The pro-voucher Captain's Quarters wonders why the Washington Post understands the disease - poor public schools - yet prescribes an ineffective "cure" - AA at the college level:
Today's Washington Post editorial decries the sudden dropoff in enrollment for African-Americans at the University of Michigan after a long legal battle upheld the college's affirmative-action programs. The Post tries to blame the publicity surrounding the lawsuit for the stark decline, but in the next breath notes that the falling enrollments belong to a national trend...
The Post correctly deduces the problem -- a failing public-school system -- but then continues to advocate the same tired diversity policies at the college level for a cure. The Post provides no evidence that discrimination exists at the college level at Michigan or anywhere else. In fact, they note that colleges compete heavily for qualified African-American applicants. So why propose further affirmative action for the problem?
The true cause of falling enrollments is a public-school system that locks children into failing institutions with no hope of upward or outward mobility...
School voucher programs would solve most of these problems, even if given limited application to failing school districts. In order to produce students who can succeed at the college level, schools must produce successful students in the primary grades first. Once in high school, the battle is all but over; if they have not learned the basics at that point, they likely will fail there, let alone apply to college.
It's odd that the WaPo understands that the problem is that "American public schools are preparing many fewer African American students...for education at elite universities than those universities would like to admit," yet insists that more intelligent AA policies, and more scholarship money that is unrelated to merit, are part of the solution. Bottom line: If schools really want "diversity" without sacrificing academic excellence, they'll stop lowering standards, stop giving money to unprepared students, and start insisting that public schools - and local governments - work together to improve K-12 education.
Posted by kswygert at November 29, 2004 12:24 PM