The Lake Woebegone Effect

WBAL - AM Radio, Baltimore ^ | Monday, August 25 | Ron Smith

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

Ron Smith's "Something to Say" Commentary
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The Lake Woebegone Effect
Monday, August 25, 2003    Ron Smith's Something to Say

As our children trudge off to another year of schooling, those charged with teaching them are struggling to figure out how to meet the impossible standards blithely imposed on the public schools by federal mandate.

Under the “No Child Left Behind Act,” American public schools are ordered to test their students in reading and math, meet certain arbitrary standards in the results, or suffer the consequences, which include an overhaul of instruction, a replacement of staff at “failing schools,” or an actual takeover by the state of schools that don’t meet the target test scores.

The results of the first exams in Maryland shouldn’t have been surprising. The overall results were said to be pretty good in the four grades tested – third, fifth, eighth and tenth – but “high-risk” groups scored poorly. One school in three failed the new assessment testing.

Black students didn’t do as well as Whites or Asians. Kids with “limited English” and Special Ed students also had their problems, a fact that doesn’t seem strange or fixable to anyone paying attention. A headline in the Baltimore Sun said, “Exams Reveal Racial Divide, Math Troubles.” Who wudda thunk it?

For years we have been harangued about inequality in test results, about how African-American children under-perform the other groups, and about how we should feel guilty about this, since obviously it results somehow – though inexplicably—from evil White racism. What’s never acknowledged, because it cuts against the orthodox egalitarian grain, is the persistent IQ difference between the groups in question. This gap has defied bridging for the better part of a century, since IQ testing was first developed.

If there is indeed such a difference in measured cognitive abilities, how could we expect an eradication of differences in academic test scores? The answer is, we can’t. But since we’re not allowed to peer at painful reality, we are ordered by the government to do what cannot be done, or else.

About 15 years ago, a man named John Cannell did a study that found all states claimed average test scores above the national average. This is statistically impossible, of course, and his report was later popularized as the Lake Woebegone Effect, after humorist Garrison Keillor’s novel. “Lake Woebegone Days,” which described a fictional community where “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children above average.”

That was satire. The government’s ham-handed attempt to pretend all children are equally educable is farce.

THIS article at WBAL - AM Radio, Baltimore

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

The government’s ham-handed attempt to pretend all children are equally educable is farce.

All, Ah-YUP'! Peace and love, George.

[billorites]

Why is government in the education business anyway?

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

Guys, Draco was WRONG!!! Emulating him today, in lawmaking, is STILL wrong. Peace and love, George.

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

"Why is government in the education business anyway?"

B, The ostensible reason is to have a learned population capable of individual thought. BUT, that DAMN SURE ain't the goal of today's "educators". Peace and love, George.

[steve50]

Why is government in the education business anyway?

Because it pays well. Billions of dollars there, even if you only skim 4-5% it adds up to big bucks.

[netmilsmom]

Am I reading this wrong or is this author saying that black kids are stupid?
How bigoted can you get?

[redbaiter]

Not all black kids underperform. Immigrant kids from Dominica do just dandy in skrool. It seems the further away you are from the Jesse Jackson school, the better you do in the real school. I have no idea what he refers to with IQ differences. Even if there is a difference I think it absurd to name that the culprit in black kids' abysmal academic performance.

[Mr. Bird]

He's coming awfully close, I agree. But he's also making sure to point out that he is stating objective truth (however it's the first I've actually heard of it): that whites have higher IQ's than blacks, as evidenced by study.

If that is the case, then we could have a very uncomfortable conversation ahead. Or, as Smith seems to be saying, we will not have the conversation, and continue to spin our wheels in the name of PC.

So I guess the questions are: Do blacks have lower IQ's than whites, on the whole? If so, does that mean the IQ test is invalid, or does it mean that blacks are of lower intelligence? I can't imagine anyone actually asking these questions in public.

[ClearCase_guy]

IQ tests really have shown blacks to have lower IQ's than whites for many, many decades. It's not new. It is also well documented in the book The Bell Curve. That book said unpleasant things, and so everyone attacked it and came to the conclusion that is was bad science. It was not. It merely said things that are not supposed to be said.

