In Sunday night's VDARE column, I take a look at the wacky analogy likely unconsciously shaping mainstream thinking about education. David Brooks's new book The Social Animal is about the power of the unconscious, but my job is to drag unconscious ideas up into the full glare of conscious thought.
Read the whole thing there.
Dear Mr. Sailer !
ReplyDeleteThis your article is not only good re it's contents,
but very good in terms of style of writing.
Keep yor good work !
Respectfully yours, F.r.
Require GED pass as a requirement to graduate high school. Bt as soon as a kid does pass it (whether he's a senior or a freshman), let him spend his time remaining in school taking either vocational or online college classes.
ReplyDeleteIn November 1942, the United States Armed Forces Institute asked the American Council on Education (ACE) to develop a battery of tests to measure high school-level academic skills. These Tests of General Educational Development gave military personnel and veterans who had entered World War II service before completing high school a way to demonstrate their knowledge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Educational_Development
Do Asian girls suffer from stereotype threat on driving tests?
ReplyDeleteThere are other tests where passing is the only objective such as medical boards, bar exam, or PE exam.
ReplyDeleteI think politicians saw them more as bar exams than SAT tests.
What it boils down to is that they really do believe in the blank slate theory of human mental ability. I didn't used to think that was possible, that reasonably intelligent people could really believe that. Claim to believe it, sure; even wish it were true with your whole heart. But to truly believe it? I didn't think that was possible, but I'm forced to conclude that it is.
ReplyDeleteThey know it's not true with other attributes -- obviously some people are taller than others and that gives them an advantage, especially when the NCAA tournament is on. But when it comes to the ability to learn and think, they really believe life is like all the movies where the problem kid is really a genius in disguise, and just needs the right teacher or challenge to bring out his potential. In their world, there aren't any kids who simply can't handle Algebra 2 (except the obviously mentally handicapped, of course); only kids who haven't been taught right yet.
It's as if their bell curve has a missing part. They recognize the kids below 70 IQ, and their need for special care (though even those kids they're always trying to "mainstream"). And they recognize the 120+ kids and give them scholarships. But everyone else is supposed to be 100; there's no one in the 70-90 range, smart enough to take care of himself but not smart enough to handle tougher high school math.
Maybe that's not surprising; after all, how many 70-90 IQ people would George Bush or Barack Obama have spent time with in their lives, especially their adult lives? You won't find too many in exclusive private schools, after all. Maybe they really don't think those people exist because they never meet them.
It seems that the George W. Bush expectation of the benefits of testing, as explained by you, is consistent with the Bush-Rove plan for a majority-Republican Mexican voting bloc (also explained by you):
ReplyDeleteA.) People who own homes tend to be middle class and vote Republican.
B.) Mexicans tend to be working/lower class and vote Democratic.
C.) Therefore we need to put more Mexicans in their own homes!
You know what would be remarkable? If George W. Bush ever gets to the point that he acknowledges that his fundamental principles proved incorrect. However, as he has no record of ever adjusting his worldview in the light of conflicting evidence, I won't hold me breath.
The drivers test analogy is probably sort-of like what you'd like from a high school diploma. Almost everyone ought to be able to learn to read, write, and do basic math well enough to function in the world, as well as learning a little history and such to give them some context for how we got here.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the controversy comes about because Leftists think in terms of "to everyone according to his needs". If we had that system in place, they wouldn't care about all students getting into college, or attaining any level of academic achievement. It's all about the money, eventually.
ReplyDelete"The average age when young adults get their first driver’s license has gone up in many states."
ReplyDeleteDon't take the old passion to drive for granted; I think kids don't quite care as much about this as they used to and are slacking. My step didn't get his until he was 25 after 5 years in the service. They're just busy screwing around with their phones and games and leech rides off others. And maybe the parents are slacking too, not wanting to teach them the driving part.
Anyway, I bought into the NCLB business because I believed in national standards a la Singapore or Taiwan. But I've since done a 180, especially after reading some basic black history, by DuBois, Gates and Booker. They knew about HBD and feared this very mess but their followers couldn't help themselves and kept pushing forward.
ReplyDeleteWe're going to have to learn to accept different outcomes in different groups, in different schools, in different parts of town, and different states just being...different. It was always that way before, and what was wrong with it? Oh except that there is little decent work for the average and below-average anymore. But that's not going to change because of NCLB.
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
ReplyDeleteThe extant of mental gymnastics and circumlocution necessary to perpetuate the myth of racial equality is amazing.
As my demented patients gradually lose their faculties, they will come up with ways to mask their memory gaps.
When they can't remember a name they will say, "the girl who comes over and does the laundry every Monday" instead of "Susan".
The medical term for this is "confabulation". It is an obviously inefficient coping mechanism, but allows the person to temporarily function in a state of denial. Inevitably the cognitive deficits become impossible to ignore.
