The Liberal Assault on Merit

[Jarhead]

How is that SHSAT test results manipulated link search coming NYC? No luck on my search.

there is no doubt an standardized testing is unfair to the less fortunate.

Where I live, you cant walk a block without seeing a dozen ads for SAT tutors...

The financially less fortunate can not afford what they charge. That is a given. Heck, even I thought twice before paying for my kids to be tutored....but I did it.

Test results manipulated = test scores tampered with. There is no record of that.

How is standardized testing unfair? The calculus question was skewed to whites? Shakespeare's sonnets were withheld from Asian kids? Monet slides missed the Latino district? These are specialized schools. You attend them because you have a specific interest.

I can understand an SAT being unfair, if your school doesn't offer calculus or doesn't teach proper English vocabulary. It costs what? $35 to take a practice SAT?

There are many many ways to help the poor in this situation. Lowering standards is not a helpful one.

Lowering standards?

No.

Eliminating standard tests is the answer.

They do nothing but open the door for people to game the game...be it hiring a personal tutor if you have the money or be it manipulating the results if you have a rogue administrator.

 

[saveliberty]

You have to love the irony in the liberal view teaching to a test is bad. Anyone ever hear of Common Core?

You've got the irony wrong. Suddenly you've decided that teaching to a test is a good thing if it somehow disadvantages lower income students.

Look, the standardized test is being made obsolete and inappropriate because people have discovered a scheme to beat the test. The only fair solution is to either provide everyone with the means to take advantage of the scheme,

or to scrap the test or modify it in such a way that it can't be gamed.

When did I suggest teachers should teach to a test (any test)? Standardized actually do work for the most part. You will not see a D student max the SAT, unless they just really sandbagged all through school. You may pick up a few points here and there by being more familiar with the way questions are worded or that they emphasize certain subject areas, but you basically have to know the material. It aids versus some miracle cure.

If I hear you correctly, you are suggesting more access to the test prep class? Did I not make some suggestions to help pay for that? When you ignore them I am left to think you simply want to remove merit. Is that the case? Are we really that far apart? Maybe not.

 

[PoliticalChic]

there is no doubt an standardized testing is unfair to the less fortunate.

Where I live, you cant walk a block without seeing a dozen ads for SAT tutors...

The financially less fortunate can not afford what they charge. That is a given. Heck, even I thought twice before paying for my kids to be tutored....but I did it.

Test results manipulated = test scores tampered with. There is no record of that.

How is standardized testing unfair? The calculus question was skewed to whites? Shakespeare's sonnets were withheld from Asian kids? Monet slides missed the Latino district? These are specialized schools. You attend them because you have a specific interest.

I can understand an SAT being unfair, if your school doesn't offer calculus or doesn't teach proper English vocabulary. It costs what? $35 to take a practice SAT?

There are many many ways to help the poor in this situation. Lowering standards is not a helpful one.

Lowering standards?

No.

Eliminating standard tests is the answer.

They do nothing but open the door for people to game the game...be it hiring a personal tutor if you have the money or be it manipulating the results if you have a rogue administrator.

"Eliminating standard tests is the answer."

What utter nonsense.

That would be like paying a man to paint your room....but never opening your eyes in the room.




On the other hand......Liberals believe in something close to that: eliminating standards.....as is the theme of this thread.




Does everyone know that NY State regents exams and curricula have been watered down, dumbed down....??

They have become more subjective, less objective...that means no standards....

And that the SATs have become more subjective as to grading, as well....that's why an additional 800 point 'essay' has been added.





And.... Liberalism marches on!

And how different is it in higher education?


Well, not very, if Liberals are in charge:



19. Now this outrage:

"July 18, 2014
The University of Wisconsin-Madison's "'Diversity' Plan Involves Grading By Race And Ethnicity"... really?

The quote part of my question, above, comes from Instapundit, who is paraphrasing John Leo (at Minding the Campus) who wrote. Leo wrote:

Professors, instead of just awarding the grade that each student earns, would apparently have to adjust them so that academically weaker, "underrepresented racial/ethnic" students perform at the same level and receive the same grades as academically stronger students."
Althouse: The University of Wisconsin-Madison's "'Diversity' Plan Involves Grading By Race And Ethnicity"... really?




After all.....equality of numbers, not knowledge.....isn't that what we're after???

 

[saveliberty]

We make medicines that save thousands, but kill a few people. Should it be banned and a thousand die? I just don't get this EVERYONE has to win or it must be torn down!

They enroll 6.000 a year? How many poor kids get missed? 100? 500? I can't imagine it would be that hard to have a scholarship program in New York City for that small a number.

