Academia Anthropology Politics Problematic Competence

Your Children, Their Politics

October 21, 2020 by David 64 Comments

Further to this item here, Rafi steers us to more “equity” news, this time from the public high schools of San Francisco:

Lowell [High School] has for decades admitted students based on a score that takes into account grade-point average and test results while setting aside a limited number of spots for qualified students from underrepresented schools, making it one of the best public high schools in the country.

One of the best. And so, needless to say, something had to be done:

The admission process will now mirror that at other district high schools, with priority given to siblings… and those living in census tracts where students post low test scores. The remaining spots will be assigned randomly.

Intellectual flourishing will doubtless ensue.

The debate over what to do about the lack of traditional merit criteria divided the city, with accusations of racism and elitism after community members said the lottery system would water down Lowell’s reputation. Others expressed concern for the students who have focused on academics so they could attend the school.

A preference for academic rigour and admission by ability is “racist,” you see. Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly. Note that the board decision was “unanimous,” while the views of local parents – those directly affected – were somewhat more complicated and deemed “divisive.” Note too the implication that the feelings of those who work hard and show ability should be trumped by the feelings of those who do neither.

And related to the above, this:

She done gargled the Kool Aid.

Ms Collins is an “educator,” of course. And a Board of Education Commissioner for San Francisco public schools.

When not repeating the word “equity,” and declaring her pronouns to random passers-by, Ms Collins is apparently “fighting for safe, high quality schools,” by disdaining both expectations of competence and efforts to determine such, and by ensuring studious children find themselves sitting next to disruptive morons. The idea of enrolment by “merit,” i.e., by academic ability, “just plain sucks,” says she.

Update:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a majority of Lowell’s students, over 60%, are of East Asian heritage. Ms Collins seems to imagine that percentage is – and can only be – a result of “beliefs that privilege whiteness” – those aforementioned expectations of diligence and proficiency, one assumes. At a school where white students are a minority, a mere 18%. Students with, say, Chinese or Korean ancestry are, rather conveniently, considered “white” – or at least, as it were, white-adjacent – and therefore suspect. Apparently, the high aggregate scores of such students are merely a result of “the white frame,” a nefarious if unspecified conspiracy that, we’re told, “pits people of colour against one another yet leaves the status quo unchecked.”

This is a woman in charge, remember, a figure of authority. Not some random loon.




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