Politically correct speech leads to a form of semantic dementia.
Another masterful essay. A clear explanation of topics that can be difficult. I know.
ReplyDeleteI once found myself with a flip chart trying to explain to a group of businsemen testing strategies for evaluating government job programs. Not a very merry topic you would think. Yet at one point there were smiles and snickers. My proto-powerpoint slide showed Types of Tests: Ipsative versus Normative.
They all assumed that I had just misspelled that funny word and they speculated as to what was the word I really intended.
I didn't spell it wrong of course but I was foolish of me to use journal speak in that setting.
A very similar testing subtlety that few appreciate is the difference between cross sectional versus longitudinal testing. And this seemingly obtuse academic distinction packs a political punch.
Government job programs strongly prefer white men when measured in the cross sectional manner but strongly favor black women when measured longitudinally.
That's an explosive finding and highly relevant today but alas a little too subtle for most policy makers.
Albertosaurus
"I think, I’ve finally stumbled upon the wacky analogy unconsciously underlying the conventional wisdom about how more school testing would Leave No Child Behind. "
ReplyDeleteI thought Steve was going to bring up the US citizenship test -- passing it obviously means you love America, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet and will become a productive citizen, not a burden to your new countrymen.
"In turn, it’s hard for those of us who grasp these basics of psychometrics to realize that people at the Kennedy/Bush level of intellectual sophistication and/or substance abuse don’t find the logic of bell curve tests intuitive at all."
Or Newsweek's level of intellectual sophistication. Why are they so shocked that 38% of US citizens flunk the US citizenship test? At least 38% of US citizens walking the streets probably couldn't give you directions back to their home.
And despite ubiquitous signs in English and Spanish forbidding food on public transit, most blacks and Hispanics don't seem to have gotten the message that they shouldn't eat messy, smelly food on a crowded subway car. And they are now a third of the population.
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/subway-brawl-over-spaghetti-20110318-lgf
Here's a working link for the Charles Murray article: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-bell-curve-and-its-critics/
ReplyDeleteThe politics of 'diversity' getting ever more surreal. 'Conventional--aka Correct--Wisdom' dominating politics.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there is a perverse logic in all this, a kind of compensation paradox. For one kind of diversity to 'work', it has to be bound by some kind of homogeneity(as a glue). So, despite all the leftist yammering that 'diversity is our strength', the leftist insistence on political correctness or conventionality betrays its reliance on homogeneity. The general rule of compensation paradox would be: If a nation is to be ideologically diverse, it helps to be racially, ethnically, religiously, and/or linguistically homogeneous. If a nation is to be racially, ethnically , religiously, and linguistically diverse, it helps to be ideologically homogeneous. Something has to be 'the homogene' to hold the community together. A society that is diverse in EVERY MANNER possible simply cannot hold together.
For instance, imagine a nation which has socialists and capitalists, and also Catholics and Protestants. It has ideological and religious diversity. But suppose all people were white and spoke English. The fact of their common race and language may keep the people together despite religious and ideological differences.
There is some common glue to hold them together.
Or, imagine a nation of Muslims, Catholics, Russians, Uzbeks, Estonians, etc, etc. The Soviet Union for instance. What held the nation together was ideological homogeneity. Of course, it was imposed by force--indoctrination and Soviet military might--, but there was the common devotion to Marxism-Leninism, the main homogene among the various ethnic groups. One could also argue that all people shared the homogeneous fear of Soviet power.
Same was true of Yugoslavia, an unstable hodge-podge of ethnicities and religions. But it more or less maintained peaceful unity during yrs of communism when ideology(and fear of Tito and his goons)was the unifying--or commonly terrifying--element.
If a society were, at once, racially, religiously, linguistically, ethnically, AND ideologically diverse, I don't see how it could maintain any kind of unity--unless everyone was a hodge podge of mixed-blood identity of confusion, as in some parts of Brazil are, Those parts of Brazil are poor, violent, and crazy, but identities are so mixed and confused that, while there is no unified order, there is no unified resistance either. There's crime and poverty, but little in the way of an effective political movement. Who knows? Maybe both Gaddafi and Castro used race-mixing with blacks to make the masses more confused, thus less able to mount a unified opposition.
Western leftism is committed to racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity. Some of this adds color and flavor to what was once the 'bland' West, but too much leads to chaos, disorder, and division. So, leftists rely on ideological homogeneity to hold everyone together. PC--politically correct homogeneity--is necessary to control the MC--multi-culturalism. Indeed, leftists use MC to promote PC and vice versa. Since MC is inherently unstable--with all its diversity and division--, there is a need for PC to make sure everyone shares the same views and values(and pop culture, such as Hollywood movies and hip hop). Of course, one could argue that PC wouldn't be necessary if there were less MC. Less diversity means less disorder, thus less need for ideological homogeneity or straitjacketing. But the Western Left is so addicted to the 'anti-racist' notion of MC that it has to more and more of it. To hold diversity together, the left relies more and more on ideological homogeneity. So, the West says, 'bring in more Moslems and teach them to love homos'.
They should just "staple a diploma to every drivers license" issued.
ReplyDeleteActually, might as well give 'em a bachelors degree, too. Wouldn't want to be stingy.
Gap closed. Problem solved. Next...
Off topic, Marine Le Pen came out first in a presidential poll with about 25%, beating Sarkozy.
This hysterically biased France24 news report claims that "all of France is shaking" because of the poll results. What about Le Pen supporters? Then it claims that "France is reeling from this shocking poll."
Hilarious.
Dear Albertosaurus:
ReplyDeleteOkay, please explain the ipsative/normative and cross-sectional/longitudinal distinctions.
Don't take the old passion to drive for granted; I think kids don't quite care as much about this as they used to and are slacking.
ReplyDeleteThe price of gas may also have something to do with this.
You think this is bad? Wait til the new unconscious analogy is DRUG TESTING. Bush and Kennedy would have failed that too, but that didn't stop them from becoming Senator and President.
ReplyDeleteBtw, did Clinton succeed in building the bridge to the 21st century? Or only one to Monica Lewinsky, a very hardy one at that?
So how come no one does the obvious, and makes a driver's license contingent on passing Algebra 2?
ReplyDeleteDear Mr. Sailer !
ReplyDeleteThis your article is not only good re it's contents,
but very good in terms of style of writing.
Stylistically, there's a paragraph missing. At the end, selling the reader on his premise. As it is, it kinda falls flat - good build-up, then...
Steve, I've taken the driver's test in MD, two SE states, and CA, and it was easier in the first three than the latter, by far. In comparison, CA makes it very clear they take their test seriously. In fact, I see the same thing generally; CA government acts like King Shit of Turd Mountain.
ReplyDeleteWhat it boils down to is that they really do believe in the blank slate theory of human mental ability. I didn't used to think that was possible, that reasonably intelligent people could really believe that. Claim to believe it, sure; even wish it were true with your whole heart. But to truly believe it? I didn't think that was possible, but I'm forced to conclude that it is.
I suppose cultural determinists can go a long way using culture and SES as proxies.
But when it comes to the ability to learn and think, they really believe life is like all the movies where the problem kid is really a genius in disguise, and just needs the right teacher or challenge to bring out his potential.
One needn't believe this to believe the racial gap is culturally determined. Or that all non-challenged students (found in all races, of course) can achieve the academic equivalent of passing the Driver's test.
In their world, there aren't any kids who simply can't handle Algebra 2 (except the obviously mentally handicapped, of course); only kids who haven't been taught right yet.
Okay, yeah, that's just ignorant. You have to be a tool or a shut-in to believe that.
It's as if their bell curve has a missing part. They recognize the kids below 70 IQ, and their need for special care (though even those kids they're always trying to "mainstream"). And they recognize the 120+ kids and give them scholarships. But everyone else is supposed to be 100; there's no one in the 70-90 range, smart enough to take care of himself but not smart enough to handle tougher high school math.
That's an interesting way of putting it.
Maybe there is a perverse logic in all this
ReplyDeleteWHEN (not if), you write your book, maybe you should call it Maybe There Is A Perverse Logic In All This.
Just sayin'. You can only go to the well so many times a day.
Okay, please explain the ipsative/normative and cross-sectional/longitudinal distinctions.
ReplyDeleteSeconded. Screw Wikipedia (with my luck it'll be written for eggheads anyway).
"I think kids don't quite care as much about this as they used to and are slacking."
ReplyDeleteSince the early 1990s there's been a steady fall in the percent of 16-18 year-olds who have a license (i.e. high-schoolers who are old enough).
In, I believe 2006, it finally dipped below 50% and has continued to decline through the latest 2009 data. By now it's probably close to 45%, compared to around 75% in the mid-late '70s, the earliest that I could find data for. (All data from Highway Statistics.)
Just think of how absent the once-standard plot device of "teenager prepares for driving test -- chaos ensues" has become. Was there a more recent mainstream example than the 1995 movie Clueless?
Young people don't value freedom or screwing around away from their parents' watch anymore.
@Svigor: I've taken the driver's written test in CA (2010) and NC (2006 or 07) and NC's was harder by quite a bit. NC's being hard wasn't just my opinion, it was notorious among my fellow contracting, out-of-state programmers, at least one of whom had failed the first time.
