Asimov's Revenge on O'Connell

Here's my new VDARE.com column.

It follows up on California school superintendent Jack O'Connell's attack on Mean White Lady schoolteacher that Nanette Asimov broke in the San Francisco Chronicle a week ago. By the way, although I titled my blog's extract from her article "Beyond Parody," that shouldn't be taken as criticism of her story, which is a model of giving a bloviating politician enough rope to hang himself.

Here's an excerpt from my new column:

Earlier, Nanette Asimov reported in the San Francisco Chronicle on California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell's initiative to close the racial achievement gap:

"He offered the example of black children who learn at church that it's good to clap, speak loudly and be a bit raucous. But doing the same thing at school, where 72 percent of teachers are white and may be unfamiliar with such customs, will get them in trouble, he said.

"The achievement gap is 'absolutely, positively not genetic,' O'Connell said.’All kids can learn. I'm saying it's racial.'"

In other words, he is blaming the gap in part on white racist schoolteachers enforcing too much discipline in California's public schools.

O'Connell's statement caused a controversy, leading him to apologize … not to white schoolteachers, of course (there wasn't any media tumult over that), but to black churches.

After the conference, O'Connell kept up his attack on white teachers, telling the Los Angeles Times:

"O'Connell concurred, talking of 'a cultural bias that impedes instruction. Well-meaning, well-educated people can unintentionally be part of perpetuating institutional racism.' The nation's schooling system, he said, 'developed to educate white children and remains most advantageous to white children.'"

… Finally, O'Connell's implication that too much classroom discipline is holding NAM students down is just barking mad.

For example, Asimov (yes, she's the niece of science fiction great Isaac Asimov) pointedly reported in the SF Chronicle on the only session out of the 125 at O'Connell's conference where real high school students were asked what would help them:

"'If the room is quiet, I can work better—but it's not gonna happen,' said Nyrysha Belion, a 16-year-old junior at Mather Youth Academy in Sacramento County, a school for students referred for problems ranging from truancy to probation.

"She was answering a question posed by a moderator: 'What works best for you at school to help you succeed?'

"Simple, elusive quiet.

"Nyrysha said if she wants to hear her teacher, she has to move away from the other students.’Half our teachers don't like to talk because no one listens.'"

After five years of Jack O'Connell as head educrat, California nearly hit rock bottom on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. California students' reading scores are horrible, with the state ranking 48th out of 50 states in 4th grade reading and 49th in 8th grade reading.

But the performance of California, home to Silicon Valley, in that universal language, mathematics, may be even more disturbing: 47th in 4th grade math, 46th in 8th grade math.

California's dim future is mostly not O'Connell's fault. The primary culprit is "demographic change"—i.e., immigration.

I suspect that the Superintendent is babbling insane nonsense because he's terrified of blurting out what he suspects is the real reason for the gap…and finding himself Watsoned out of his precious political career.

But, unfortunately, as Richard Weaver pointed out long ago, ideas have consequences …no matter how stupid the ideas are. O'Connell's ridiculous rationalizations have taken on bureaucratic momentum. He hired Glenn Singleton, a black professional diversicrat, as his racial sensitivity consultant and wants to subject white public school teachers to Singleton's system of Maoist-style self-criticism sessions (Singleton calls them "Courageous Conversations") about "white privilege."

The last thing California public schools need is for O'Connell and Singleton to wage a Cultural Revolution from above against school discipline. That would tell NAM students, in effect, to play the race card even more than they do now when they get in trouble. [MORE]

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer