Posted on 08/26/2013 7:12:52 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Los Angeles Times recently published a devastating case study in the malign effects of academic racial preferences. The University of California, Berkeley, followed the diversocrat playbook to the letter in admitting Kashawn Campbell, a South Central Los Angeles high-school senior, in 2012: It disregarded his level of academic preparation, parked him in the black dorm — the “African American Theme Program” — and provided him with a black-studies course.
The results were thoroughly predictable. After his first semester, reports the Times:
[Kashawn] had barely passed an introductory science course. In College Writing 1A, his essays — pockmarked with misplaced words and odd phrases — were so weak that he would have to take the class again.
His writing often didn’t make sense. He struggled to comprehend the readings for [College Writing] and think critically about the text.
“It took awhile for him to understand there was a problem,” [his instructor] said. “He could not believe that he needed more skills. He would revise his papers and each time he would turn his work back in having complicated it. The paper would be full of words he thought were academic, writing the way he thought a college student should write, using big words he didn’t have command of.”
His grade-point average was 1.7, putting him at risk of expulsion if he didn’t raise it by the end of the year. The one bright spot in his academic record? Why, African American Studies 5A, of course! Kashawn had received an A on an essay and a B on a midterm, the best grades of his freshman year:
Kashawn reveled in the class [a survey of black culture and race relations], in a way he hadn’t since high school. He would often be the first one to speak up in discussions, even though his points weren’t always the most sophisticated, said Gabrielle Williams, a doctoral student who helped teach the class.
He still had gaps in his knowledge of history. But, Williams said, “you could see how engaged he was, how much he loved being there.”
Did Kashawn’s good grades in African American Studies 5A mean that he had suddenly learned how to think and to write? Not at all. He was advancing little in his second go-round at expository writing: “On yet another failing essay, the instructor wrote how surprised she was at his lack of progress, especially, she noted, given the hours they’d spent going over his ‘extremely long, awkward and unclear sentences.’”
His (to him) unforeseen academic struggles took a psychological toll:
He had never felt this kind of failure, nor felt this insecure. . . . Each poor grade [was] another stinging punch bringing him closer to flunking out. None of the adults in his life knew the depth of his pain: not his professors, his counselors, any of the teachers at his old high school.
He tries to rally his spirits with heart-wrenching pathos: “‘I can do this! I can do this!’ he had written [in a diary]. ‘Let the studying begin! . . . It’s time for Kashawn’s Comeback!’”
A counselor in the campus psychologist’s office urged him to scale back his academic ambitions. “Maybe he didn’t have to be the straight-A kid he’d been in high school anymore,” the counselor advised him. This “be content with mediocrity” message is hardly a recipe for future success, but it sums up the attitude that many a struggling affirmative-action “beneficiary” has adopted to get through college.
The black-themed dorm and student center also operated exactly as one would expect, confirming their members’ belief in their own racial oppression:
“Sometimes we feel like we’re not wanted on campus,” Kashawn said, surrounded at a dinner table by several of his dorm mates, all of them nodding in agreement. “It’s usually subtle things, glances or not being invited to study groups. Little, constant aggressions.”
Of course, the only reason that Kashawn and many of his fellow dorm mates are at Berkeley is because the administration “wants” them so much, regardless of their chances of success. It is unlikely, however, that African American Studies 5A discussed the academic-achievement gap in Berkeley’s admissions between black, white, and Asian students. That gap, not racism, explains why Kashawn is not a sought-after addition to study groups. (Kashawn came to Berkeley through one of the University of California’s many desperate efforts to evade California’s ban on governmental racial preferences: an admissions guarantee for students in the top decile of their high school classes, regardless of their test scores or the caliber of their school.)
Kashawn is on tenterhooks waiting to learn if his second-semester grades will allow him to continue into sophomore year. Which course gave him an A–, to pull his GPA over the top? Hint: It wasn’t College Writing.
The Times could not have written a more resounding confirmation of mismatch theory if it had tried. (The paper’s motivations for the story remain mysterious, since the Times is conventionally liberal on race matters.) Mismatch theory, most recently expounded by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor, is the most powerful critique of affirmative action yet developed, demonstrating empirically that students admitted to academic environments for which they are ill prepared learn less, and are less likely to pursue rigorous majors, than had they been enrolled in schools where their peers shared their level of academic preparation.
But the Times story conveys a subtler point as well: Racial preferences are not just ill advised, they are positively sadistic. Only the preening self-regard of University of California administrators and faculty is served by such an admissions travesty. Preference practitioners are willing to set their “beneficiaries” up to fail and to subject them to possible emotional distress, simply so that the preference dispensers can look out upon their “diverse” realm and know that they are morally superior to the rest of society.
— Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor at the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and the author of Are Cops Racist?
so did Venezuela
look how that’s turning out
UC Berkeley (and others) is not for everyone, Keshawn included.
Two years at a JC probably could have better prepared him for a four year state college, which is not as demanding as a UC.
When we visited colleges last year for my daughter in VA we had student tour guides. At one school, the guide was a black 22 year old Junior. He said, “dis be my dorm”, he said “yo” a lot and other broken ghetto speak.