ReplyDeleteThis is another case of a flawed premise and willful ignorance. But expect more of the same because they'll never give up. Which means it may not be all that useful to spend a lot of energy criticizing NCLB, no matter how devastating that criticism is.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why you think that the concept of "passing or failing algebra" originated with Bush and Kennedy. Pretty much every high school ever has managed to set a cut off between passing and failing, any underlying bell curves notwithstanding.
ReplyDelete"Young people don't value freedom or screwing around away from their parents' watch anymore."
ReplyDeleteVideogame-playing slackerdom is surely part of it, but I think the phenomenon is also due to the Baby Boomer parents' hysterical overemphasis on safety.
My folks, when I was a toddler, allowed me to STAND UP on the floor of the car behind the front seat. As a kid, I rode my bike, not just helmetless, but unsupervised across main arterials.
Not surprising when I reached 16, a driver's license sounded like doable fun.
Today's 16 y olds were buckled into carseats until they were 8 -- howls of protest notwithstanding --their mothers lovingly secured their bike helmets on their heads, lest they fall and bump their precious noggins, and they CERTAINLY were not allowed to go anywhere but on bike and walking paths.
It's no wonder, come age 16, these kids are too scared spitless to jump behind the wheel and go for a joyride.
"Young people don't value freedom or screwing around away from their parents' watch anymore."
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps more live in cities with public transportation. Also where it is hard to find a place to park overnight or to "make out".
Robert Hume
Also waiting for Albertosaurus.
I worked in an academic research center for a while, and the cross-sectional vs longitudinal thing I think Albertosaurus is referring to was confusing to some people.
ReplyDeleteFor example, we used Census data to find that in 2000 married men made more money than unmarried men. Some of the women in the office said, "When a man gets married, his income goes up, because the wife doing the cleaning etc. is freeing him up to work harder."
Some of the men in the office tried to convince them that that was possible, but we had no evidence of it, because the Census data just showed how much a man was making at one point in time, 2000, it didn't show what he was making before and after he got married. The difference between a married man's income and an unmarried man's could, in fact, have been the result of women being more likely to marry a wealthy man, or a wealthy man being more likely to choose to marry, etc.
Svigor:
ReplyDeleteWhat cutoff seems too high to be expected of normal people depends a lot on your local definition of "normal people," based on your circle of friends and neighbors and family members. Almost everyone I spend any time with went to college, and so got through some algebra. Many went on to get graduate degrees in demanding subjects. So "everyone should be able to get through a couple years of high school algebra" doesn't seem like an insanely high barrier.
Everyone gets that some barrier would be too high to be practical. Propose that nobody be allowed to graduate high school till they demonstrate mastery of basic calculus (say, a 3 or higher on the AP Calculus BC exam), and most people will get why that would be an unreasonable barrier to graduation. (That's basically enough to let you test out of two semesters of college calculus at most schools.)
My guess is that the "everyone can pass algebra 2" idea is a combination of wishful thinking and willful blindness, which is aided by not being contradicted much by the people most of us reading such arguments interact with day to day.
Carol makes a fairly depressing point, though. Perhaps the cutoff below which your work isn't worth what it will cost to employ you is simply too high for a large fraction of people, instead of just for people born with some awful mental handicap. Over time, it may be that this barrier rises, and rises, until most humans are below it.
JSM:
ReplyDeleteVideogame-playing slackerdom is surely part of it, but I think the phenomenon is also due to the Baby Boomer parents' hysterical overemphasis on safety.
Parents now are different. In the Olden Dayes, parents didn't care about helmets or car seats - but heaven help the kids (esp. girls) that had pre-marital sex. I am surprised there were no actual Muslim-style honour killings in Olde America.
Now it's "buckle your helmet strap before hopping on that bike, and put a rubber on your willy before hopping on that girl."
Now it's "buckle your helmet strap before hopping on that bike, and put a rubber on your willy before hopping on that girl."
ReplyDeleteYeah, there's basically no attempt made to prevent opportunities for fornication. Fornication, it turns out, is not all that interesting when it's easily available.
The drivers' license/minimum competency standard is actually a good program. In New York, which had high-standards tests in all advanced academic subjects practically forever to get a "REgents diploma", there used to also be a "REgents Competency Test" required to get a no-frills diploma. With NCLB, the RCT was junked and now is only available for the most special of the Special Ed population. Inevitably, the Regents tests that everyone had to passed were dumbed down--passing score dropped from 65 to 55, lord knows what happened to the actual content.
ReplyDeleteI know about the RCT mostly because in 1986, my class of gifted-but-snotty 7th graders took it (or maybe just the science part?) to clear us to take Regents Earth Science, and all but two of us failed it. School decided that the bastards had failed on purpose, and waved us through.
--Anonymous coward
"You think this is bad? Wait til the new unconscious analogy is DRUG TESTING."
ReplyDeleteYeah, if they don't find any 'racism' or 'homophobia' in your intellectual bloodstream, you pass.