SCHOOL ALIBIS

NYPOST.COM ^ | April 2, 2002 | MICHAEL MEYERS

[gubamyster]

April 2, 2002 -- WHY is there so much hand-wringing over the racial gap in test scores across New York, when we know the reasons for the divide between whites and Asians, on the one hand, and blacks and Hispanics on the other? No, it's not that whites and Asians are smarter - or that the minority schools don't get nearly as much money as needed to school "high-risk" students. The reason isn't that the tests are "culturally biased" against blacks who speak "ebonics" and Hispanics who speak some other language, or that the public school system is racist.

[Clemenza]

Yes, that's right - Mayor Bloomberg told it exactly right when he said the parents of these kids "fundamentally . . . don't understand how poor a job is being done and how their children, unfortunately, are being condemned to a life of not participating in the great American dream."

I did not care for Bloomberg (who will be my Mayor beginning in August), but this was one of the truest things ever said by an NYC public official regarding education. Its a shame all the usual suspect can shout in response is "racism!"

[JoeFromCA]

This article is right on the money.

Any debate about whether one race is smarter than the other is pointless. Maybe asians are smarter than whites and whites are smarter than blacks; who knows or cares. The truth is that the intelligence of all normal humans is within an acceptable range. I've known successful people whose IQ I'd guess at 110, and failures whose IQ I'd guess at 140. We need to figure out a way to make as many people as possible productive and part of the mainstream (whether truck drivers, doctors, or anywhere else on the range within which we traditionally measure "success").

[stands2reason]

Unfortunately, the liberal education establishment says to these kids: Everything is stacked against you, so don't be too surprised when you fail, it's only to be expected.

[stands2reason]

You're right. When it comes to being a productive citizen, it's not IQ, it's discipline.

[Alberta's Child]

Michael Myers is one of the most rational, intelligent people to appear regularly in a New York City newspaper.

[farmall]

We need to figure out a way to make as many people as possible productive and part of the mainstream (whether truck drivers, doctors, or anywhere else on the range within which we traditionally measure "success").

here is my suggestion:

get off your a$$ and get to work!

[Harrison Bergeron]

Fascinating viewpoint, "paternalism" as the enabler of institutional academic incompetence. Ironic, since academia, as an institution, has been overrun and conquered by leftist feminist apparatchiks. I guess Feminism is happy to shed the patriarchy and keep the political power inherent in any paternalistic system. Gives lie, in a big way, to the feminist platitudes about how everything would be so much more fair and peaceful and productive when they took control of traditionally male institutions. They proved under BeelzeBubba that feminism wasn't about women. In the schools, they're proving that it isn't even "about the children." It's about power - their power - pure and simple.

[abclily]

Public education got a major setback when politicians started running the show with Title monies. That was the beginning of the downfall of public education.

[Deb8]

If we speak in generalities, IQ differences do correlate into income predictions and into the inheritablity of IQ into the next generation. People tend to marry within their own IQ range. We've all seen ugly people marry pretty people and rich folks marry poor folks and lots of interracial marriage...but you rarely see a genius marry a moron. These marriage trends can contribute toward the rigidity of class divisions and can contribute toward racial stratification. That stratification should decrease with racial intermarriage but intellectual divisions will remain.

[concerned about politics]

Allow school choice. Let parents chose a better school for their children. Problem solved.
If the kids still fail, it's because they want to, and not that help wasn't offered.