Groups Sue to Stop High School Exit Exam in Massachusetts, Claim Discrimination

>>Maybe the damned teachers should just stick to the damned curriculum that they are supposed to be teaching, and the damned parents could shut off the damned TV long enough to ensure that their dumb-assed, five-time-failure-of-a-moron-level-test kids did their homework.

If those two things happened, then I'm guessing almost everyone would pass on the first test<<

Well, that's the question, all right.

It is an hypothesis-and an hypothesis only-that correct process, in this case a certain type of education, delivered in a certain way, will result in all or nearly all American eighteen-year olds being able to pass an exam showing basic competency in english grammar and composition, algebra and geometry, basic natural sciences, and history.

This hypothesis further requires that all identifiable racial or ethnic groups of students have similar (high) pass rates.

Now, if you are correct, and what is missing is the delivery of certain content in the pedagogically correct way, then this is no problem.

What if you're wrong? At no time in the educational history of this country prior to, say, 1960, did we have universal high school. When my Dad was in high school, many students left after eighth grade, to work for sure, but also because they did not have the interest or the aptitude to succeed at the high school level. These interests and aptitudes may not be evenly distributed among our diverse population, even today.

So where do you think all this twelfth grade aptitude has come from, to allow all or nearly all students to succeed at that level? I don't think it's there-I don't think it ever has been, or ever will be, there-and the teachers have for the last forty years run an adaptive con by passing and promoting those without these aptitudes to be successful.

That's how we got MCAS. The public began to suspect-and then more than suspect-that the HS diplomas did not reflect what they did in 1960. MCAS and similar "high stakes" testing has everywhere revealed that this is true-that students who are clueless and unready have been promoted and promoted and graduated without any objective, honest assessment.

So far, so good. But you cannot, as they say, make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. In communities where the average IQ is 85, how is "sticking to the *** curriculum" going to get competency in algebra and geometry done? How?

And whose fault is it? And what is the solution?

This does not even begin to address the harm done to the average student who, if properly stressed could master this stuff, but who under circumstances of grade inflation and incompetent evaluation does not do so.

The problems in the public schools go much, much deeper than condoms on bananas and sticking to the *** curriculum.

The problem is that the promise of universal, quality, "true" twelfth grade level education is a fraud and a scam, and all of the children, capable and not, motivated and not, energetic or not, are paying for the lies and delusions of their elders.

There is something very sad in all of this. Once again, we have the endlessly repeated pattern. Those who would exploit a claimed status as "spokesmen" for minorities, always seem to indentify with the worst of each group--never with the best. Here, they are attacking standards, which are intended to make a high school graduation actually mean something more than that a worthless school authority, passed everyone through. This is an attack on a reform, designed to restore some quality in public education.

Here come these groups of "spokesmen," and they attack the attempted improvement, not in an effort to improve the lot of the best and brightest of the racial groups involved--for note, not only did a sizeable number fail, but a sizeable number passed. But those who passed are not their concern. Their identification--just as with similar attacks on tough law enforcement in minority neighborhoods--is with the worst, never the best. This is pretty compelling evidence of just how far Left these "spokesmen" are.

Of course, if they really were interested in advancing their respective races, rather than exploiting the susceptible, they would be expending their money on scholarships for those who pass, not agitation and excuse making for those who fail.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

At no time in the educational history of this country prior to, say, 1960, did we have universal high school. When my Dad was in high school, many students left after eighth grade, to work for sure, but also because they did not have the interest or the aptitude to succeed at the high school level. These interests and aptitudes may not be evenly distributed among our diverse population, even today.

Your points are excellent. However, you might look more closely at the final sentence in the paragraph above. May not be evenly distributed, is the understatement of the year. As a settled land goes from generation to generation, the differences in aptitudes and interests tend to become greater, not less, because of assortative mating. In other words, people with common interests tend to draw together. People with strong aptitudes in certain directions have greater appeal as mates to people who value those particular aptitudes, etc..

The idea that social engineers and educationalist theorists can eventually equalize human potential is one of the silliest of all the silly socialist pipe dreams. We need to recognize it for what it is, and start helping children develop the aptitudes that they have, not those that they envy. Any thing else is only a very cruel delusion.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

>>We are talking about basic skills. If these little morons haven't learned how to read, perform simple mathematical calculations, and display knowledge of the rudiments of American history, they are not qualified to be turned loose on the American public as workers, citizens, or voters<<

Well, we agree that students who can't pass the MCAS are not qualified to be turned loose.

What fraction of the population do you think can achieve sufficient abstract thinking to pass Algebra and Geometry (Math 10 & 11)? Do you think it's 100%? 90%?

I bet it's not more than 50% And I bet in communities with 95% MCAS failure rates, it's not 10%.

No one has yet to show that the project of "no child left behind" extended to age 18 and Grade 12 is even remotely capable of achievement.

I contend that the public schools have been ruined by the political mandate to pretend they are educating all of the kids, when a substantial fraction of them are not equipped to go beyond 8th grade. The pretense makes it impossible to critically evaluate and push the middle 50% to reach their actual potential.

Segregation of the top 25% in honors tracks produces pretty reasonable results.

>>May not be evenly distributed, is the understatement of the year. As a settled land goes from generation to generation, the differences in aptitudes and interests tend to become greater, not less, because of assortative mating<<

I think this is entirely correct, but my critique of the socialist delusion behind universal public education stands with any ethnic group or mix of groups. I think our project of equalizing across groups is doomed to fail, but so would be a project of equalizing within groups.

Because of our history, the issue of cross-group equalization carries freight that within-group equalization doesn't, and I don't want my observations to be read as saying, "it's all integration's fault"-because it isn't.

You and I are very much on the same page.

The integrationists are just one of a broader variety of social engineers, seeking to deny reality by any means. And it is all utterly stupid, because the only hope for real social progress for any group, family or individual, must start with a realistic assessment of the factors involved. The mythical ostrich, his head buried in the sands of self-inflicted ignorance, was not a problem solver.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

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