There may be a grain of truth there.
If you went to a school where the teacher did well to merely prevent riots, rapes and gang fights during class, and somehow graduated, you may be completely out of your element trying to learn from a lecture. Even if you are bright, motivated and somehow got into a good college despite coming from such a hell hole.
It SEEMS like the natural and normal way for someone like me who went to decent schools, but I’ve tutored people who, while intelligent and motivated, weren’t very good at taking notes, a skill I had mastered by 9th grade.
Just as I know people much smarter than myself who score nowhere nearly as well on tests as I do, I like taking them and test so far above my actual ability and knowledge that sometimes I’ve ended up placed in classes that I was in no way ready for.
Yes, a silly premise on the face of it, but maybe it makes a bit of sense to spend resources in finding the intelligent and motivated students who need the study skills that someone like myself who went to good schools- and had both parents highly interested in my academic progress- assimilated early. IMHO, there’s a germ of truth, however horribly perverted to the cause of political correctness.
Just a devil’s advocate .02 :-)
Drum circles and Tupperware parties should level the playing field for women and minorities. Or science can become science again, math can become math and disparate impact, wise Latinas, and foreign law can no longer be used to trump the Constitution. That might help restore some sanity to students and schools.