act like humping animals even when they are starving?
Please, answer me these things and don’t use ‘poverty’ as the only got-dang excuse, because blacks have been subsidized and lifted up by ‘white guilt’ for a long damned time and it did them no good AT ALL.
Yes, there are a handful of intelligent blacks amongst the throng of nasty ones. That doesn’t mean the outliers make the majority.
Sorry, home girrrrrrrrl.
You do realize that black people originate from a lot of different tribes and actually have more ‘diversity’ amongst them than other races (maybe that’s why ya’ll still kill each other brutally…just sayin’).
Not correct, in fact, 180 degrees wrong. DNA studies showing neanderthals and europeans share genes also show that neanderthals have even *more* in common with asians. The odd group out here is african blacks, with far less actual genetic diversity.
One assumes that whatever conclusions you are arriving at will need some subsequent revision accordingly.
I know that African blacks have NO Neanderthal DNA. DUHHHHHHHHHHHh.
Pay attention, so that I can ‘home slice’ school you…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043002485.html
So, if anyone should be callin’ each other ‘brutha’ it should be white to whites, whites to Asians, whites to hispanics…
Black people? They ain’t got da Neanderthal DNA.
(My apologia to black folk errwhere who have the sad fact that they sistas and bruths mighta come from warrin’ tribes but also that they ain’t Neanderthals).
Oh the humanity!
Sorry, that’s junk anthropology. Africans have more genetic diversity, because they never went through the genetic bottlenecks that happened when the ancestors of the Caucasians and Asians left Africa. The neanderthal contribution to the Euro-Asian genome is in the low single digits. Subsaharan Africans do have a lot more genetic diversity than the rest of us.
It is possible, however, that that small amount of neanderthal in the Euro-Asians is significant in terms of expression, though. That’s probably why blond hair and blue eyes only show up in Europeans, for example.
At some point in pre-history, Homo Sapiens assimilated neanderthals, and wiped them out as a distinct group, however, there’s no scientifically valid reason to believe they were stupid.
“Why are blacks more violent worldwide?” ———- That is 1 of the stupidest & vile statements I have ever read!!!!
How do I teach thee? Let me count the ways. NOT! It will bore the rest of the civilized posters who read this.
But I will write this to show how horrible of a person you are:
You are obviously ignorant on the multitude of violent & savage acts taken place throughout Asian & Western histories. Have you no clue what took place in the 20th century in Asia & Europe?
You think tribal society exists or existed only in Africa? Have you not heard of the Huns, Tao, Thao, Goths, Visigoths, Celts, Slavs, Vandals, Basques, etc?
I never implied that Blacks are currently the epitome of everything that is civilized. They do have major problems within their community, many times perpetrated by themselves. That is not to say that they are incapable of superior learning. I have proved their ability to learn as well as any other person of another ethnic/racial group by writing about the inner city Catholic schools’ success.
I apologize for only implying that Affirmative Action is bad for the Black community. I’ll now write it directly: Affirmative Action is bad for the Black community.
BTW, I am a white, conservative woman with an advanced degree in Statistics & soon to have another in Catholic Theology, who is proud to have been educated with & worked alonside with many good & intelligent Blacks. On the other hand, you are a numbnut, racist pig who should be banned from posting on this website!
Anonymous
“Why are blacks more violent worldwide?” ———- That is 1 of the stupidest & vile statements I have ever read!!!!
That is the weepiest load of tripe I’ve ever read (I refused to read the rest of your pathetic whining diatribe after that one mentally challenged statement).
http://www.colorofcrime.com/ <–read it and weep, biotch and take those razor blades outta your weave so I can give you a proper beat-down. Sarc/
well said.
Globally, Blacks have always outnumbered Whites from between ten to twenty to one (it’s varied over time) and we’ve all been on thie earth for the same amount of time, SO you’d think by now that Blacks would have been responsible for from between ten to twenty times as many inventions as Whites, right? But they haven’t.
The Florida BoE is telling black students that the school doesn’t expect much from them. The black students face two perils from this: They will come to trust that they can do sub par work and still advance. Or they believe that they are inferior.