 

[SmedlyButler]

Test results manipulated = test scores tampered with. There is no record of that.

How is standardized testing unfair? The calculus question was skewed to whites? Shakespeare's sonnets were withheld from Asian kids? Monet slides missed the Latino district? These are specialized schools. You attend them because you have a specific interest.

I can understand an SAT being unfair, if your school doesn't offer calculus or doesn't teach proper English vocabulary. It costs what? $35 to take a practice SAT?

There are many many ways to help the poor in this situation. Lowering standards is not a helpful one.

suggest to me that a good infrastructure is needed to insure that the poor have an equal shot at making the grade. Retired teachers and volunteer tutors organised efficiently, or something along that line. I'm sure there are examples of this type of project but obviously they haven't been effective enough. I'm going to do a little research.

I listed three possible ways to assist:

1. Enterprising teachers who offer the course at a better price.
2. Scholarships.
3. Student loan program.

I am not arguing some students are left out due to costs. I am saying lowering the merit of those who get in is a poor solution. Given this to me the best choice is to develop all three suggestions. Which leaves me with this question: Do you want these kids to get a high caliber education or not? Lowering standards means teachers end up having to teach to the lowest level (the problem New York City is trying to avoid).

in an earlier post. The whole country needs "a high caliber education". Lower the standards enough in too many categories of culture or society and soon you'll have a nation not worth defending with those trillions of dollars spent.

 

[saveliberty]

lol...

We seem to be agreeing. I'm not sure what you want explained or clarified.

 

[saveliberty]

As a side note, one of my daughter's has an annual budget of $100 for classroom supplies per class. I think we have that up to about $500 with family support. Wonder how prohibitive that is to a good education?

 

[PoliticalChic]

We make medicines that save thousands, but kill a few people. Should it be banned and a thousand die? I just don't get this EVERYONE has to win or it must be torn down!

They enroll 6.000 a year? How many poor kids get missed? 100? 500? I can't imagine it would be that hard to have a scholarship program in New York City for that small a number.

Scholarships to.....private schools?


Think Liberals would go along with these:


Urban parochial schools were serving a growing share of disadvantaged and frequently non-Catholic youngsters. In a study published in 1990, for example, the Rand Corporation found that, of the Catholic school students in these Catholic high schools in New York City, 75 to 90 percent were black or Hispanic.

i. Over 66 percent of the Catholic school graduates received the New York State Regents diploma to signify completion of an academically demanding college preparatory curriculum, while only about 5 percent of the public school students received this distinction;

ii. The Catholic high schools graduated 95 percent of their students each year, while the public schools graduated slightly more 50 percent of their senior class;

iii. The Catholic school students achieved an average combined SAT score of 803, while the public school students' average combined SAT score was 642;

iv. 60 percent of the Catholic school black students scored above the national average for black students on the SAT, and over 70 percent of public school black students scored below the same national average.
From "Troublemaker," by Chester Finn


 More recent studies confirm these observations. Why Catholic Schools Spell Success For America's Inner-CityChildren




I can just hear the Liberals screaming 'not one cent....church/state and all!!!"

 

[Mustang]

For those who believed in authorizing a new class in America, based on skin color, this post will .....what's that Liberal term....oh...."offend."




1. "The Plot Against Merit....Seeking racial balance, liberal advocates want to water down admissions standards at New York’s elite high schools.



2. In 2004, seven-year-old Ting Shi arrived in New York from China, speaking almost no English... he shared a bedroom in a Chinatown apartment with his grandparents—a cook and a factory worker—and a young cousin, while his parents put in 12-hour days at a small Laundromat they had purchased on the Upper East Side. Ting mastered English and eventually set his sights on getting into Stuyvesant High School, the crown jewel of New York City’s eight “specialized high schools.”

3. [Ting bought] prep books for its eighth-grade entrance exam....prepared for the test over the next two years, working through the prep books and taking classes at one of the city’s free tutoring programs. His acceptance into Stuyvesant prompted a day of celebration at the Laundromat—an immigrant family’s dream beginning to come true. Ting, now a 17-year-old senior starting at NYU in the fall, says of his parents, who never went to college: “They came here for the next generation.”





4. New York’s specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant and the equally storied Bronx High School of Science, along with Brooklyn Technical High School and five smaller schools, have produced 14 Nobel Laureates—more than most countries. For more than 70 years, admission to these schools has been based upon a competitive examination of math, verbal, and logical reasoning skills.

