For those of you with time on your hands, go digest Steven Den Beste's treatise on bell curves and the US crime rate. He works his way around to talking about the fact that there will always be a lower end to the curve in terms of socio-economic status, crime - and think about how this applies to educational performance (unitalicized comments are mine):
There will always be people who are less able to succeed. There will always be a tendency for them to become concentrated in a small number of areas. And that means they'll be visible, identifiable [and grouped in the same public schools].
And when the whole curve moves, they'll move with it, but they'll still be on the low end. Kevin points to this page which shows that since 1970 the overall homicide rate in the US has dropped, along with the general trend towards less crime in general. The homicide rate for whites (both as perpetrators and as victims) has dropped, and so have both rates for blacks. But the rate for blacks is still higher than for whites.
Worse, this disguises some realities: some white groups are more likely than others to be involved in homicide than other whites, and some groups of blacks are than other blacks. The majority of black people in the US are no more at risk than I am, but there's a core group which is skewing the average...
Kevin's argument was that we have to face the fact of black crime squarely, which is difficult because so many others are primed to scream Racist! at any hint of such discussion. [Just as there are people primed to scream Racist! at any discussion of the black-white test score gap]...
When "poor" and "ill-educated" and "crime-ridden" are relative terms, then what you're trying to do is to eradicate the low end of the curve. But there will always be a "low end of the curve", unless everything is absolutely identical for everyone, which isn't possible (and in my opinion also isn't desirable).
Which is what people who oppose standardized testing and exit exams often want to deny. Such exams make it perfectly clear that someone will always come out on the low end of the curve, and that produces a responsibility to figure out who is on the low end, and why they're on the low end. Many testing opponents have confused eradicating tests with eradicating differences in academic performances, and believe that if the tests would just go away, there would actually be no gap in performance.
Those who continue to dumb down exit exams are also denying the existence of a low end of the curve; i.e., those students who don't deserve a high school diploma, despite the fact that they may have marked 12 years in school. That wouldn't necessarily be the student's fault - not if it's a bad school - but at some point, those schools who espouse accountability must be prepared to deny diplomas to those on the low end of the academic performance curve. Awarding diplomas regardless of performance merely masks the problems without solving them.
Also, there's an article in Front Page Magazine suggesting that there is a link between culture and test performance - but not in the sense that testing critics believe:
I think it urgent to create a national effort to confront and somehow change a culture, enjoyed by millions of minorities and others, that dismisses serious education, fosters militant anti-intellectualism, and exalts the lowest forms of personal behavior and popular entertainment...
The exaltation of the icons of this rock bottom culture by the media at all levels in recent years is surely harmful to untold millions of young people and to the nation 's future. Walk into a classroom, as I have many times, and begin lecturing to students dressed as clowns and prostitutes, proud of their tattoos and nose clips, eager only to clap on the headphones at the end of the hour and be surrounded by screaming Rock and rap stars. They want no part of what you have to say, and see themselves as prisoners and victims. Where in their entire lives do they see people who are thoughtful, educated, and enthralled with the highest cultural expressions of our civilization?
If educators truly want to raise SAT and ACT scores, they must not only raise their academic standards, as some already have, but speak out and take action against the popular culture that hinders and prohibits their ability to bring knowledge and wisdom to young people.
In other words, there is a cultural bias going on, but those suffering from it are not unwilling victims, but instead have chosen to embrace a culture that devalues educational achievement.
This article also quotes an absolutely astonishing comment from Seppy Basili, the VP for learning and assessment at test prep company Kaplan, Inc., in which he says:
"If the last ten years [of SAT scores] are any indication, affirmative action is going to be even more important" in the future.
If I read this correctly, the head of a test prep company is essentially claiming defeat when it comes to helping minority students prepare for the SAT. You'd think someone who ran a company like Kaplan would be hawking his company's wares and claiming that minority students, above all, would benefit from his services. Instead, that AA comment makes clear that Mr. Basili doesn't believe that minority youth actually can improve their SAT scores - an astonishing (and condescending) comment from someone in his position. I'm sure he believes he's being "compassionate" and "politically correct" in saying this, but what I hear is, "Minority parents, don't waste your money on my company - we can't help your kid. Lowered standards is the best they can hope for."
If you've not read your Joanne Jacobs for the week, it's all summarized here on the Jewish World Review site. Go Joanne!
Finally, there's a lovely Tech Central Station article up on diversity in academia. Author Arnold Kling suggests that academics could benefit from losing the adolescent fantasies about perfect governments and learning some truly diverse ideas in real life.
Posted by kswygert at August 29, 2003 10:41 AM