The first work their way through the system get degrees and join the workforce. Then they find that they are at a disadvantage to fellow workers who had to struggle with much harder requirements. Do you want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who did not have to do as well in school to advance?
The second assume that they are destined to be less. If they try, they end up a manager of some little franchise that barely pays managers what skilled construction workers make. If they don’t try, there are many worse jobs and situations in the world.
Do any of you think that the human resources hiring officer at any company won’t know that certain people were held to different standards? So one person’s degree won’t have the same merit as another’s.
But there is a third possibility. They ignore being told they are not good enough and strive to compete with the Asians and Caucasians. They break the mold.
I am often disappointed in the comments section on articles on race here at PJMedia. Too many believe that race is some sort of biological grouping. Race is a social, cultural construct based on biologically superficial realities. Yes, there are differences in intelligence tests between races, but there is no biological basis for this difference. Let’s not join the Left in their ideas of a global black race, or even the idea of the “rich, white male.” I refuse to believe that a categorization that applies equally to both Mitt Romney and Larry the Cable Guy has any real meaning.
So, James K, the reason that blacks are disproportionately represented in Basketball and Football is because there are no inherently ‘racial’ differences?
hahahahahahahahaha
Oh wait. I get it now. It’s okay to say, “white man can’t jump” but it’s NOT okay to say, “black man can’t do mafs and fonicks’.
Gotchay.
I’m saying that the racial differences we see in society are a reflection on how different groups of people think and differences in values, not any real biologically significant factors. Black American culture values athleticism more than any other culture in America, therefore they have the most professional athletes.
Nonsense. Black slaves were chosen from specific tribes in Africa which were known for their strength (the Mandingos, for one) and for their lack of intelligence (in order to be more easily controlled, and were bred in captivity for those same traits) by the moslem Arabs who enslaved them, and who then later sold to the Whites for the same reasons. Over a thousand years of these programs DID indeed make a very big difference in overall aptitudes for same.
Aside from the fact that Larry the Cable Guy is a college graduate who is smart enough to utilize an image and an accent and turn them into massive popularity and millions of dollars, it’s nice to know that race is actually is “a social construct based on biologically superficial realities”. Good lord, what elite Ivy League institution turned you out?
Yes, there are differences in intelligence tests between races, but there is no biological basis for this difference.
See my note above to Delia re DNA studies re population genetics. You will find that you aren’t entirely correct here. Not only that, the notion that there are no biological differences seems to be an unknown concept to the people who design disease cures (and diseases, in some cases) that target by race. One would think that if race wasn’t biological reality, these things couldn’t work. You can use your google skills to look this stuff up.
Different treatments for various diseases are actually fairly superficial. Specifically, their limited to certain genes/proteins that have a specific effect. Humanity hasn’t evolved significantly since the creation of agriculture. The only differences are due to ubiquitous selective pressures (the sun for skin tone, malaria for sickle cell disease, cholera for cystic fibrosis).
As for sports, the difference is mostly culturally driven. To many young black men, sports is the only way to be successful, but to many whites and Asians, becoming a medical professional or an entrepreneur is a valid career choice. Jamaica leads the world in sprinters because Jamaican men are told from an early age that the only way to succeed is to be a great sprinter. Kenyans have great long distance runners for the same reason. There may be some difference of East vs West African descent, but culture plays much more into people’s choices.
Oh. And I have nothing against Larry the Cable Guy, who obviously plays a character. However, his character is a archetype pretty common in a lot of the areas of America. I was using him as a well known example. I think it’s ridiculous that we still speak of a meaningful white race. Nobody but the most backwards racists define themselves primarily as white, but rather by some non-racial subcultural group.
Dr. James D. Watson, the guy who discovered DNA, disagrees with you.
With the results Florida government schools are showing now, they should be disbanded like any private entity which failed so miserably would be.
Granted this isn’t entirely the school system’s fault. If parents don’t care about education and won’t make their kids get serious about it, there isn’t much they can do. But then the parental disrespect for education likely came in part from the poor education they had received along with other government programs degrading its need even more. After all, if Uncle Sugar gives you all you need to get by (with crime bringing in a little extra and county and state jail is a vacation), why bother to learn? You might be able to take that a step higher is someone is willing to do manual labor (with government handouts on the side) all their lives, then they don’t need an education either.