5. ...troubled by declining black and Hispanic enrollment at the schools, opponents of the exam have resurfaced. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has filed a civil rights complaint challenging the admissions process. A bill in Albany to eliminate the test requirement has garnered the support...[and] new New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, whose son, Dante, attends Brooklyn Tech, has called for changing the admissions criteria. The mayor argues that relying solely on the test creates a “rich-get-richer” dynamic that benefits the wealthy, who can afford expensive test preparation.

As Ting’s story illustrates, however, the reality is just the opposite.





6. In 1971, the board of Community School District 3, then a predominantly black and Puerto Rican district on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, charged that Bronx Science was, as characterized by the New York Times, “a privileged educational center for children of the white middle class because ‘culturally’ oriented examinations worked to ‘screen out’ black and Puerto Rican students.” .... the board criticized the exam for being “heavily loaded with ‘intelligence test’ approaches” and proposed that students should instead be admitted solely based on recommendations.

7. ....a 1997 report by the radical Acorn group assailing racial imbalance at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.
But strikingly, the Acorn report focused less on the entrance exam and merit selection than on improved preparation of minority students.... Acorn made this focus more explicit: “The question is not whether the entrance exam is unfair. The question is why students who attend public elementary and middle schools for eight or nine years are so unprepared to do well when they take it.”
The Plot Against Merit by Dennis Saffran, City Journal Summer 2014



The question will surely break down along the usual lines: Liberals, equality of numbers is the only consideration.

Normal folks: merit should be rewarded.

You might benefit by reading the following book written by Christopher L. Hayes.


Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy

 

[PoliticalChic]

For those who believed in authorizing a new class in America, based on skin color, this post will .....what's that Liberal term....oh...."offend."




1. "The Plot Against Merit....Seeking racial balance, liberal advocates want to water down admissions standards at New York’s elite high schools.



2. In 2004, seven-year-old Ting Shi arrived in New York from China, speaking almost no English... he shared a bedroom in a Chinatown apartment with his grandparents—a cook and a factory worker—and a young cousin, while his parents put in 12-hour days at a small Laundromat they had purchased on the Upper East Side. Ting mastered English and eventually set his sights on getting into Stuyvesant High School, the crown jewel of New York City’s eight “specialized high schools.”

3. [Ting bought] prep books for its eighth-grade entrance exam....prepared for the test over the next two years, working through the prep books and taking classes at one of the city’s free tutoring programs. His acceptance into Stuyvesant prompted a day of celebration at the Laundromat—an immigrant family’s dream beginning to come true. Ting, now a 17-year-old senior starting at NYU in the fall, says of his parents, who never went to college: “They came here for the next generation.”





4. New York’s specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant and the equally storied Bronx High School of Science, along with Brooklyn Technical High School and five smaller schools, have produced 14 Nobel Laureates—more than most countries. For more than 70 years, admission to these schools has been based upon a competitive examination of math, verbal, and logical reasoning skills.

5. ...troubled by declining black and Hispanic enrollment at the schools, opponents of the exam have resurfaced. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has filed a civil rights complaint challenging the admissions process. A bill in Albany to eliminate the test requirement has garnered the support...[and] new New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, whose son, Dante, attends Brooklyn Tech, has called for changing the admissions criteria. The mayor argues that relying solely on the test creates a “rich-get-richer” dynamic that benefits the wealthy, who can afford expensive test preparation.

As Ting’s story illustrates, however, the reality is just the opposite.





6. In 1971, the board of Community School District 3, then a predominantly black and Puerto Rican district on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, charged that Bronx Science was, as characterized by the New York Times, “a privileged educational center for children of the white middle class because ‘culturally’ oriented examinations worked to ‘screen out’ black and Puerto Rican students.” .... the board criticized the exam for being “heavily loaded with ‘intelligence test’ approaches” and proposed that students should instead be admitted solely based on recommendations.

7. ....a 1997 report by the radical Acorn group assailing racial imbalance at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.
But strikingly, the Acorn report focused less on the entrance exam and merit selection than on improved preparation of minority students.... Acorn made this focus more explicit: “The question is not whether the entrance exam is unfair. The question is why students who attend public elementary and middle schools for eight or nine years are so unprepared to do well when they take it.”
The Plot Against Merit by Dennis Saffran, City Journal Summer 2014



The question will surely break down along the usual lines: Liberals, equality of numbers is the only consideration.

Normal folks: merit should be rewarded.

You might benefit by reading the following book written by Christopher L. Hayes.


Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy

If this is the same Chris Hayes I used to see on MSNBC, I must say that early on I posted that folks should watch him on Sunday mornings.....

