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Berkeley's Unbearable Whiteness of Science
American Thinker ^ | January 04, 2010 | Thomas Lifson

Posted on 01/03/2010 10:27:06 PM PST by neverdem

The racial madness that has left-wing America in its thrall finds its apogee in the Berkeley, California public schools. Berkeley High School is now poised to eliminate science laboratory classes because "science labs were largely classes for white students." Eric Klein writes in The Easy Bay Express:

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Five science teachers will lose their jobs if the proposal is adopted when the School Board meets next week:
It will come before the Berkeley School Board as an information item at its January 13 meeting. Generally, such agenda items are passed without debate, but if the school board chooses to play a more direct role in the High School Redesign, it could bring the item back as an action item at a future meeting.

All Berkeley High students, whatever their race, would lose the opportunity to get a solid grounding in science, opening up the door to achievement in higher education and life via scientific study. Notes Klein:
Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School's science department ... who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and 13.9 percent Latino. "As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their education," she told the board.

So in order to "help" black and Latino students, the idea is to eliminate the opportunity for said students to make something of themselves through science. Those students who excel will be disfavored, while those who do not will be given more resources. The problem is that science training is one of the elements of educataion least susceptible to the multicultural indoctrination that pervades education in Berekeley and far too many other places. Replacing science with something dreamed up by the education-school-trained "experts" is unlikely to bring any improvement, even for its purported beneficiaries.

The sheer racism of identifying science as something primarily for whites seems not to penetrate the addled minds of those who fancy themselves advocates for black and Latino students. The absence of any consideration of Asian students is also striking. The city of Berkeley has more Asian households (12,641) than black households (10,874) or Latino households (8,466).  

Consider that the university which makes its home in Berkeley and dominates both local employment and community's character has a majority undergraduate population of Asian students, thanks to the fact that California voters approved a state law eliminating racial preferences in state institutions. The science majors at the University of California, Berkeley overwhelmingly comprise Asian students. U.C. Berkeley also boasts 21 faculty members who have won Nobel Prizes, primarily in the sciences. The list of laureates includes two Asians and one Latino, all three science winners.

Aside from the repulsive racism of this move, the broader issue to be considered is whether society is better-served by cutting down the achievers and investing in the stragglers -- or whether everyone benefits from the achievements of those who apply themselves enough to excel. I have no hesitation in saying that I am in the latter camp. How does it benefit anyone to have an America made up of mediocre minds?

As a matter of simple justice, it makes no sense to favor those who do not adapt to the norms and expectations of schooling and persist in behaviors that lead to failure. Berkeley High's worse-than-average performance among black and Latino students almost certainly has something to do with the ideology informing its approach to racial problems. Teaching people that they are victims does nothing to encourage excellence. But rather than reconsider its failing efforts, Berkeley High is doubling the dosage of a medicine that isn't working, and which carries bad side effects.

If the Berkeley public schools go ahead with this plan, they deserve condemnation and ridicule on a national scale.

Hat tip: Larry

Thomas Lifson is editor and publisher of American Thinker.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: berkeley; lifson; science; thomaslifson
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To: neverdem

These people are insane.

Simply insane.


41 posted on 01/04/2010 3:19:48 AM PST by rlmorel (We are traveling "The Road to Serfdom".)
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To: neverdem

So! Instead of laboratory science we will have community organizing.


42 posted on 01/04/2010 3:20:11 AM PST by reg45 (Be calm everyone. The idiot children are in charge!)
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To: neverdem
The problem is that science training is one of the elements of educataion least susceptible to the multicultural indoctrination that pervades education in Berekeley and far too many other places.

Here's the answer as to "why," right here...

Mark

43 posted on 01/04/2010 3:43:37 AM PST by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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To: neverdem
How does it benefit anyone to have an America made up of mediocre minds?

They will vote for Democrats, so guess who it benefits?

44 posted on 01/04/2010 4:21:48 AM PST by 17th Miss Regt
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To: neverdem
The School Committee has an insoluble problem, and their response is honest and reasonable, given the constraints they function under.

Most school districts do one of the following:

1) Water down classes to the point that they are worthless

2) Fudge the test results

3) Assign grades by race, with blacks given higher letter grades than whites.

