Posted on 06/10/2015 6:13:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
Last summer's Ferguson, Missouri, disturbances revealed that while blacks were 67 percent of its population, only three members of its 53-officer police force were black. Some might conclude that such a statistic is evidence of hiring discrimination. That's a possibility, but we might ask what percentage of blacks met hiring qualifications on the civil service examination. Are there hundreds of blacks in Ferguson and elsewhere who achieve passing scores on civil service examinations who are then refused employment? There is no evidence suggesting an affirmative answer to that question.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes called the Nation's Report Card, nationally, most black 12th-graders' test scores are either basic or below basic in reading, writing, math and science. "Below basic" is the score received when a student is unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at his grade level. "Basic" indicates only partial mastery. Put another way, the average black 12th-grader has the academic achievement level of the average white seventh- or eighth-grader. In some cities, there's even a larger achievement gap.
Black students and their parents believe that their high-school diplomas are equivalent to those received by whites. Therefore, differences in employment or college admittance outcomes are likely to be seen as racial discrimination. The fact of business is that if seventh- or eighth-graders of any race compete with 12th-graders of any race on civil service exams or the SAT, one should not be surprised by the outcome.
In terms of public policy, what to do? It all depends on the assumptions, implicit or explicit, one makes about black mental competency. If one assumes that blacks cannot academically compete with whites, the "solution" is to eliminate the "disparate" impact of civil service exams and college admittance requirements by dumbing them down or eliminating them in order to achieve "diversity." I do not make that assumption, so then what to do?
Many black parents want a better education and safer schools for their children. The way to deliver on that desire is to offer parents alternatives to poorly performing and unsafe public schools. Expansion of charter schools is one way to provide choice. The problem is that charter school waiting lists number in the tens of thousands. In Philadelphia, for example, there are 22,000 families on charter school waiting lists. Charter school advocates estimate that nationally, over 1 million parents are on charter school waiting lists.
The National Education Association and its political and civil rights organization handmaidens preach that we should improve, not abandon, public schools. Such a position is callous deceit, for many of them have abandoned public schools. Let's look at it.
Nationwide, about 12 percent of parents have their children enrolled in private schools. In Chicago, 44 percent of public-school teachers have their own children enrolled in private schools. In Philadelphia, it's also 44 percent. In Baltimore, it's 35 percent, and in San Francisco, it's 34 percent. That ought to tell us something. Suppose I invite you to dine with me at a restaurant. You find out that the restaurant's chef doesn't eat there and neither do the servers. That suggests they have some inside information from which you could benefit.
Politicians who fight against school choice behave the way teachers do. Fifty-two percent of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus who have school-age children have them enrolled in private schools. Thirty-seven percent of members of the House of Representatives and 45 percent of senators who have school-age children have them enrolled in private schools.
The education establishment says more money is needed, but more money does not produce higher quality. New York City spent $20,331 per student in fiscal 2013. Washington, D.C., spent $17,953, and Baltimore allocated $15,050. Despite being among the nation's highest-spending school districts, their education quality is among the lowest. Parents, given vouchers and choice, could do a far superior job in the education of their children -- and at a cheaper cost.
I think that courts have decided more than once that the fact of standards is itself “discriminatory.” The only acceptable standard is for the first 10 people who show up to be hired for the 10 open positions unless white people show a tendency to be quicker to get there than minorities. Then it would have to go to a lottery that is strictly ratio based with each defined minority having a separate lottery for its designated ratio share of positions. If there are more minority groups than positions then perhaps the hiring entity must expand the number of positions or must be forced to computerize and automate. Automation will probably be, at some point, be banned as “discriminatory.”
Horse, water, no drinky.
Walter’s actin’ white.
The demokrat’s War on Poverty has been a greater failure than our involvement in Vietnam...
Almost 90 Percent Of America’s Teachers Blame Crappy Schools On Poverty
As with so many things, Ronald Magnus nailed it when he spoke of “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
There is also a limit based on IQ. Some people have lower IQs and no amount of education or money spent on education is going to change their ability level.
Pretending otherwise is a failure to face the facts. Denying a problem exists is a guarantee that the problem will not be fixed. If we really want to remedy the problem (and all the related problems that stem from it) we need to admit that black IQs are, on average, much lower than the rest of the population. We need to stop trying to shoehorn them into jobs that exceed their abilities just to meet quotas.
We need to find meaningful work for all citizens and to value people more for their character and less for their IQ or earning power.
This job rightfully belongs to Black Parents, of which, I am not.
You are factually correct but not politically correct. The “Bell Curve” explains a lot.
I believe it was GW Bush who used that phrase.
The reason there aren’t more black police officer in these cities is the fact that many of the black men of the age and physical ability in these cities are criminals and have jail time on their records. They can’t pass the background checks. Duh!
Almost 90 Percent Of America’s Teachers Blame Crappy Schools On Poverty
Wrong! Poverty is a RESULT of the same cause of crappy schools - MORAL poverty.
what you call moral poverty, i call endemic laziness
Laziness is another result of rejecting the Judeo-Christian value system.
Charter schools are a modest help. If black folks really want to improve education, stop having bastards.
It’s a circle that must be broken...providing more welfare benefits to single parent household’s and not allowing school choice leaves entire communities mired in generational poverty.
New York pays about $20,000 public school students, number 1 in the U.S. Result NY ranked about 19 overall in the U.S. When you put together a good education system, these are some of the things that come into play: good teachers, up to data facilities with the latest technology (computers/smartboards etc.), up to date texts and so forth. One major ingredient that gets overlooked is the student.
If you have students that don’t go to class, or sleep in class, don’t do their homework and assignments, or constantly disrupt the class, then you will have students that fail. Does not matter if the teacher of the year or decade is teaching the class, you will have the same outcome.
I can look at any attendance roster and instantly know which ones will probably fail. It is not rocket science. If you want to see a good example of throwing money at the education system, look at the Kansas City experiment. “Money And School Performance:Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment” by Paul Ciotti
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