As if there was not already undeniable proof of the untenable nature of the "public" school system in America - the "no child left behind" canard (among others) - we witness the collision, once again, of cultures which place value on
VERY DIFFERENT achievements and aspiration. This, from an
article in the New York Times:
On Saturday, more than 15,000 students are expected to file into
classrooms to take a grueling 95-question test for admission to New York
City’s elite public high schools.
No one will be surprised if Asian students, who make up 14 percent of
the city’s public school students, once again win most of the seats, and
if black and Hispanic students win few. Last school year, of the 14,415
students enrolled in the eight specialized high schools that require a
test for admissions, 8,549 were Asian.
What an articulate and reasonably intelligent person might be able to glean from this article is that Asians spend a substantial amount of time - sacrificing social interaction and other extracurriculars - to improve academically and provide themselves with the kinds of opportunities which only come from applying oneself to academia.
Of course, when any one demographic excels in any activity or outperforms the others on some test, the very first to cry "Foul!" and drag out the race card are the blacks. Never mind that the Asian child gets up at 4AM to study for two hours before going to work at his parents' shop before school, spends every spare minute poring over practice exams and study materials, comes home, has supper and then studies for four more hours before going to bed - then gets up and does it all over again.
Never mind that the parents - immigrants and entrepreneurs - send their children to private prep courses costing up to $200 per weekend session, sacrificing of themselves for the betterment of their kin.
Blacks find this dedication and commitment "racist". They claim that the tests are unfairly biased and that because these are "public" schools (similar to the
academy schools in Virginia Beach) they deserve to be more fairly represented. Fair, of course, to any victim class, means more. Regardless of the reasons, blacks and hispanics lament that they are unable to "afford" the advanced preparatory courses and that New York should provide tutoring to them to compensate:
Because of the disparity, some have begun calling for an end to the
policy of using the test as the sole basis of admission to the schools,
and last month, civil rights groups filed a complaint
with the federal government, contending that the policy discriminated
against students, many of whom are black or Hispanic, who cannot afford
the score-raising tutoring that other students can.
Reading further along in the article we find that just a few years ago the City began offering a free preparatory course
JUST FOR BLACKS AND HISPANICS.
When your priorities are in different places, you find ways to make opportunities for yourself. Many Asians come from communities and cultures where merely finding enough food to eat was a daily struggle. Families escaping from the
killing fields of Cambodia and Communist regimes of China, North Korea, Laos... these people do not take for granted the freedom to succeed that "American" blacks do. They do not believe they are "owed" anything. They go out and earn it.
The argument stems from the Civil Rights movement of the '60s and the landmark
Brown -v- Board of Education decision ending the "separate but equal" segregation. People who had moved to certain communities and determined to live and function socially as they saw fit were forced to integrate and "diversify" to fit an arbitrary and abstract definition of diversity which relied solely on skin color.
And, as with anything in the purview of the "public" schools, there is absolutely no room for individual achievement. There have been numerous
Title IX lawsuits complaining that facilities for boys (baseball) and girls (softball) are not equitable.
These arguments invariably center on the conditions of the fields and the participation/support elicited by the school's faculty and/or administration. They typically claim that boys' sports teams receive a disproportionate amount of funding and as a result enjoy better playing conditions, greater publicity and visibility. What they overlook is that the parents/booster clubs for the boys sports inject those sports with enthusiasm and
PRIVATE funds. They (and the team members) spend their weekends and free time tidying and manicuring fields, cleaning and polishing equipment and sacrificing of themselves to make their sport more appealing to play and spectate.
And just like the entrance exam quandary, the "victim" class of individuals (girls teams), rather than take proactive steps to improve their own facilities employing the same ingenuity and commitment, demand that the schools give them more money so that they can be "equal".
It is just another of a nearly unlimited number of fallacious ploys to redistribute funds in the name of fairness, somehow confusing the prospect of equal money with equal results. Nowhere in the history of the world has this proven true, and it's a fair bet that we will not witness it within our lifetimes or ever.
Insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
