Dumb and Dumber
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As George W. Bush famously asked, “Is our children learning?”
Apparently not in the twin capitals of liberalism, D.C. and New York.
In a ranking of 50 states and D.C. by how much each spent per pupil in public schools in 2005, New York ranked first; D.C. third. The state spent $14,100, and New York City just a tad less.
And the bountiful fruits of this massive transfer of taxpayers’ wealth?
In D.C., nearly half of all black and Latino students drop out. Of those who graduate, nearly half are reading and doing math at seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade levels. D.C. academic achievement ranks 51st, last in the U.S.
Yet last week came a report from New York that makes D.C look like M.I.T. Some 200 students, in their first math class at City University of New York, were tested on their basic math skills.
Ninety percent could not do basic algebra. One-third could not convert a decimal into a fraction.
If this was a representative sampling, nine in 10 CUNY students not only do not belong in college, they do not qualify for their high school diplomas. As for that third who can’t do decimals and fractions, they should not have been allowed into high school until they could do sixth-grade math.
As 70 percent of all CUNY students are graduates of city schools, a question arises: What are the taxpayers of New York getting for the highest tax rates in the nation?
If a private business annually turned out products that were of inferior quality than the year before, management would be thrown out by the board. Yet, the education racket has been shaking us down for four decades, and turning out graduates that know less and less.
Scholastic Aptitude Test scores peaked around 1964. Ever since, the national average has been in an almost unbroken descent.
So embarrassing did it get that, a few years ago, the SAT folks retooled the test to produce higher scores. Now there are more 1600s. But the national average continues its decline, and the gap between blacks and Hispanics, and Asians and whites, endures.
Is it not a time for truth?
Just as there are many kids who do not have the athletic ability to play high school sports, or the musical ability to play in a high school band, or the verbal ability to recite poetry well or star in debate, not every kid has the academic ability to do high school work.
By the end of the first two months in first grade, an alert kid can tell you who are the smart ones and who are the athletes.
No two kids were ever created equal — not even identical twins. The family is the incubator of inequality, and God is its author. As the parable teaches, each of us is given different and unequal talents.
Given equality of opportunity, the brightest will inexorably rise, and the less talented — athletically, artistically, academically — will fall behind. All things being equal, the fastest kid will always win the race.
This campaign to equalize test scores among unequal students is utopian and unattainable, and amounts to a scam by the education industry.
How many times have they promised progress? And how many times have they delivered?
It is time to look not only skeptically, but cynically, on further demands for billions for education.
Rather, follow the money. Look for who is getting the jobs, the TV appearances, the consulting contracts, the grants, the titles, the limo drivers. Because, at bottom, that is what it is all about — the transfer of wealth and power from those who earn it and those who produce it, to those who produce little or nothing.
The city colleges, now the City University of New York, were once municipal jewels. They nourished an intellectual elite from the ethnic groups that came in the great immigration wave before 1924. As open admissions — letting in every high school graduate in the city who applied — was being debated, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew weighed in against.
“If these quality colleges are degraded, it would be a permanent and tragic loss to the poor and middle class of New York, who cannot afford to establish their sons and daughters on the Charles River or Cayuga Lake. New York will have traded away one of the intellectual assets of the Western world for a four-year community college and a hundred thousand devalued diplomas.”
Agnew quoted historian Dan Boorstin:
“In the university, all men are not equal. Those better endowed or better equipped intellectually must be preferred in admission, and preferred in recognition. … If we give in to the … demands of militants to admit persons to the university because of their race, their poverty, their illiteracy or any other nonintellectual distinction, our universities can no longer serve all of us or any of us.”
The limousine liberals knew better.
Now, they have CUNY students who can’t handle fractions.
Filed under: Culture
“If a private business annually turned out products that were of inferior quality than the year before, management would be thrown out by the board.”
Given the record of the past fourteen months, I wouldn’t be so sure of that.
There so many things in America that needs to get right but the only thing that worries American people is phantom enemy that doesn’t even exists. Politicians don’t care about changing education system because they can get easy votes by scaring people on other issues.
Respectfully,
As a New York City resident who pays 50% of my income in taxes, I’d be inclined to agree but I don’t understand what the alternative is to educating our population.
Is not educating them preferable? Will that have better outcomes for our society, businesses, service sector industries, daily life?
Also, I don’t see how good students are _prevented_ from getting a good education at CUNY, by the presence of other students. There are a lot of CUNY departments with world-class professors, maybe because the NYC location attracts them. CUNY students learn sciences, languages, how to write and how to contribute to society in so many ways. Some of them end up as teachers, trying to improve education in NYC.