But the milieu got to him, and he became more MSNBC than investigative reporter.
It became unwatchable.


Along those lines.....this was the first Amazon review I saw....

"Sorry but this kid (and he does needs more life experience) is really out there... I'm sure the liberals read this with rose colored glasses..."

 

[thereisnospoon]

The question will surely break down along the usual lines: Liberals, equality of numbers is the only consideration.

Normal folks: merit should be rewarded.

Who determines "merit"? That's a massive gray area that conservatards will undoubtedly exploit ceaselessly as they continue to oppress womyn and minorities by whatever means necessary.

Numbers don't lie. Only numbers matter. Are you saying that statistics are wrong? Or merely that they're right, but you refuse to acknowledge this fact in public because it disagrees with your antiquated world view?

The statistics are incorrect.
The fact that the majority of undergrads are women kind of shoots your wailing theories in the ass.
BTW....You can't spell.

 

[saveliberty]

I keep frogetting the purpose of threads is to beat each other up and call people an idiot, not find areas of agreement or solve problems to both parties mutual satisfaction. Carry on.

 

[Mustang]

For those who believed in authorizing a new class in America, based on skin color, this post will .....what's that Liberal term....oh...."offend."




1. "The Plot Against Merit....Seeking racial balance, liberal advocates want to water down admissions standards at New York’s elite high schools.



2. In 2004, seven-year-old Ting Shi arrived in New York from China, speaking almost no English... he shared a bedroom in a Chinatown apartment with his grandparents—a cook and a factory worker—and a young cousin, while his parents put in 12-hour days at a small Laundromat they had purchased on the Upper East Side. Ting mastered English and eventually set his sights on getting into Stuyvesant High School, the crown jewel of New York City’s eight “specialized high schools.”

3. [Ting bought] prep books for its eighth-grade entrance exam....prepared for the test over the next two years, working through the prep books and taking classes at one of the city’s free tutoring programs. His acceptance into Stuyvesant prompted a day of celebration at the Laundromat—an immigrant family’s dream beginning to come true. Ting, now a 17-year-old senior starting at NYU in the fall, says of his parents, who never went to college: “They came here for the next generation.”





4. New York’s specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant and the equally storied Bronx High School of Science, along with Brooklyn Technical High School and five smaller schools, have produced 14 Nobel Laureates—more than most countries. For more than 70 years, admission to these schools has been based upon a competitive examination of math, verbal, and logical reasoning skills.

5. ...troubled by declining black and Hispanic enrollment at the schools, opponents of the exam have resurfaced. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has filed a civil rights complaint challenging the admissions process. A bill in Albany to eliminate the test requirement has garnered the support...[and] new New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, whose son, Dante, attends Brooklyn Tech, has called for changing the admissions criteria. The mayor argues that relying solely on the test creates a “rich-get-richer” dynamic that benefits the wealthy, who can afford expensive test preparation.

As Ting’s story illustrates, however, the reality is just the opposite.





6. In 1971, the board of Community School District 3, then a predominantly black and Puerto Rican district on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, charged that Bronx Science was, as characterized by the New York Times, “a privileged educational center for children of the white middle class because ‘culturally’ oriented examinations worked to ‘screen out’ black and Puerto Rican students.” .... the board criticized the exam for being “heavily loaded with ‘intelligence test’ approaches” and proposed that students should instead be admitted solely based on recommendations.

7. ....a 1997 report by the radical Acorn group assailing racial imbalance at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.
But strikingly, the Acorn report focused less on the entrance exam and merit selection than on improved preparation of minority students.... Acorn made this focus more explicit: “The question is not whether the entrance exam is unfair. The question is why students who attend public elementary and middle schools for eight or nine years are so unprepared to do well when they take it.”
The Plot Against Merit by Dennis Saffran, City Journal Summer 2014



The question will surely break down along the usual lines: Liberals, equality of numbers is the only consideration.

Normal folks: merit should be rewarded.

You might benefit by reading the following book written by Christopher L. Hayes.


Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy

If this is the same Chris Hayes I used to see on MSNBC, I must say that early on I posted that folks should watch him on Sunday mornings.....

But the milieu got to him, and he became more MSNBC than investigative reporter.
It became unwatchable.


Along those lines.....this was the first Amazon review I saw....

"Sorry but this kid (and he does needs more life experience) is really out there... I'm sure the liberals read this with rose colored glasses..."

The premise of the book is that our meritocracy has been undermined by people who know how to game the system in their favor, regardless of political affiliation, and it's this undermining of the meritocracy which has led to so many catastrophic failures in our institutions over the last few decades.

