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Everything that rises must converge. For fairness.

This is what the “diversity” movement has wrought:

After weeks of debate that touched on academics, race and politics, Evanston Township High School District 202 approved a dramatic plan Monday night that eliminates an honors English course for the highest-achieving incoming freshmen — usually white students.

The unanimous school board vote paves the way for freshmen of all races, socioeconomic and achievement backgrounds next fall to take the same freshman humanities course next fall. Proponents of the move see it as a way to diversify advanced courses and circumvent the traditional process of tracking students into courses by test scores that often places minorities in lower-level classes.

The board approved the plan despite opposition from hundreds of parents who signed a petition urging officials to at least delay the proposal while it can be studied further.

Among other concerns, parents felt top-performing students could be bored or held back in classes that cater to the abilities of a wide range of students. The class scheduled for elimination is designed for freshmen who outscore about 95 percent of peers nationally on eighth-grade tests.

In a world where people are judged by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character — where “diversity” is judged not by a breadth of ideas but rather by fidelity to Benetton adds — is it really all that surprising that superior academic achievement would be punished as unfair to those who haven’t achieved as much, in an effort to socially engineer an equality of outcome that is a obviously superficial as it is intellectually bankrupt?

Up is down. Black is white. Nobody so much as even likes Raymond…

(h/t happy)

74 Replies to “Everything that rises must converge. For fairness.”

  1. dicentra says:

    Sometimes you pray for our civilization to fall to pieces, ya know? To stop stuff like this from continuing?

    Beck’s been featuring a rabbi who says that God confounded the languages at the tower of Babel to stop them from their well-intentioned but horrific project–an act of mercy rather than wrath.

    Me, I’ll take the wrath, if it’s offered, or a well-placed EMP. Just make them stop. Please.

  2. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Proponents of the move see it as a way to diversify advanced courses and circumvent the traditional process of tracking students into courses by test scores that often places minorities in lower-level classes.

    Try doing that with varsity sports ––football and basketball especially–– and see how long your tenure on the school board lasts.

  3. Crawford says:

    Ah, but Ernst, that’s because public schools are nothing more than early training camps for the professional leagues. They have nothing to do with education, which is why advanced classes can be done away with!

    Harrison Bergeron, you’re wanted on the white courtesy phone! Harrison Bergeron, white phone, please!

  4. cranky-d says:

    Some of my peers could barely read. I could read at a grade 12 level when I was in the sixth grade. A good portion of my classes were a joke.

    Stuff like this is going to make things much worse. But so what, the kids will feel better about themselves.

  5. McGehee says:

    Up is down. Black is white. Nobody so much as even likes Raymond…

    …and a beautiful girl is like the sound of the dial-up modem connecting with AOL.

  6. JHoward says:

    Beck’s been featuring a rabbi who says that God confounded the languages at the tower of Babel to stop them from their well-intentioned but horrific project–an act of mercy rather than wrath.

    If God intends the individual actualization of mind, dicentra — and fwiw I think there’s nothing but evidence this is so in the profoundly diverse course of human history and within it the equally diverse nature of those minds — then confounding the scourge and trajectory of collectivism takes on new meaning.

  7. happyfeet says:

    I blame the Breakfast Club

  8. pdbuttons says:

    i heard they got lil pix
    on their cash registers at fast food restaurants..
    so i gotta just process ur order[big mac..oh,look..and fries]and punch certain buttons[i said buttons]
    and maybe brush my teeth
    look at me! i’m a capitalist!

  9. HeatherRadish says:

    But so what, the kids will feel better about themselves.

    Not the ones already above grade level–they will continue to be bored and resentful.

    Especially when they start applying to college and lose out on admission and scholarships to kids who took advanced HS courses.

  10. pdbuttons says:

    does anybody on this site work?
    i don’t-not judging..don’t care.

  11. LBascom says:

    Perhaps this will cheer happy up.

    a San Francisco lawmaker has introduced a bill requiring public school materials include the history of gay people. Senator Mark Leno says most textbooks fail to include information about the LGBT movement, which he says has great significance to both California and U.S. history. The openly-gay lawmaker also says being silent on gay issues perpetuates negative stereotypes and leads to increased bullying of young people.

