Are some groups less intelligent than others? Once, nearly everyone was in a group that was intellectually demeaned. “Stupid ________s” and “Dumb ________s” were commonly heard.
Few paid a lot of attention. Then, something odd happened. Those people who were solving real problems got so good at solving them that there got to be more people than problems.
The smarter people got jobs solving real problems. The others began working in institutions like education, where problems were not allowed to be solved. “If it works to teach reading by Phonics, then we don’t need nearly as many reading teachers. So we have to teach reading in ways that don’t work.”
Pretending that everyone is just as good as everyone else was popular, until recently. Now, cyber schools are drawing off public school students. That reduces funding and threatens continued reductions. More public schools have stopped pretending that all students are equal. The turn-around is stunning.
In Florida: “Approved this week by the Florida Board of Education, the new race-based standards affect all 2.6 million students that attend the state’s 3,629 public schools. The mandate stipulates that by 2018, 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanic students and 74 percent of black students are to be reading at or above grade level. The state also wants 86 percent of white students, 92 percent of Asians, 80 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of blacks to be at or above their math grade level, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
In Public Education, equality takes a bath. Now, all students are classified by race, something unthinkable a year, or even a month, ago.
We recently had a system in which all children were thought to be just as capable. Today, we have a more delineated myth that separates IQs by race. In Public Education, equality takes a bath.
This theory is assumed to be correct by those who brought it into being. Do its proponents take it to the next step and demand that the same principle be applied to Democracy? Do they feel that votes be similarly valued? If so, Asian votes are now worth 92% of a vote, White voters are each valued at 86% of a vote, Hispanic votes at 80% and Black American votes are valued at 74% of a vote? If all students are classified by race, something unthinkable a year, or even a month, ago, isn’t it fair to classify voters similarly?
Once, Black Americans were valued at 3/5s of a person. The same Party that was in favor of that has reduced them almost half way there in 2014.
