School considers cancelling AP classes because too many white students are succeeding

wordpress ^ | August 25, 2012 | Dan from Squirrel Hill

[grundle]

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog

Berkeley public high school considers cancelling its Advanced Placement classes because too many white students are succeeding

Human Events reports:

The Berkeley (CA) Board of Education will consider whether or not to cancel before and after school Science Labs for Advanced Placement Science classes at Berkeley High School because the classes are attended largely by white students. The proposal is aimed at addressing “Berkeley’s dismal racial achievement gap.”

Berkeley’s AP Science courses are an outstanding success. In a time when we are constantly reminded of the need for American students to get better at Physics, Biology, and Chemistry, 82% of Berkeley’s AP chemistry students passed the national exam. The national passing rate is 55.2%.

The AP classes are open to all students, but because “minority” students don’t “show up” to these lab classes in the same percentage as the percentage of “minority” students attending Berkeley High overall, the classes must be cancelled to close the “dismal racial achievement gap.”

If classes are open to all students, why should those students who choose the harder classes be punished in the name of those students who did not choose to work as hard?

Berkeley High School has a first rate reputation for providing equal opportunity to all students. Unequal outcomes in student achievement are the result of the effort each student puts into taking advantage of those opportunities. Narrowing the “achievement gap” by eliminating the achievers doesn’t help either the achievers or the rest of the students.

This is absurd. The students already have equality of opportunity. Just because some students don’t take advantage of that opportunity doesn’t mean that the opportunity should be denied to those students who do want to take advantage of it.

This is the kind of nonsense that happens when an organization tries to make everyone “equal.” Trying to make everyone “equal” always end up dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. When everyone is “equal,” no one is allowed to be smarter than the dumbest person.

The truth is that each person is a unique individual. When presented with a chance to take Advanced Placement classes, some students will take advantage of that opportunity, and others will not. The fact that some students choose to not take the AP classes is not a legitimate justification for cancelling them.

Let’s take a look at that third paragraph again:

The AP classes are open to all students, but because “minority” students don’t “show up” to these lab classes in the same percentage as the percentage of “minority” students attending Berkeley High overall, the classes must be cancelled to close the “dismal racial achievement gap.”

My gosh – that’s just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

Let’s look at it a third time:

The AP classes are open to all students, but because “minority” students don’t “show up” to these lab classes in the same percentage as the percentage of “minority” students attending Berkeley High overall, the classes must be cancelled to close the “dismal racial achievement gap.”

The fact that there are people in the world who think that this is a good idea is sad.

The fact that people who subscribe to this ideology are in control of the public school system is terrifying.

[onyx]

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[Chickensoup]

I guess this in really politically incorrect, but why is the race of the people succeeding important? I would think that whether a child succeeds or fails is an issue for the child and its parents. Not anyone elses business.

[BobL]

“Danged white people. Always screwing things up for everyone else.”

More likely Asians. The whites in that part of the country are even more lazy than the minorities.

[Altura Ct.]

Yay for equality!

Borg unite!

[ConservativeStatement]

“Typical white people.”

[Joe 6-pack]

Something tells me they don't read Harrison Bergeron in AP English.

[vetvetdoug]

My daughter is taking AP classes for one reason. In the regular classes there is diversity and the diverse students are disruptive and disrespectful. In those classes it is very difficult for the teachers to teach because the majority of the time they are trying to keep the class under control. The AP classes are less diverse because the diverse students do not wish to go into classes where they have to work. The result is a class that the teachers are able to teach without the disruptive diversity.

[MaxMax]

Asians and Hispanics are profiled as White now. I think I know why.
If the made up gap closes towards the made up equality they seek
there is no more market for racism.
And the race blame game is a huge money maker
for Black race-baiting shakedown arists.

[Java4Jay]

bump

[savagesusie]

We need local control of all education-—get government OUT! John Stuart Mill stated that government will make slaves of the masses, if in charge of schools. We’ve seen the Communist Carter establish the DOE-—completely unconstitutional. Minds of children were superior——Mark Twain quit school at 13. Lincoln went to school for only a month or two—learned to read at home and read the Bible all his life. These men had character—stood on principles and did NOT sway to mob “group think” which the Prussian system in America is designed to do-—brainwash ALL kids into “Group Think”==they will learn to “feel” a certain way when they hear words, like Republican (evil), gay (good), sodomy (good), heterosexual marriage (bigoted).

They are using BF Skinner methodology on your kids—in the MSM also—to make kids Godless and use their bodies as toilet tissue—to destroy long term relationships so they have only government nanny to take care of them since they pick up hedonism and worthless “lifestyles” which use others for self-gratification.

We need curricula PRIOR to Dewey who intentionally put in “social Sciences”-—he was a Fabian Socialist and wanted to have equal outcomes-—which destroy all the smart children-—bore them to death so they hate to read and just let their minds rot on all the aimless cr*p, stupid porn they put in curricula, and useless information that doesn’t teach Truth and instill honor, duty, courage.

What is the book most read by boys-—The Wimpy boy diary. Why would parents want boys to read about other boys ridiculing other children-—that just reinforces rudeness and weak character.

Pick up a Horatio Alger book typical of what “real” boys who grew up to be responsible, moral men (Reagan read them). I read one-—they are about being moral and doing the right thing, esp. if you can profit from doing wrong.