    Happily, social cons have largely put aside their silly moral psychodramas to mostly focus on the spendings, yet the social progressives march on. See, even being silent perpetuates negative stereotypes.

    Funny how that happens.

  12. Abe Froman says:

    I suppose it’s easier than suggesting that black kids study harder. The only consolation is that it’s a stinking college town and the high-achieving whities getting fucked over most likely have proggturd parents.

  13. happyfeet says:

    he’s retarded I can’t help him

  14. happyfeet says:

    , lee

  15. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Oh welll. Now that Barak Michelle Obama is going to see to it that everybody gets into college, I suppose we don’t need AP/College Prep courses anyways.

    NO LABELS!

    (and McGeehee, if she sounds like a dial-up modem squawking, you’re doing it wrong)

  16. mojo says:

    “The nail that stands up is hammered down”
    — Japanese Aphorism

  17. pdbuttons says:

    i went to framingham state..
    why- the chick -guy ratio was 10 to one
    and i got a hockey schoralship
    and my brother was there..and i wanted to get closer to him..
    ask me about the time he took acid,and went off on
    some tangent-talking about ‘vince lombardi’
    i guess you had to be there..
    but it was funny!

  18. Sgt. Mom says:

    Ugh … I recall high school very well, and being in Honors and AE (academically enriched) courses pretty consistently. Those regular HS courses that I wound up in were exercises in boredom and frustration. So punish me for being intelligent and driven, by dumping me in with the barely-literate, whose parent’s didn’t give a damn about their little darlings’ academic achievement or lack of same.
    Yeah, this will work out real well. Harrison Bergeron indeed.

  19. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Actually Abe, I’d bet that most of the proggturd parents have their kids in private school, so I doubt they give a fuck. The kids hurt by this are from working class/lower middle class families trying to improve their prospects. But screw them and their old fashioned values.

  20. alppuccino says:

    It’s almost as if – if you take the advanced classes, you can say you’re a genius, and if you can get some people to go along with the idea that you’re a genius, then ipso facto, you are!

    Then you can be president.

    .

    .

    .
    Are you going to eat that dead rat?

  21. dicentra says:

    the individual actualization of mind

    Huhwhat?

    I guess I missed THAT Sunday school class.

  22. pdbuttons says:

    when u come up to bat
    and that oppossing pitcher throws a fastball
    at ur head..
    and he puts a lil ‘english’ on it/
    what,exactly does that mean?..

  23. Abe Froman says:

    Good point, Ernst. Though I don’t think it’s entirely true that proggtards send their kids to private schools any more. It’s overwhelmingly true among the affluent, but I see a growing counter-current among more grubby proggs driven by their obsession with “diversity” and class. I’ll bet the kids who otherwise would be in honors classes include a fair amount of these types – who at least took comfort in the fact that their kids would mingle with these people in the halls but be spared their presence in the classroom.

  24. newrouter says:

    next for the O! – no transcripts

  25. ProfShade says:

    God help us. We’ve become a bad Kurt Vonnegut story…where’s my wheelchair?

  26. LTC John says:

    12 & 19 – that is Evanston alright. It has been a progg/PC craphole for a number of years now. The only good thing is that you can flee the place – but why you should have to is a wrong – to nearby decent communities. The North Shore limo libs strike again.

  27. JHoward says:

    the individual actualization of mind

    Huhwhat?

    I guess I missed THAT Sunday school class.

    Maybe you can see your way clear to call that Christian salvation, dicentra.

    Or you can be outraged.

  28. pdbuttons says:

    who’s up for some fake shakespeare quotes?
    u start..
    ok-i will
    a little drivel..a little drool..
    feeds-big oaks

  29. pdbuttons says:

    going doggerel- cuz i don’t wanna be a bother..
    uno mas fakey shakespeare quote
    as i leave..upon ur mercy
    stop staring at my ass!
    later-gator

  30. Squid says:

    Mindy Wallis, the parent of two honors students who launched the petition drive, said Monday that she has already heard talk about parents pulling their children from the high school and working to unseat school board members in next spring’s elections.