All three of these maneuvers are causing public education to collapse, at least with regard to its ostensible purpose.

Most conservatives believe that if blacks were treated "equally", and furthermore were motivated (properly) to work hard and to adopt functional school behaviors, that they would succeed where they now fail, and, specifically, that they would have success in the upper grades of academic high school.

Most educators behave as if they know this is ridiculous.

The public schools have been given a mission to give an "equal education" to blacks. The meaning of this is a little vague - equal inputs, or equal results? But the mainstream conservative position seems to be, with equal inputs and proper conduct/student management, that the results will be equal enough to sustain the enterprise.

The Berkeley School Committee knows, obviously, that this is false. Given their mandate from a very broad spectrum of society, including conservatives, to demonstrate equal results across races, what else are they supposed to do?

45 posted on 01/04/2010 4:30:39 AM PST by Jim Noble (Hu's the communist?)
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To: neverdem

They’ll “educate” these liberals to the point where they won’t have a clue which end of the pistol the bullet exits. Disassembling and cleaning a rifle will take the better part of a week and parts will be left over. New marksmen stances will be invented where they’ll be taught that cranking your arm like a windmill while firing your weapon will make the bullet go faster.

Good for us.


46 posted on 01/04/2010 5:19:46 AM PST by sergeantdave
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To: neverdem
This will further guarantee that local students in Berkeley will not be competitive when it comes to admissions to the University.

What a tragedy.

47 posted on 01/04/2010 6:28:00 AM PST by nwrep
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To: neverdem

“No Child Left Behind” has been replaced by “No Child Gets Ahead”.


48 posted on 01/04/2010 11:22:27 AM PST by The Free Engineer
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To: neverdem

Un-F’in belivable!

And that’s the town I was born in.


49 posted on 01/04/2010 3:28:54 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: SatinDoll
"Oh, I sense an opportunity for private schools in Berkley."

Berkeley has more than 40 private academies, and they are all even crazier than this.

50 posted on 01/04/2010 3:35:36 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: The Free Engineer

Equality of outcome on steroids.


51 posted on 01/04/2010 3:37:00 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: editor-surveyor

Sorry to hear it. That is truly pathetic.


52 posted on 01/04/2010 3:41:04 PM PST by SatinDoll (NO Foreign Nationals as our President!!)
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To: neverdem
Wow, just wow.

Can you keep an eye on this for follow ups? Thanks

53 posted on 01/04/2010 4:01:01 PM PST by investigateworld (Abortion stops a beating heart)
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To: neverdem

People are not seeing clearly here. Science LABS are waaaay more expensive to conduct than say, minority studies, or some lesbo stuff:

You need to have chemicals, to take inventory constantly, to have microscopes and other easily lost, stolen, or breakable stuff.

It is also considerably more likely that the person teaching a hard science class is considerably less liberal than the other teachers, sort of like the football coach.

By canceling science class they claim their motive is to make things more equal for minorities, and I do believe that is PARTLY their motive —they will make alll kinds of noise about that. But the reality is much more tangible; they want the science lab money for themselves and for the really ideological, lesbo core-faction —the people who REALLY matter to Berkeley educators.

Just 3 blocks uphill from BHS, Berkeley is dominated by a huge school of science & engineering. Further downhill in Berkeley along the canal and especially 3 miles south of there in Emeryville is dominated by many nano/bio startups, but that doesn’t matter to these EduCommies.

They want their own little machine to run in tip-top form, and now that California’s big pie is smaller, they have to make choices between the kids’ future or them.

We all know what their choice is, eh?


54 posted on 01/04/2010 8:00:50 PM PST by gaijin
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To: neverdem; SierraWasp; tubebender; Ernest_at_the_Beach

Any parent, who choses to live in Berkley, has opted to live in a terrible place to raise their children.


55 posted on 01/05/2010 7:05:25 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Does 0b0z0 have any friends, who aren't traitors, spies, tax cheats and criminals?)
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To: neverdem
Harrison Bergeron
56 posted on 01/05/2010 7:19:00 AM PST by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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