I have another issue with the proposed standards. No one with an IQ above a rock should have any issue getting a high school diploma unless he is not studying at all. Please, just look at your kids homework, any of you with high school age kids and tell me that’s not true.
There is something funny about these numbers.
Note to self:
Don’t go to the black doctor or lawyer and if I need to hire anyone don’t hire the black guy.
Why?
If grading was fair, it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter if Blacks ARE less intelligent than Whites on average. I for one never understood the big deal about it even if it’s true. I only want to hire one guy, so who cares what some average IQ between two huge numbers of people are? Joe Black might well be better than Dan White for the job I want.
But now, if Joe Black and Dan White have similar grades, I know that Dan White is better. Sure, I can take it into consideration and only hire Joe Black if he has significantly higher grades than Dan White, but how do I know by how much or how to do the computation? And what if Mary Mixedrace has a Black father and White mother? Should I suspect her grades were inflated, but less?
Better just hire the White guy.
Explain to me what’s the difference between KKK members and AA supporters, again?
Both agree Blacks are stupid and incompetent.
The KKK, however, is more logical. If Blacks ARE incompetent and stupid, surely AA’s position — that this means they need to be passed through school without learning anything — is simply absurd; at least the KKK doesn’t think THAT.
What’s more, the KKK is less racist. Every KKK member knows at least SOME Black people personally who they consider “all right” and “not like the rest of them”. AA folks insist that all Blacks be given preferences, implying they think there are no competent Black people.
Dear AA supporters: when you’re more racist and less logical than the KKK, doesn’t that tell you something?
David Duke supports Occupy Wall Street, supports Louis Farrakhan, and supports the Palestinians and hates Israel.
The KKK and the left have a lot more in common than you realize.
1950s: “I’ll never consider going to a black surgeon or lawyer. Blacks are stupid and cant meet White people’s standards.”
1970s: “H’m — maybe I’m wrong here… this MLK guy doesn’t seem dumb to me. Why, Black people are beginning to graduate from college — they seem to be able to do the work… maybe I’ll just consider the best lawyer or doctor I find?”
1990s: “I’ll never consider going to a black surgeon or lawyer. Affirmative Action tells me Blacks are stupid and can’t meet White people’s standards.”
MLK is rolling in his grave. Thanks, Affirmative Action! Now what was the difference between you and the KKK again? You both agree Blacks are inferior and stupid — only you AA guys says you feel *sorry* for them because of that and want to *help* them.
Yeah, you sure did a lot to help, idiots.
1950s: “I’ll never consider going to a black surgeon or lawyer. Blacks are stupid and cant meet White people’s standards.”
1970s: “H’m — maybe I’m wrong here… this MLK guy doesn’t seem dumb to me. Why, Black people are beginning to graduate from college — they seem to be able to do the work… maybe I’ll just consider the best lawyer or doctor I find?”
1990s: “I’ll never consider going to a black surgeon or lawyer. Affirmative Action tells me Blacks are stupid and can’t meet White people’s standards.”
Thanks, Affirmative Action! I was wavering there for a while in the 70s, but you saved me from the horrible mistake of treating the inferior darkies as equal. What was I thinking?
Hey, it’s called “social justice” in Education… next week, it’ll making the smart demographics do the work for the other ones (“cooperative learning”) or just taking their grades and redistributing them if they don’t.
Collier County in Southwest Florida already “dumbed down” expectations for all students about 11 years ago. The grading scale for CCPS was 94-100 = A. In order for our students to “compete on a level playing field” they lowered requirements to 90-100 = A. I thought at the time that they should have encouraged the students to work harder to be competitive and make the 94. Unfortunately, it seems that the Florida Board of Education doesn’t want to deal with the real problems at hand – they are now going to end up “Means Testing” for the bright futures scholarships (even though most of the state schools have not run out of money for needy students – only 2 did) and most of the incoming freshman in our colleges have to take remedial math and english before taking core courses because their skills are substandard. It’s ridiculous. Keep the expectations high, reward excellence not participation and remediate those needing extra help.
