 James Fox |
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James Fox |
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I've written many articles encouraging young people to strive to be the very best they could be in their quest for excellence in this world we live in. My message hasn't been very well received by a youth group endoctrinated by fifty years of liberal, equal- opportunity, equal-outcome philosophy.
The educators are predominately liberal in their social outlook and pass their doctrine of mediocrity on to the students. Everybody graduates regardless of their effort or their assimilation of knowledge, social promotion keep everyone equal and doesn't injure anyone's self esteem. Only recently have these practices been questioned and changes initiated requiring students actually learn English and Mathematics and be tested prior to graduating.
After the first round of testing, the California scores were so low, compared to the rest of the nation, that the Governor threatened to close or take over schools that didn't improve rapidly and get rid of some teachers who failed to improve their students test scores. The NEA is up in arms over the prospect of losing the union dues.
I was really pleased for a whole week, then I read an article by Roger Hernandez a columnist for King Features. It popped my bubble -- it read,
"The Education Testing Service is about to make big changes in the way it scores the SAT. ETS is going to offer colleges what it terms a 'Strivers' score for kids it believes are in need of an academic boost. Better yet, it will offer two different Strivers scores.
"Under one system, ETS will adjust the actual score of a test-taker to account for the social, economic and educational background of the test-takers family. High school students from poor families or with parents who never attended college, for instance, will receive extra points in their SAT score.
"Under the other system, high school students who are Black, Latino or Native American will get extra points because of their ethnicity. Even if they come from wealthy families, even if one parent is a Nobel Laureate in physics and the other a Nobel Laureate in literature."
Well folks, that made my blood almost come to a boil! They just won't quit trying, will they? They've even turned Striver into a dirty word. They pretend they are doing it for the children, but they are doing it to the children...while they are trying to protect their own threatened jobs by rigging the results instead of improving the minds of the kids.