Leave No Child Behind - to mow our lawns
John Derbyshire has a thought-provoking article up on NRO about what it really means to "leave no child behind". It means, in one sense, that we've decided everyone must be shifted up in the meritocracy, which leaves only non-Americans to be shifted downward for menial jobs. This results in an interesting situation in which American society must adopt affirmative action (to make sure no American child fails), and must turn a blind eye to illegal immigration (to make sure the manual labor gets done):
(3) Our very best efforts at creating a meritocratic education system always turn up the same unhappy results: students of Ashkenazi-Jewish and East or South Asian ancestry are over-represented among the educational successes, while students of West African ancestry are over-represented among the educational failures.
(4) All sorts of theories are available to explain...Unfortunately we don't know which theory is true. Possibly just one of the theories is true. Possibly the true cause is something nobody has thought of yet. More likely the truth contains elements, in different proportions, from several theories.
(5) Until we understand the causes of (3), the most meritocratic system of education we can devise will produce a society with a highly paid cognitive elite in which persons of Ashkenazi-Jewish and East or South Asian ancestry are over-represented, a class of manual and service workers in which black people are over-represented, and a clerical or small-entrepreneurial class in which white gentiles are over-represented.
(6) Such a society would be grossly offensive to American sensibilities. (See (2) above.) It would also, in all probability, be unhappy and unstable.
(7) Adjustments to the meritocratic principle therefore need to be made: "affirmative action," imposed "diversity" quotas in businesses, anti-discrimination laws, and so on. We must trade off some meritocracy for social harmony.
(8) The effect of these adjustments is — as it is intended to be! — to move up into the clerical class people who, in a pure-meritocratic system, would be in the manual class. (And, to a less significant degree, to move up into the cognitive-elite class people who would otherwise be clerks.)
(9) Corresponding adjustments to shift down into the manual class people who would, on a pure-meritocratic principle, be in the clerical class, are politically impossible.
(10) Therefore the manual class is seriously under-staffed.
(11) Millions of third-worlders are only too glad to come to the USA to do manual or low-level service work.
(12) Unfortunately the immigration laws do not allow them to come here.
(13) The immigration laws should therefore be changed to permit a large inflow of unskilled aliens from the third world.
(14) Such changes are unpopular with large parts of the American public, who fear the cultural and economic consequences.
(15) Politicians know (14) and therefore will not change the immigration laws. And so:
(16) For the sake of social harmony, we have no choice but to turn a blind eye while several million unskilled aliens enter our country and stay here illegally.
As I said, thought-provoking.