I just don’t see it through the frame that this is some anti-elite, anti-competition leveling system. Universally available, though sometimes poor, university education is how European countries are beating the US on productivity and quality of life indicators. I agree with you about the dumbing down, but for me it’s a reason to spend more on education, and less on wars.
Kindly, H. Arouet
ps- thank you for you brilliant anti-war writing, Pat Buchanan!
Vouchers. Decades past-due. But like the other corrupt entrenched powers in this country in bed with the Feds, government teacher’s unions use the power of government to protect their racket.
Quoting Spiro didn’t sell me on your article. But, we do spend considerable sums of money for a less than effective education system. It’s a complicated issue and has regional variables too. Unions and ward politics aren’t the same problem in Texas as they are in Illinois and New York. We do, however, have a large immigrant population that is poor and not well versed in English. So, it’s complicated. One issue I have seen as problematic for decades is the lack of vocational education in our public school. How to actually do employable work. We teach our public school kids to go to college. That is not the best approach for all students. Teaching appropriate life and work skills to those who are probably not college bound and the graduation rate may improve for no other reason than the programs will be more relevant to the needs and visions of the students and their families.
That’s my two cents worth.
Government controlled education is nothing but propaganda immersion and is not intended to develope the intellect, but is intended to create legions of clueless ignoramises, which is the best raw material for mob behavior. It is the mob clamouring for entitlements, free health care, and a smoke free world. In the real world, if voting made any difference it would be illegal.
Our modern educational system is designed to dumb the entire population down so they can be controled. If they are unable to think, they will allow the government to do as they wish. It’s simple, tell the populace their way of life is under attack and they will let you do anything to protect them. I give you the war in Iraq.
I had a history professor in college that posed questions to students ( circa 1985 ) and asked them their opinion. You wouldn’t believe the blank stares. He then pointed out they were supposed to be thinking reasoning indiviuals and needed to learn to think for themselves and form opinions. The situation has only gotten worse in the last 24 years.
Head start is a good example. It’s not a headstart on education but on socialization. I heartedly agree with george from Texas. I went to high school in the 1960’s and vocational education was still a big deal. Now it’s inappropriate to think let alone tell a student they should take up a vocation instead of going to college. Teaching vocational education in public schools might also bankrupt all the pay to learn private vocational schools and rob the leachs the opportunity to further enslave the population by forcing them to borrow money to obtain the education they should have already received.
PS: I’ve become completely confused about what a conservative is. I always thought it was someone who was fiscally conservative. Seems the modern definition is someone who believes science is an abomination, the bible is to be taken literally, and no one has rights who doesn’t believe that or go to church every Sunday. Of course I thought the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was afforded all Americans in the constitution. However it seems this is not the case unless it those rights align with the bible. I believe in God, right, and wrong etc, but no one has the right to tell me how to live as long as I don’t impose my will on them. However that is exactly what the modern conservative movement seeks to do. A lot would be cured if the separation of church and state we are supposed to have would be properly honored. That’s how politically correct I am.
To Myra in Texas,the constitution does not say there shall be a separation of church and state.It does say congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.To me that means you can worship anything or anybody you want and the government can’t prohibit you from doing so.The government doesn’t want you to know your rights.That’s why they work in lockstep with the teachers union to dumb you down as a society to further their powergrab agenda.Case in point.,Branch Davidians in Waco.Who cares if they were looney or not?,were they hurting anybody?They could have been woshiping sand crabs as far as I’m concerned,but ms.Reno and the clinton administration saw fit not only to trample on their first amendment right but to use the military to murder them children and all.And why only a little chirp of public outcry?,because people don’t know the constitution and bill of rights.These days socialism is the more “in” thing.
Brian – so the little inconvenient matter of the Branch Davidians murdering 4 law enforcement officers causes you to question whether they were “hurting anybody”?
You libs try to twist the truth. Your point about what the consitiution says is well taken. But a routine gun-check that breaks out into murder had nothing to do with religion.
“Who cares if they were looney?” If they are having sex with underage children, it’s called “statutory rape”, and if the children are being taught armed rebellion against our country, or murder of government officials, then it IS our business. If their assault rifles have been modified for full-automatic, that’s a crime that needs to be investigated. It is right and proper for our law enforcement to inspect the internal workings of any group, when they get a tip from ANY source.
Get a grip dude.