We broke ranks in the middle of the tour and went on to the next college.
If I were a student, who was doing reasonably well, why would I invite a poor student? He won’t be able to keep up and he would only slow me down.
When I was in college, I remember a person who got a D in organic chemistry and went to another college and got a B. All schools are the not same. Berkeley is a very competitive school and only students who meet the real qualifications should be admitted. There are many levels of colleges, and there are community colleges. From what I have read, the California public school system is poor and even poorer if you are a minority. Obviously, this young man was not prepared by his high school experience for Berkeley. Is the problem the young man’s lack of ability, his education, or a combination of both? I have no idea.
But the point is that it is sadistic to put someone in a top college just because of their race. Liberals think they are being “good”. Sadly, the non qualified students have a very hard time and are much more likely to drop out. And these students take the place of much more qualified students. The liberal mindset is disordered and harms people in so, so many ways.
So what happened to Kashawn?................
Social Engineering, like it's very big brother Socialism, is doomed to fail everytime.
“Sounds like Michelle Obama’s thesis at Princeton!”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
As Christopher Hitchens wrote,
“I direct your attention to Mrs. Obama’s 1985 thesis at Princeton University. Its title (rather limited in scope, given the author and the campus) is “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community.” To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be “read” at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn’t written in any known language.”
I recall a line in one of Erskine Caldwell’s books, something like, “Possession of a hammer don’t make of a man a carpenter.” Likewise possession of a degree does not make a person educated. The degree used to be awarded to signify the attainment of an education but now there seems to be little or no connection between the two. If we could return to the old K-12 system people would finish high school with far more education than is now represented by a bachelor degree. Obviously a REAL education is far from being the goal of the modern system.
Bingo!............
The most glaring example is one Barack Hussein Obama II, an unaccomplished narcissist elected to the highest public office in the land. Congratulations America...what an embarrassment.
Yes. He’s learning a trade known as ‘Race Hustling.
One can make an excellent living at it if one has the right “credentials”.
Looks like the South was way ahead of the power curve on this one, except for the title. They called it "Segregation".
American media and left did this with a white-black president and look how that is turning out.
If we returned to the old K-12 system, in a few short decades we would be back to where we are today.
The old system was, and continues to be today, a compulsory-use, single-payer, and socialist-entitlement program.It was a 19th century Progressive idea. Progressives, and later socialists and Marxists, have **ALWAYS** controlled teacher training and curriculum development. The Progs/Socialists/Marxists have always been pushing at the edges of societies moral norms.
Now, I am going to shout, jump up and down, and wave my arms in a warning alarm!
SINGLE-PAYER, SOCIALIST-ENTITLEMENT, COMPULSORY PROGRAMS CAN NOT BE FIXED! THEY MUST BE ABOLISHED!
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS WERE **ALWAYS** A COMPULSORY-USE, SINGLE-PAYER, AND SOCIALIST-ENTITLEMENT. THEY CAN NOT BE FIXED. THEY MUST BE ABOLISHED!
All it took to give the nation Franklin D. Roosevelt with his compulsory, single-payer, and socialist programs was one to three generations of citizens schooled in compulsory, single-payer, and socialist-entitlement schools.
Our parents and grandparents gave us Lyndon B. Johnson and his socialist-entitlement and single-payer programs. They were schooled in compulsory, single-payer, and socialist-entitlement schools.
Finally, nearly every teacher in this nation ( pre-K through college and graduate school) was trained by Marxists in Marxist-run colleges and universities. Certainly few of these teachers are full-blown communists but their Marxist training does bleed through into their classrooms.
Trayvon’s pathetic girlfriend is Exhibit A of someone with an excess of self-esteem. Only fools such as Piers Morgan and his fellow blind media types agreed with her assessment of herself.
“Higher self esteem” would seem to be just a new name for what we used to call “overconfidence”. Confidence is wonderful, without some degree of confidence a person is powerless, I know because I have been in that condition, afraid to try because I “knew” I could not succeed. On the other hand overconfidence causes one to believe he already possesses knowledge and skills when in fact he is lacking. This can result in problems of all kinds, up to and including death. When the overconfident are put in charge they create disasters of all kinds, the current situation in the USA would be a prime example. Install a totally unqualified community organizer as president and rather than seeing the Earth begin to heal itself as he claimed you will see what we are seeing, a nation destroying itself.
Bump your excellent post.
The problem is, wintertime, that graduates of the American public school have been made creatures of the State that created the system, and rarely have retained the capacity for critical thought.
The modern state creates its own people, as Brecht mockingly advised the East German regime back in ‘53.
Obamacare won't be that bad at first.
In a generation or two citizens will say, “If we could return to the old Obamacare system....”.
Obamacare, like government K-12 schooling, is compulsory-funded and will be compulsory-use because the private market in health care ( just like private schooling) will be driven to near extinction. Private health care will find it hard to compete against a government monopoly and price-fixed cartel that is giving away health care for no fee, just as government schools give their service away for tuition-free.
Do you see, now. Government schooling can't be fixed because it is a compulsory-funded, compulsory-use, single-payer, socialist-entitlement, and price-fixed monopoly cartel. It **always** has been!
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