Well said, Dr. Sowell. You are describing the dumbing down of America in the name of fairnesss and political correctness.

I don't think it's just about fairness. The school systems have numbers to keep up. they have to keep kids in school to get dollars and keep jobs. so when a subgroup underperforms it is actually helpful to the institution's cause since they have a group of the same color folks having problems. How can that be except society caused it? even though it is counterintuitive people, swallow this argument and the soft racism of the school systems perpetuates.

for a group to have access to the same amount of educational time, the same books, the same teachers,in the same general society, but to perform differently must mean that it is a problem occuring outside the system and within the subgroup.

as Sowell points out, only the intelligentsia see the problem otherwise. why do they do this? I can't believe it's because they are stupid. I believe the "see" it the way they do because it serves their political and fiscal purposes. the sad end result is the enabling of the bad behavior, same as a parent that spoils a child.

intelligentsia aren't the only culprits though. a legal system that allows frivolous lawsuits against schools is to blame as well. again this exists only for the money.

until we have real tort reform in this country we risk major social problems from this "dumbing down".

Some years ago my wife went back to school to earn her teaching degree. Being in our 30s, she was the oldest student in her classes. It was stunning, appalling the things those youngsters were being taught. This dishonest definition of "fairness" was a chief branch of the dogma.

It is irony that the very people who claim to want fairness actually produce, via their policies of victimhood and finger-pointing, far greater injustice than anything the supposedly unjust system could have done.

Wouldn't Harrison Bergeron have been amazed? Here we are taking science classes away from kids who want to learn, so we can spend more money on kids who don't care. Here we are striking out facts and objectivity from our history books, in order to replace them with lies and distortions intended to serve some arbitrary social purpose. Here we are teaching kids that spelling is unimportant, grammar is a matter of opinion, and "close enough" is just fine in math. By making everyone equally ignorant, those who can't be bothered don't stand out as failures. This way, we're ALL failures. But at least Liberals are happy.

I believe that the true diversity of America is its vast array of skills, traits, talents and abilities. That is my definition of diversity. I believe the differences in religions, sexes, races; nationalities, politics, etc. are just that "differences". We need to praise everyone's differences, not inflate our own as being more important or due more recognition than others. We need to stop battling between or over our differences and concentrate on "Unity". United we can do and accomplish anything we as a nation accept as a common goal for ourselves and our country, so long as we have a commonness of purpose, a common language; and, "Unity".

Change our paradigm that race does not represent diversity. It is just a difference and not important. Things that are not important to us are not protected. Our skills, traits, talents and abilities are demonstrated and recognized by all and given importance. In a given situation, a mechanic can be more important that a physician, etc. It will not be an easy task, yet the seed can take root and grow. Maybe?

Stop the fighting! It is not accomplishing anything, other than some personal agenda's to continue the recognition or importance game! If you think about it, the media or certain individuals make money keeping the fight alive!

It is a know fact that every individual is born with a certain learning ability that can be improved on over time even in some cases of brain damage - we can retrain other parts of the brain for example to enable us to speak again.

We also possess a certain learning style that is unique to each person and it is a combination of eight or nine variables which Gardner calls "intelligences." Some of us are better visual learners, some are musical, some are naturalists, some have kinetic learning styles, some are logical, mathematical, rational, scientific, etc. Luck plays a part in our learning success, wealth, familty ties, societal roots, ethnic differences, nutrition at the right time of fetal and neo-natal development, and religious experience or the lack thereof.

Unfortunately, the lessons designed by our eminent public school system are based on the socialist ideology with revisionist history, science, philosophy, psychology, geography, government, foreign languages, economics, and English literature.

Liberal teachers insinuate socialism and communism ideology into every possible facet of the curricula that is permitted by the state or that they can get away with when parents and principals are not paying attention.