Give me a big enough lead, and I can beat Usain Bolt in the 100 meters.
Give me the best coaching in the world, and the best training, and the best nutrition and I will never be his equal. I will improve my performance, just not enough to be competitive. Now if we do that and put enough weight on his back, just maybe…
So what are we trying to do here? Equalize opportunity? Handicap things to equalize outcomes? Try to close a gap that can’t be closed without holding the fastest back?
Life is unfair.
This is so incredibly sad. I am by no means anything but average, but my still-married military parents made sure I paid attention in class, asked questions, and challenged assumptions. What they also did was this: they taught me to understand the concepts underlying whatever subject I was studying. I don’t know if that’s an old-fashioned idea, but I suspect that particular brand of learning is not being adopted in the AA (my own) community. I won’t speak to the average intelligence of AAs, but as an a deliberately unhyphenated American, I don’t worry about it. I may not be smarter than the next guy, but I will definitely work harder to make up for it. You cannot choose the hand you’re dealt, but ultimately you are responsible for the outcome. It’s okay not to be brilliant, but it’s not okay not to work hard and do your best.
BTW, as someone who was a recipient of the Bright Futures scholarship, I shudder to think about how low a high school GPA you needed to get it (for reference I had a 3.7 and was quite embarrassed about it).
Has anyone else noticed that its virtually never pointed out that Asian Americans consistently perform higher academically and on standardized tests regardless of their socioeconomic circumstances or the quality of their schools? Funny thing about that. If their success is not dependant upon how rich their family is or how well funded their school is, could it be…dare I say it…parenting? And, if so, how are we ever going to elevate the status of any ethnic group that marginalizes marriage and two parent families and has many, if not most, members with an attitude toward study and learning that is indifferent at best and openly hostile at the worst?
It may (or may not) be parenting as far as their non-math skills goes, but Malcolm Gladwell pointed out the real reason Asians only seem to be better at math is a very simple one: their language uses much smaller words for their numbers, which makes it much easier to keep more of them in short-term memory, available to be applied to equations and tests!
I dunno about THAT. Hebrew, the traditional language of the Jews, was quite bad in representing mathematics — far worse than the Indians or the Arabs were, for instance. And yet I’ve never heard anyone say that Jews are naturally bad at math…
Bwahaha! So typical of communist criminals!
Liberals are racists – they always assume that ONLY White, Western people (including, of course, the Jews in Israel,) are INTELLIGENT enough to be judged guilty of being truly evil, while all their pet “People Of Colour” (including, of course, the “swarthy palestinians,”) just can’t help being violent animals, the poor oppressed little dears, so they’ll always indulge their crimes, much as one ignores the new puppy as it pees on the rugs.
Our backwards “Education system” pretends to a right not to fail, not just a right to try to succeed! They want rights without responsibilities, and unearned, ‘communal’ ownership!
In doing so, the educationalists pretending to be teachers give this “right” to them selves, as well – by discouraging, depriving and stealing from their child charges and wards, their rights to learn for them selves from the (often painful) truth, these “educationalists” grant them selves the right to remain irresponsibly wrong, too! Literally: no pain, no gain – but they want only painless gains!
If they can’t fail their kids, then they imagine they can’t fail at their jobs… but, in doing so, they have already failed: they only ever encourage rights without responsibility, the ‘right’ to become spoiled little infantile delinquents and slaves to a nannystate society, when in reality we all only have the right to be responsible, to not attack others first, and the only real responsibility we’ll ever have, is to be factually right – and so to not attack others first! The right to remain wrong is a lie, and lying is the most basic form of theft – it’s the theft of the Truth. And theft IS crime!
It’s ‘backasswards edumacation’.
I’m teasin’ you.
Great posts. Keep ‘em coming. The Commies
are squirming in their adult red diapers!