    It takes more than talk, Mindy. Get to work!

  31. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I see a growing counter-current among more grubby proggs driven by their obsession with “diversity” and class. I’ll bet the kids who otherwise would be in honors classes include a fair amount of these types – who at least took comfort in the fact that their kids would mingle with these people in the halls but be spared their presence in the classroom.

    Well then, either a regression towards the mean or an exodus towards open enrollement is about to ensue.

  32. Slartibartfast says:

    Handicapper General strikes again!

  33. Bob Reed says:

    As usual, this is all based on devising government programs based on the lowest common denominator, under the guise of fairness and the much ballyhooed affirmative action which we have been told has been so wildly successful and is the only possible path to our national success.

    My uncle and aunt are teachers in North Carolina, and they complain about having to gear their cirricula to the lowest achievers, and as such are effectively holding back the rest of the class; all in the name of having the necessary statistical metric of successful promotions. And much as I predicted during our Thanksgiving bull sessions, here we have the elimination of AP courses; once again actual academic excellence and scholastic achievement is being subjegated in the name of diversity. As an amusing sidebar, while distressed by this whole situation, being good committed “Bush is not my President” liberal, they couldn’t see how Democrat ideas of social engineering and identity politics, both of which also play to the lowest common denominator, had wrought these revolting developments.

    It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that mediocrity is being institutionalized here; as it has in most instances where bean counting based on false measures of success in “diversity” and inclusiveness is most highly prized.

    But, you know, we can’t have honors or AP courses, because Casper’s and Lil’Papi’s self-esteem will be hurt owing to the reality that they play x-box all night instead of doing their homework-and their parents could give a frig…

    So let’s save them from their familial lack of responsibility and disregard for education by making everyone as stoopid as they are; in the name of diverity!

    I mean, heaven forbid that others might use that bunch of dolts as an example of why you should do your homework.

    Besides, it’s cool to be dumb, and you can’t be a great rapper if you read and speak like the white man; you gotta be wigger-licious like Emen-em if you wanna-be keepin’ it real.

  34. pdbuttons says:

    who is peeking out
    from under the stairway
    calling a name,thats lighter than air
    whoese bending down
    to give me rainboow
    everyone knows it’s vwindy”

    shr got stormy eyes..
    don’t blink
    stare her down..
    i besheech u

  35. pdbuttons says:

    sorry for the unpell
    way off.
    it i coukd
    go back-and make things right
    i’d be dr who

  36. Abe Froman says:

    Besides, it’s cool to be dumb, and you can’t be a great rapper if you read and speak like the white man; you gotta be wigger-licious like Emen-em if you wanna-be keepin’ it real.

    The sad thing is that this holds true in communities full of affluent blacks as well. Cartoonishly liberal Montclair, New Jersey went through the same crap with honors classes that this post focuses on. And in Shaker Heights, Ohio, black parents actually brought in an anthroplogist to try and figure out why their own kids were doing so much worse than their white neighbors in school and he, while black himself and presumably inclined to lay the blame elsewhere, arrived at the same conclusion.

  37. pdbuttons says:

    see dick run.
    see jane ..sweet jane..
    run dick, run,,
    back 2 basics!
    i can often
    defend myself..
    in a court of popular opinion..

    i just totally spelled

  38. newrouter says:

    mediocrity is being institutionalized

    liberalism in action

  39. pdbuttons says:

    the best right wing nut arguement
    or talky things
    is to ask them..
    democrats have been in charge..since 19 64
    in every inner urban city..
    mayor-school council-city boards..
    top down..upside ur face..
    and them all ..not white..
    y do democrats hate black people?
    we pimpin’ ya yo

  40. pdbuttons says:

    ’tis sad..
    cuz as a rt wing nut..
    i really care abouts
    the city
    fuck- i care about america

  41. Squid says:

    Bear in mind that it’s going to be hard enough to unseat this School Board and find a competent new Superintendent. Just imagine what it’ll be like when these decisions are made by an untouchable, unaccountable, unidentifiable committee in Washington.

