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I passed the LAST test with nearly a perfect score. It was, to me, nothing more than a slightly jumped up SAT test. If the blacks and Hispanics are having a hard time, it simply reflects their much more constricted home environment which kept them from widening their horizons. I’ll bet they didn’t have bookshelves lining the living room, with books that were actually read. I’ll bet they didn’t visit museums, zoos, etc. as a kid. I’ll bet they weren’t reading before they entered kindergarten, as I was. Nor did they seek to expand their horizons on their own, as in undergrad days. I find their excuses for “redoing the LAST exam” feeble and pathetic. I found most black and Hispanic teachers I met—with a few exceptions, of course—to be people without a broad educational background. They didn’t know from Shakespeare, they tended to believe stuff without checking it out, they tended to act on emotions rather than logic (hence the success of grifters like Al Sharpton), they didn’t know from geography unless it was their “home country”, they were not lifelong learners, and they had an inferior grasp of their subject matter. Whether you were born here in a lower socioeconomic environment or whether you emigrated to this country to live and work here, it is your obligation to make up any “cultural deficiencies” which might affect formal test scores. It is not MY obligation, as a taxpayer, to pay big time for tests to be revamped until they are at a level low enough for you to pass. I’m tired of minorities making every and any excuse for themselves as to why they can’t succeed. Having some minority friends who have towering intellects, are extremely well-versed in many subjects, and are very work oriented, I am convinced it is totally possible—if you are sufficiently motivated—to pass standardized tests without their having to be dumbed down. And isn’t having to have the tests revamped a form of calling yourself dumb?

I found most black and Hispanic teachers I met—with a few exceptions, of course—to be people without a broad educational background.

And a lot of them are doubling down on it by indicating that black and Hispanic children should only have to read "culturally relevant" literature - most of which was written in the last 50 years, is at the 5th grade lexile level, and is little more than a litany of complaints about all the bad things that have happened in their lives.