I am a publik skool teacher, and I do not agree with this article at all. Who gives a SHIT what color or ethnicity a student hails from?!? Students should only be passed on based on MERIT! I only pass those students who demonstrate mastery of the subject. The school doesn’t like it, but I have far too many years in for them to easily get rid of me...;-) (Kind of a catch-22 with that tenure thing...;-))
I have observed, and some other teachers have confirmed to me, that some minority students will actually ridicule those of their "group" if they work hard in school, or even take assignments home.
There is also, apparently, a subset of a "group" who remain convinced that professional sports is their future, and thus, basic educational fundamentals (reading, writing, math) will not be necessary.
Then, there is the two-parents-at-home effect, which I believe might be fairly well-described.
My question for you...are these somewhat in line with your "puplik skool" observations?
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Diploma or no diploma, unless you are 6'11” tall with a hell of a jump shot or are gorgeous or have some other extreme talent or are born a Kennedy with hired talented handlers from birth, stupid does not forecast a prosperous future. And quite frankly, if you can't jump it really does not matter if the reason is inadequate legs or fear of heights.
With enough exceptions to confirm life is interesting, all the “high wage jobs” in America and elsewhere are for the 20% most smart. Job training and main stream education may usefully turn stupid, unemployed people into stupid people holding low wage jobs, but it does not cure stupid. So, noting that this “theory” is indeed more scientific than “creation science”, it is really a matter of whether or not you want to pass out attendance merit badges for feel-good purposes.
There are important questions in education. For example, are we educating our smart children as well as they can be educated? This matters because it is the 20% of them who are smartest that will be funding our social security checks, not the dumber 20% that will remain largely dependent even beyond high-school, with or without a diploma.
Our educators that have proved totally unable to qualify stupid people for “high wage jobs” (because they can not turn stupid into smart) are proven in their ability to disqualify smart people from ever holding them, because they can fail to educate. In the global economy if we have educated our smart children well, our social security checks will be there. If not, they will peter out before we do. It should not escape notice that before the information age, not being among the very smart was not such a competitive disadvantage.
But John Edwards’ “Two Americas” is both a reasonably correct observation and in the full blown information age of the 21st century largely reflects an increasingly visible separation of the pretty darned smart from the not. It would be nice if race was not a statistically disproportionate part of this dichotomy. Unfortunately, this is not the case. So discussion of it invariably risks being tarred a racist.
Here is the single most important political question of the age:
What can and should America offer “the unsmart” who surely are not earning the big bucks and never will, in degree attributable to chance and unfair inequity, but mostly because they are perhaps a few synapses short.
Deceptive as it may be, “leaders” among liberals and Democrats have an answer that is on topic and spins easily and well. Little matter that it reduces itself to “From each according to ability, to each according to his needs ...” which sounds pretty darned good to someone with real and imagined needs in abundance, no way out, and no accurate awareness of the history. Quite frankly, why would an “unsmart person” not believe that there is no money in their pocket because the rich guy has it all in his. And notice how adeptly this approach sidesteps ever speaking to the matter of differing ability leading to different rewards. Some pigs may be more equal than others. But don't talk about the dimensions of equality
In the 21st Century, what's our answer folks?
Re-emergent conservative success requires one because conservatism resurrected must offer a better economic future that can be seen and appreciated as offering a best case future to at least 70% to 80% of the population, a figure that reaches deeply into the “unsmart.”
And in the meantime, America's future comparative economic success in the world depends on our ability to educate the smarter children better, not the dumber.