 

[saveliberty]

FDR pretty much killed any sort of meritocracy that America had. Since then it has been a race to the lowest common denominator.

 

[thereisnospoon]

That's another story.

Blame the teachers.

Where I live, they charge between 65 and 90 an hour to tutor. They have permission to tutor as long as they offer 1/2 hour a day after school hours for general extra help. SO by 3:30, most of them are out and tutoring for cash.

So yeah, only the rich get the advantage of tutors.

You blame the rich for that? Not the teachers?

"So yeah, only the rich get the advantage of tutors."

Flushing, Queens is almost completely Asian.

I heard a radio caller from Flushing say that on weekends, it is nearly impossible to find an available seat in the libraries.

Seems, there are all sorts of tutors.....many, free.

Is it your position, then, that inanimate objects are at least equal to humyn beings--in particular, those who are employed as teachers--in terms of their ability to tutor students?

If not, please explain your previous statements in detail so as to rid us of this misunderstanding.

WHAT?!!!!
BTW it's HUMAN.......
I see what your angle here is...
You are a militant lesbian and due to that, you despise the male huMAN species so badly not only does it make you foam at the mouth, you cannot even bring your self to spell MAN or MEN properly..
not only are you a militant lefty lesbian, you are every bit as bad as a racist....
Have fun, bigot.....

 

[thereisnospoon]

Your missing a bunch of ys LM.

In addition to or in place of, people can learn on their own. A library is a good place to do that. Some people even do that AND have tutors. (Gasp!!!)

If pyyple could truly learn on their own, we wouldn't need public schools, and we wouldn't need tutors. Fact.

The bourgeois scum that can self-teach yet choose to pay for a private tutor anyway are merely flaunting their rich, white-privileged upbringing in the faces of the underclass. It's truly sickening and I'm not sure how you can support it.

It makes me happy you are so full of hate.
It exposes your side's agenda.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Well then taking away all Medicaid and taking away free public education should be one of our first steps in this mission to build character among the poor shouldn't it?

I mean, trying to survive a disease or injury that your parents cannot afford treatment for should be the greatest thing that might ever happen to a child, don't you think?

Oh. I see.

You don't want to debate.

You don't want to understand the oppositions position.

You just want to act like an ass.

Never mind. No interest in your spin and hyperbole. Forget I even responded to you.

When someone says:

To me, being broke and with no one to lean on was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

and uses that as an argument to deny help to the poor, I don't think my simply showing that person what that means in real life is any sort of an exaggeration.

Why is it you libs insist that OTHERS help the poor?
Deny help to the poor?
What the fuck are talking about... nearly a third of the federal budget is spent on the poor.

 

[thereisnospoon]

there is no doubt an standardized testing is unfair to the less fortunate.

Where I live, you cant walk a block without seeing a dozen ads for SAT tutors...

The financially less fortunate can not afford what they charge. That is a given. Heck, even I thought twice before paying for my kids to be tutored....but I did it.

Test results manipulated = test scores tampered with. There is no record of that.

How is standardized testing unfair? The calculus question was skewed to whites? Shakespeare's sonnets were withheld from Asian kids? Monet slides missed the Latino district? These are specialized schools. You attend them because you have a specific interest.

I can understand an SAT being unfair, if your school doesn't offer calculus or doesn't teach proper English vocabulary. It costs what? $35 to take a practice SAT?

There are many many ways to help the poor in this situation. Lowering standards is not a helpful one.

Lowering standards?

No.

Eliminating standard tests is the answer.

They do nothing but open the door for people to game the game...be it hiring a personal tutor if you have the money or be it manipulating the results if you have a rogue administrator.

I cannot agree more....Unfortunately, standardized multiple guess tests are the result of the dumbing down.
In the past, testing was in the form of actual writing and mathematics.
These methods were eschewed in favor of the testing methods of the present because there were claims of bias.

 

[thereisnospoon]

You have to love the irony in the liberal view teaching to a test is bad. Anyone ever hear of Common Core?

You've got the irony wrong. Suddenly you've decided that teaching to a test is a good thing if it somehow disadvantages lower income students.

Look, the standardized test is being made obsolete and inappropriate because people have discovered a scheme to beat the test. The only fair solution is to either provide everyone with the means to take advantage of the scheme,

or to scrap the test or modify it in such a way that it can't be gamed.

You are incorrect. Teaching the test is now common. In fact in most school districts, it is required. Although no administrator will admit to that.

 

[JoeB131]

"The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything."

-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Did someone give you a quote book for Christmas?

You know Hegel was practically a socialist, right?