When I was in Highschool way, way back in the 1960′s you had to have a “B” average to participate in extracurricular activities. My senior year our school was “gifted” by the busing initiative. Where they bused black students from somewhere else into our district. To be honest I still haven’t a clue where they came from. Didn’t really carte then and still don’t. They just showed up by the bus loads. Everything changed. No longer were the classrooms quite, They started fighting on a regular daily basis. They gathered in groups in the lunchroom breaking in line, yelling across the room at each other , reminded me of prison scenes in the movies. But the thing I remember most was the qualifications to play sports went from a “B” average to a “D” average. The black students got a pass on turning in homework. They got a passing grade when no work was turned in. They couldn’t fail, I think it is called social promotion. From what I can tell it is still being practiced even today and this article proves it. No wonder the President can get away without showing his college transcripts. All his classes were “Passed ,with sometimes present” This political correctness is killing the country.
The scary part is that these low-life idiots are teaching in schools now!!!!!! WTF?
My brain surgery analogy was spot on because in all honesty, ‘teachers’ are working on developing brains.
How I fear for our country!
HOME SCHOOL
Again I ask: what’s the obsession about race and IQ? Suppose Blacks as a group have a lower IQ by, say, 10 points. So what? Jews are supposed to have a higher mean IQ, and trust me, the number of stupid Jews I know, living in Israel… don’t get me started.
If you want to hire someone you hire the best person who applies to the job. If you start saying, “he has the best grades and experience, but his ethnic group is generally someaht less intelligent!” you’re not only screwing him, you’re screwing yourself.
I am not at all sure about what the IQ difference is, if any. And what’s more, I think it explains little or nothing. As the Harvard philosopher Andrew Oldenquist pointed out, if the rates of crime, illegitimacy, etc. in the Black community were to be explained by IQ, one would have to assume Blacks have an IQ *fifty* points below Whites on average — and nobody, not even the KKK, thinks *that*.
Why are Blacks in America failing? It’s not their low IQ, even if they HAD a (slightly) low IQ, which is not proven. It’s the breakup of the Black family, the contempt for education as “sucking up to the man”, the teen pregnancies, and the rest of that.
What caused THAT? Again, certainly not any IQ differences. In the 19th and early 20th century, Blacks did everything they could to keep their families together and get an education — often against great odds. Were the average ex-slaves in 1875 with a higher IQ than the average American Black today? I doubt it! Yet they did the right thing.
It was the progressive movement — the “families come in all shapes and sizes” movement (trans.: it’s terrible if MY daughter has a baby out of wedlock, but it’s no big deal if the poor darkies do it), “many intelligences movement” (translation: if MY son gets a low grade on the SAT I’ll kill him, but we’ll tell the stupid darkies the fact that they like rap is just as important as liking math or science), “Ebonics” (“let’s keep the darkies in the ghettoes by not teaching them proper English so they cannot actually work or study anywhere else”) and the rest of it.
The progressive movement had managed what the KKK could not: convine many folks in the Black commuity that they are just not smart enough or moral enough to behave like decent human beings, because “it’s their culture”.
Congratulations, I guess.
It is what I have suspected all along. The left genuinely thinks blacks are inferior. The right believes that we are spiritual beings first and things like skin color are irrelevant to intelligence. We are far more than our DNA. Culture? Yes, anytime education is considered unimportant, sure, that can affect IQ because, as articulated so very well in an earlier comment, we think with words, and when we can’t use words we can’t think well. That isn’t a DNA thing. If it is postulated that blacks are inferior, then you end up with this ridiculous program that institutionalizes racism. If you believe that blacks are equal, you end up with programs that treat blacks with the same dignity and respect as anyone else, and with the same challenges to greatness. Shame, shame, shame on the Florida Board of Education.
>>>>>>It is what I have suspected all along. The left genuinely thinks blacks are inferior.
Women as well: you know, all those “women studies” claims about “women’s way of knowing” that are “emotional” and “holistic” instead of “cold” and “logical”, you know, like “male” math and science.
It’s the old 19th-century “women are emotional and illogical” meme all over again, only adding “but it’s a GOOD thing, so don’t feel bad about it, girlie”.
I have an as yet unsubstantiated hypothesis that I.Q. is inversely proportional to nostril size. If I turn out to be right, Jimmy-the-Greek-style selective breeding could be used to elevate the I.Q.’s of blacks. That idea should appeal to the Terri Skidmores of the world. Right?