  42. pdbuttons says:

    not that i care..
    but i do..!
    don’t hang with africans- don’t know..
    mm-maybe a couple..
    but, do they hang with me?- i don’t care..
    but-everytime i bring up
    my inner city thang with a lib/dem
    they stammer..
    and call me hitler..
    hardy har har,,
    east st.louis
    chicago
    washington
    new york[ the city that failed so-u gotta name it twice!]
    new york
    the city of angels?
    even the lil big cities
    worchesrer?
    springfield?
    lawrence?
    controlled by dems..for 40 years..
    i want my 40 acres and a mule
    fail!

  43. pdbuttons says:

    yup- went to a t-party meeting
    and they got all civic..laws etc..
    and they gave me a print sheet w/local roll
    everthing..
    school boards-city council..alderman…
    and i thought this think as i looked at the page
    f”ck- i gotta get involved?’

  44. Bob Reed says:

    Abe,
    what’s really sad is that in predominantly black Prince Georges county, part of the people’s republic of Maryland, where I lived until a few years ago, at what is considered a flagship “Magnet School” for academic and scholastic excellence there were 500 seats unfilled in the advanced placement courses; because the bean counters had reserved those seats for white students-because of the diversity

    And regardless of how much the parents objected to this miscarriage, the local NAACP chapter would not allow the policy to be amended so to be color blind, and threatened court action if the school district tried to do so; for the same reason they won’t allow that same county to end the bussing program that consumes half of the education budget.

    The NAACP would not allow any precedent that went against the forced integration guidlines that were enacted in the 1970’s, and which PG county was amongst the first places in the nation that the measures were instituted.

    So in the interest of retaining institutionalized identity politics, the effin’ NAACP was ensuring that at least 500 bright black youths were denied the chance to take these higher level courses…

    And the Democrats continue to repeat the mantra that Billy Jeff made so well known in the 90’s; the connivance that only through enforced diversity would our nation be successful.

    Add mediocrity is success to the black is white, up is down, etc.

  45. Ernst Schreiber says:

    In a nation full of cretins…

    mediocrity is still mediocrity.

    But it looks like success!

  46. pdbuttons says:

    the ink is black
    the paper is white
    together we learn
    to read and write..

    if anybody on this ..site
    wants to put a hurtin
    on three dog night..’
    more than me..
    well’ can i join? or take pictures?

  47. pdbuttons says:

    theres no stopin
    the cretins from boppin
    u got t o kep it beatin
    for allthe hopin cretins

  48. Squid says:

    Look on the bright side — we’ve already decided as a nation to punish those who achieve success, so it’s not as though these students had a bright future to look forward to. What’s the point of being the smartest cog in the machine, if you have to be a cog no matter what?

  49. pdbuttons says:

    then it slam into them bestest
    ramones song evah
    lobotomy..lobotomy!

  50. Bob Reed says:

    Both Ernst and Squid make some sagacious observations.

  51. […] twice posted (here and here) stories that have caused such an outburst, and today, courtesy of Protein Wisdom, I have read the latest story. After weeks of debate that touched on academics, race and politics, […]

  52. sdferr says:

    Rubbing out excellence was always going to be a frightful chore to start with, and we’d have to guess that we won’t be looking for better excellence-rubber-outers on principle, so the chore will necessarily be more inefficient than it might otherwise have been, so we can expect it to be a worse and less timely thing on the whole. Cripes, I hope these pro-“detracking” board members don’t think their scheme superior to the pro-“tracking” sorts, eh? We can hear their war-cry already: “Don’t vote for us! We’re not better!” Yeah, that’ll work.

  53. BuddyPC says:

    Why, it’s as if those fairness-engineered credit and housing bubbles never happened. That was a bad dream, right?


    33. Bob Reed posted on 12/14 @ 11:53 am
    Besides, it’s cool to be dumb, and you can’t be a great rapper if you read and speak like the white man; you gotta be wigger-licious like Emen-em if you wanna-be keepin’ it real.

    I don’t know that shiiitt. Keepin’ it reeaall.
    Real dumb.

    Time to queue up the Rock, yet again. Money @ 3:00.

  54. If DeVry isn’t seriously looking into secondary ed I’d be surprised.

  55. dicentra says:

    Or you can be outraged.