Children are intentionally being corrupted——by jerry brown now-—forcing Kindergarten kids to learn about anal sex. These perverted, warped adults are Satanic-—probably in some Sandusky ring. Especially Brown bending to the Sodomy lobby to corrupt the innocence of children. THat innocence is essential for normal sexual formation. Homosexuals are abused emotionally/physically and he is forcing the emotional abuse of kids in schools-—allowing incredibly SICK minds to write the curricula and normalize such unnatural, debasing acts that children would NEVER think about unless corrupted.

[bobo1]

fire the teachers because they cannot get the minorities interested in bettering themselves.

hire some teachers that will inspire them to make something out of their lives!

why give up on those that want to succeed?

when u have a bunch of union twits running the educational system, and then they fail, they will leave the brilliant behind.

that’s the fascist/marxist way!

Blessings, bobo

[Brad’s Gramma]

I know someone in the CA school system, a special Ed teacher. “No Child Left Behind” is killing the futire for those kids. For all the kids. She’s fit to be tied as she now has to “pass” everyone.

Please don’t blame all the teachers ... A lot of times it’s this feel-good junk that’s being enacted.

[QT3.14]

In other news...another case of being too white...

Georgia high school choruses reportedly not diverse enough to perform with Atlanta orchestra

[verum ago]

Harrison G*ddamn Bergeron! Unbelievable. Just... Unbelievable.

[EinNYC]

BOBO, you are aptly named--Spanish for "clown" or "idiot". You have a big mouth and nothing to back it up. And, you've been watching too many movies.

fire the teachers because they cannot get the minorities interested in bettering themselves.

You have the students in your class for approximately 43 minutes. It takes about 10 minutes for them to finally get their lazy a__s into the classroom and into their seat, and finally stop talking. Half the time you are trying to teach, you are telling them to put away their cellphones and/or stop talking. Five minutes before the bell, they already start to pack up their notebooks. They're done, even if the lesson isn't.

Additionally, the students are immersed in a very strong anti-academic culture. Anyone who appears to be trying to do well academically is ridiculed, and even in some cases threatened with bodily harm by thug students.

Many of the students hold after-school jobs which take up far too much of their time and energy. Then, they don't have the report you assigned ("I didn't have time to go to the library", "the library was closed", "I don't have a library card", etc.) or to study for the test you promised. They fail the test and openly admit they didn't study for it.

So according to your asinine logic, it's the TEACHER who should be fired. What the heck could the teacher have done to change this student behavior? Go against a deeply ingrained anti-academic culture? Go against known passing statistic quotas?

when u have a bunch of union twits running the educational system, and then they fail, they will leave the brilliant behind.

That is such a totally dumba$$ remark, it barely merits a reply. The UNIONS have NOTHING to do with running the educational system. That would be the idiot meddling politicians who don't know a thing about education but force unproven methodologies dreamed up by leftist ivory-tower professors on teachers who know it's crap. They instruct the administrators to pass it on down the line to the teachers. The teachers are forced to teach what they are told in the way they are told, or they won't have a job.

It's been my experience that "the brilliant" will succeed no matter what because they WANT to. This alone distinguishes them from the absolutely typical lazy as sin student, IQ aside. Teachers are always eager to help kids who WANT to succeed, routinely giving up their lunch hours or staying after school on their own time to tutor and mentor such kids.

Next time you want to make statements based on movie characters like "Sir" or "Jaime Escalante" instead of reality, please don't. You only embarrass yourself.

[man_in_tx]

Hey, I am okay with ensuring equal outcomes, as long as we are consistent about it.

In my recollection, no one who is worked up about whites and Asians doing better in school or spending less time in prison than blacks and Latinos is similarly worked up about the fact that the MLB has a disproportionate number of Latinos on its rosters or that the NFL and NBA give a disproportionate number of playing slots to blacks — to say nothing of many of the running events in the Olympics. If these folks want to make sure 12% of blacks become high school valedictorians or whatever, then let’s make sure we also get some five-foot Filipinos playing center in the NBA, and some geeky white guys starting for the Philadelphia Eagles. Fair is fair, after all! /s

[Godwin1]

The high school in Evanston, Illinois is doing effectively the same thing. There they are dumbing down AP admission standards so the slower and lazier students can enter AP. Once in, of course, there will be “success” quotas as well. Racial “equity” has replaced academic excellence as the primary value. This approach, of course, hurts high achieving and hard working students of all backgrounds. Bush said it best: the bigotry of soft expectations.

[upchuck]

Nice of you to mention that the Human Events article this is based on was dated 1/29/10. Two and a half years ago? This entire post is worthless.

[grundle]

Actually, the Human Events link that you cite is the exact same link that is cited in the blog. The text in italics is quoting the Human Events article. The non-italicized text is from the writer of the blog.

[tanknetter]

So why bother?

It's about passing the test, which usually means the ability to apply credit hours to college without actually having to pay for them.

I was AP Constitutional History in high school, got a 5 on the test and had three credit hours automatically handed to me by my university my first day of Freshman year plus the ability to waive out of Intro to US Government (which I still took because I wanted to make it into the school's Honors Program and needed as high of grades as possible to counteract the poor grade I knew I was going to get in Finite Math (C+)).

I had a friend who came into undergrad having credits for four or five AP classes/tests. He got to graduate a semester early, which put him in a much better position for getting a job than the rest of us who graduated in the normal May/June flood.