So in my
last post in regards to preparation for HS in NYC I mentioned the following:
This is what's going to happen to a lot of these students who get in because of the wish to "diversify" the schools. They will find themselves out of their depth. They will need tutoring. They will get low grades (or inflated grades). They will have a really hard time and not a few will fail out and have to transfer to a less advanced school. Luckily they won't have thousands in debt to pay off for this experiment.
So I just ran across a
posting by Walter Williams which really underscores this problem.
The atrocious NAEP performance is only a fraction of the bad news. Nationally, our high school graduation rate is over 80 percent. That means high school diplomas, which attest that these students can read and compute at a 12th-grade level, are conferred when 63 percent are not proficient in reading and 75 percent are not proficient in math. For blacks, the news is worse. Roughly 75 percent of black students received high school diplomas attesting that they could read and compute at the 12th-grade level. However, 83 percent could not read at that level, and 93 percent could not do math at that level. It's grossly dishonest for the education establishment and politicians to boast about unprecedented graduation rates when the high school diplomas, for the most part, do not represent academic achievement. At best, they certify attendance.
I have discussed testing results before but it really hadn't hit me the extent of the fraud involved. It does explain the number of "woke" people who have a hard time understanding basic statistical problems and issues of scope*. But here's the kicker:
. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70 percent of white high school graduates in 2016 enrolled in college, and 58 percent of black high school graduates enrolled in college. Here are my questions to you: If only 37 percent of white high school graduates test as college-ready, how come colleges are admitting 70 percent of them? And if roughly 17 percent of black high school graduates test as college-ready, how come colleges are admitting 58 percent of them?
Indeed.
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* Issues of scope relate to the whole demographics arguments that are often presented by liberals. If the population of a country has 13% blacks, they say that 13% of all engineers should be black. However they don't understand that the number of blacks engineers is constrained by the population that is bright enough to be engineers. That population is far less than 13%. Such commentary also underscores that many people underestimate what kind of intelligence is needed to work in the highest level of engineering. To make it simple I compare this to the 100 meter dash or a marathon. Personally I'm better than 85% of the people out there who run either distances. However the gap between me and Olympic level 100 meter runners and marathoners is huge. We're talking times that are at least half my best times. That an Olympic level athlete will blow by me as if I was taking a stroll while I will blow by most people as if they were taking a stroll shows how far the elite level is compares to even the "top quartile". If one has graduated school without such a basic understanding, one cannot be trusted to properly comment on "disparities" much less be put into a position where one can influence or dictate policy.
