It is no secret that our friends on the woke Left care more about diversity than about education. They have no concern for children — they really only worry about the child narratives their causes create.
People like the 1619 Project’s Nikole Hannah-Jones were so convinced they could improve and “desegregate” the public school system in lower-income neighborhoods by their mere presence. What actually happened is that Hannah-Jones’s child received a terrible education with lots of gaps, which became patently obvious when said child was allowed to attend a better school after years of begging.
Yet here we are, and The New York Times has published a guest essay decrying standardized tests as a way to gauge college readiness.
Are standardized tests the be-all and end-all? No. But they are a pretty good indicator of college readiness.
The guest essay author, Miriam Pawel, was particularly upset that the University of California is considering returning to SAT scores as an admissions data point. She never says it outright, but her whole lament is that reinstating standardized tests won’t create equal outcomes for kids from lousy schools, particularly if those kids are black or Latino. In other words, she supports Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
Pawel pointed out several facts about when the SAT was first dropped as a University of California admissions requirement in 2020. First, the number of diverse students (who looked like California’s population) increased, and the retention rate exceeded expectations.
This prompts the question: Is the goal diversity of skin color, or diversity of ideas? It seems that diversity of skin color without diversity of ideas is merely creating a class of people on an assembly line who can learn but not think.
It is also highly illegal to sort by race rather than by ability. See the Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College.
Despite this early burst of diverse college admissions, the bubble popped within five years because many of those kids entering the University of California weren’t ready for the academic rigor.
Pawel argued, “To reinstate the SAT is to follow the pack rather than to lead, to grasp at a dubious shortcut rather than tackle more intractable underlying issues, chief among them the reality that the best public university in the country relies on one of the weakest, most inequitable public school systems.”
She does grant that the opposition (i.e., the professors in favor of reinstating the SAT) has a point regarding math literacy, or really high school education in general. There is a marked disparity in how high schools define education. Some high schools actually make sure their students are prepared for college. Others just give them an “A” because it’s easier than explaining to their parents that a public education system failed their child by not teaching the foundational skills needed to succeed in higher education. In Hannah-Jones’s case, her daughter’s freshman year was so much harder than it should have been because her previous schools had never taught her long division and left other fundamental gaps.
This practice of moving children along because teachers aren’t allowed to hold them back, or because they don’t really care about the students (they’re still drawing a paycheck), is more common than any of us would care to admit. It’s a byproduct of educators and students not being held to a standard.
Pawel also glosses over the fact that the issue starts in K–12 schools. It’s not a lack of funding. It’s parental disinterest, poor parental involvement, teachers’ unions more interested in employing teachers than educating children, teachers who can’t be fired for not doing their jobs, and a lack of focus on fundamental building blocks like reading and math.
Standardized tests act as a colorblind litmus test of sorts. SATs are a good predictor of whether a student can tackle their first year of college. Standardized tests also spotlight schools that shuffle kids along and treat education, grades, and achievement as arbitrary instead of as a school’s core purpose.
Interestingly, Hannah-Jones complains about New York City schools, and Pawel complains about California schools. Both places are dyed-in-the-wool Democrat enclaves with years and years of leftist control over them. Yet the problems get worse, and so do the solutions. Education is about learning, yes, but it’s also about developing a mind and training it to think. The goal is to prepare these kids so well that knowledge doesn’t need to be poured into them; they chase it. Many college students are content to be vessels, not active participants in their own education.
As for diversity of skin color, God distributed intelligence pretty equally across all races. Some schools demonstrate that fact better than others. Just look at Mississippi, which went from being one of the worst states for education (49th) to the top 10. How did they do it? They went back to old-school teaching methods and held teachers, students, and parents accountable for educating young people.
In New York City — the place Hannah-Jones claims is segregated and racist — a charter school called Community Roots Charter School is thriving. Located next to public housing, it serves a diverse student body, yet its students pass proficiency tests at a rate of 80-90%.
Why? Because merit, accountability, and standards matter. Saying they don’t matter leads to an endless cycle of student failure and academic apathy, fueled by race-baiting activists to make hay on the narrative of oppression.
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said, “Woke 1 was crazy.” We’re getting close to the midterms, and the woke crazies are out reminding the public why their policies belong in the garbage.