Some people say IQ tests are racist -- well, go ahead and design one so that blacks score better than whites. I've never seen such a test. Wonder why? And what would it look like? "Li'l Kim is to phat as -- Dr J is to my ol' lady"

[ladylib]

They are disadvantaged according to this article:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/2065691

I believe the author of this article is stating the truth. Children who are virtually ignored by their parents and don't receive intellectual stimulation at home are at a huge disadvantage and the schools really can't make it up.

I don't know what the answer is either.

[ladylib]

I read somewhere that black students in the Caribbean score an average of 1300 on their SATs.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

...the book The Bell Curve. That book said unpleasant things, and so everyone attacked it and came to the conclusion that is was bad science.

And in true leftist fashion they demonized the author as racist.

[hopespringseternal]

Some people say IQ tests are racist -- well, go ahead and design one so that blacks score better than whites. I've never seen such a test. Wonder why? And what would it look like? "Li'l Kim is to phat as -- Dr J is to my ol' lady"

The problem isn't that the test is racist, but the kid taking it is.

All his life, success and education has been presented as a "white" thing, and that by remaining poor and ignorant he is maintaining his independence from the white man. Scoundrels like Jesse Jackson present society as so hopelessly corrupt and racist that the paths open to minorities are Jesse Jackson and crime. Simply adopting the culture of education and hard work is portrayed as a sellout. Plenty of black families don't buy this nonsense, but put a kid in a public school and he is going to be exposed to it all the time.

Liberals like this clown sabotage blacks' chances for success with one hand and sympathize with their misery to get votes with the other hand. If blacks ever caught on to this treachery en masse, there wouldn't be a white liberal left alive.

[Reagan Renaissance]

"Why is government in the education business anyway?"

We should start by eradicating stupidity in Congress. Removing all "D's" would be a reasonable beginning. And as follow-up remove most of the Republican leadership. That would get rid of the dem-wits and the half-wits. Then and only then, the rest might be educable, but their records prove they have a lot to learn.

[B-Chan]

I've read The Bell Curve, and, while I think the authors made some interesting points,I still don't buy the biologcal differences argument. Culture is the real determining factor in the educablilty of a child: just as a youngster raised in a loving home where diligence and learning are valued for their own sakes is going to succeed at whatever level he or she can, so too will people who are born into a culture where success and knowledge are highly valued. To my mind there's no difference between white trash culture and black ghetto thug culture: both cultures esteem sexual prowess and sensual excess, both see success in terms of conspicuous displays of wealth and power, and both are intimately tribal and ethnic. To those raised in such cultures, book learning is the province of the hated Other (“rich snobs who think they're better than us pore folk / white racist oppressors who want to enslave afro-Amercans”) and has no relevance to life as they live it; is it any wonder that many people that cont themselves members of these failed cultures have no use for school?

[sauropod]

Well, ol'ronnie may have bit off more than he can chew with this piece.

By alluding to the bell curve, i expect pickets on TV Hill.

[ClearCase_guy]

I agree with everything you say. I will note however, that when someone says "blacks score lower", it may matter to some degree whether the cause is biological or cultural, but on the other hand, it does not matter. The PC response is that it's Whitey's fault. Well, both biology and black culture are outside of Whitey's control, so it is not Whitey's fault.

I'd say the only way to really pin down the cause is to change black culture in the US (because we can't change biology). Then we might see if that makes a difference or not (I think it would) -- but who would resist any change to black culture, as part of an effort to get black kids to succeed? The Democrats.

[SuziQ]

The government’s ham-handed attempt to pretend all children are equally educable is farce.

I don't think the govt's standards are expecting every child to be equally educable, I just think they're expecting every child to be educated equally. That means that all public school kids get the minimum standards in education. That these are set very low so as to not stress most kids is a travesty, but that's another story.

[rightofrush]

Read The Bell Curve, chapter 9.

[bethelgrad]

Draco =

You mean "Drago" from Rocky IV? Always bad to imitate Soviet pinkos, and especially bad acting Dutch actors.