    Outrage is ever so much fun, so I’ll do that.

    Ok, now what?

  56. JHoward says:

    Ok, now what?

    I guess this, more or less, its sheer offense notwithstanding. Oddly, I think you’ve yet to realize that I’m promoting your point.

  57. With all respect due to Ms O’Connor, ever since I read the title to this post I’ve had this earworm and I might just go insane.

  58. eleven says:

    I’m not clicking on that. I don’t want to go insane.

  59. Sigivald says:

    Only if you, like Shriekback, live in the center of the hollow earth.

    (Or, I suppose, if we’re talking about a bell-curve distribution, improvement can be regression to the mean… if the set you started with is far to the left of center. No political comment was intended on that phrasing, but it’s also hilarious, so I’m keeping it.)

  60. McGehee says:

    by Ernst Schreiber on Dec 14, 2010 at 10:35 am

    That’s what she said.

  61. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Both Ernst and Squid make some sagacious observations.

    I don’t know about sagacity. I’m more of gallows humor guy myself.

    The problem with gallows humor is that the chuckles don’t stop ’em from hanging you though.

  62. Bob Reed says:

    Gallows humor Ernst? I think more like cudgel instead; because you’re knockin’ em dead!

    I couldn’t resist :)

  63. Dave in SoCal says:

    The world envisioned here is well on the way. And at the rate we’re going, it’ll be here a hell of a lot sooner than 500 years.

  64. Big Bang Hunter says:

    – Just when you thought they’d reached as low as they could go, they prove you wrong….

  65. Big Bang Hunter says:

    Link

  66. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Just when you thought they’d reached as low as they could go, they prove you wrong….

    The Democrat party, like the Catholic Church prefers it’s saints dead.

  67. Mike LaRoche says:

    you gotta be wigger-licious like Emen-em if you wanna-be keepin’ it real.

    …or like Tim Wise.

  68. Drumwaster says:

    All that remains is for people to start watering their plants with Brawndo. After all, it’s got what plants crave, amIright?

  69. mathew1421 says:

    Bob:

    Besides, it’s cool to be dumb, and you can’t be a great rapper if you read and speak like the white man; you gotta be wigger-licious like Emen-em if you wanna-be keepin’ it real.

    The sad thing, Bob, is that this isn’t just relegated to secondary ed–at the private (EXPENSIVE) university where I teach there is a palpable sentiment that the men in class, and particularly the black men, can not be smart and cool. They’re mutually exclusive. Programs like the one in the article are invaluable because they provide a safe place for smart kids to be unabashedly, unashamedly SMART.

    The Honors Great Books course I teach is such a refuge. In the first weeks of such a class, you can feel the relief the students feel when their intelligent answers to questions aren’t met with outright derision.

    On the other hand, I have witnessed black men in my class who were visibly harassed by other black men for answering questions or for givining any outward sign of succeeding in class.

    It’s such a shame, such a waste.

    Cowboy

  70. mathew1421 says:

    The black male students I was referring to in my third paragraph were in a General Studies Introduction to Literature course, not within the Honors Program.

    By the way, in our Honors Program (and I imagine we’re pretty representative of most such programs) girls outnumber boys at least three to one.

  71. Swen says:

    …and a beautiful girl is like the sound of the dial-up modem connecting with AOL.

    A little honest koan pron..

    Q: What is the sound of a beautiful girl talking?

    A: I don’t know Zen Master, I’m usually distracted by their.. breathing.

  72. Bob Reed says:

    It’s a sad state of affairs Cowboy, to be sure. It must be heart-wrenching to have to view it first hand on a regular, recurring, basis.

  73. gailhap says:

    Aw. They’re good country people. Just don’t leave your artificial limbs unattended…

  74. Dave in SoCal says:

    All that remains is for people to start watering their plants with Brawndo. After all, it’s got what plants crave, amIright?

    You mean people are using water for plants? Water? Like from the toilet?

    Seriously, with an advertising campaign like this, I don’t know why Brawndo isn’t the #1 selling drink in America today. It is the “Thirst Mutilator”.

Comments are closed.