Merit-based Education
The Backlash Begins
There is an article on the Legal Insurrection blog about the return to merit-based admissions to Lowell High School in San Francisco, one of the top high schools in the country.
It looks like the pendulum is swinging back to the right. Who were the drivers behind the return to merit-based admission policies at Lowell High School? It was the community of mostly Asian parents, who were sick and tired of being called white supremacists when they are not considered to be white. There was a similar backlash in Loudon County, Virginia. What was the catalyst that drove the backlash in both areas? The Left going after the kids was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Part of that “straw,” was the watering down of the admission process to the elite high schools, like Lowell High School and Thomas Jefferson High School. Asian parents, including Indian parents, tend to be “tiger parents.” They drive their children to excellence mercilessly.
It’s no secret that discrimination against Asians takes place in higher education. Harvard University even admits it. Their admissions department claims that if admissions were based strictly on merit, there would be nothing but Asian students at Harvard. The implication was that there would be nothing but Asian students in any college, anywhere in the world. That’s probably an exaggeration, but let’s explore why that just might be possible.
As I wrote earlier, Asian parents, especially Asian moms, drive their children hard! There are no excuses for failure. Bringing home straight “A”s, instead of straight “A pluses”, is a failure.
So what does this have to do with urbanism, especially conservative urbanism? Think of the possibilities of the changes in society that would occur, if you could develop that same culture of no-excuses excellence in the inner-city community.
It has been done in the past, and it could be done again. What is standing in the way, is an entrenched bureaucracy whose power and job security are based on managing other peoples’ failures. Poverty is a multi-billion dollar per year industry. That “industry” needs customers (fuel) to keep itself in business. The public education system is the factory that produces the customer base. Welcome to the social services/urban public education racketeering industrial complex. It’s even unionized!
A world-class urban public education system, educating our children in specialized schools tailored for a 21st Century information-age economy instead of a 19th Century industrial-age economy that no longer exists, would reduce that supply of fuel immensely. It could also be a tool to lure the middle classes back into the cities. Why do people move to the suburbs? Because the schools are good. How do you get people to move back into the city? Make the schools better than the schools in the suburbs.
There is a big problem. How do we convince the education bureaucracy to get on board when their funding depends on how many failures they can create? You have to change what the funding rewards. At the same time, you have to change an urban culture that considers academic success as “acting White.” That urban ghetto culture is also a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. It’s going to be difficult.
Excellence has no color. Excellence is excellence and should be rewarded as such. That reward should be specialized schooling. You need science and tech schools. You need schools that specialize in music and arts. You need VoTech schools to prepare students for paid apprenticeships in the trades. Junior High School seems to be the time when you get a pretty good idea of what you would like to do for the rest of your life. That’s when you find out that you really stink at pre-algebra, but you play really good drums and percussion. There is an arts/music high school right on the subway line. It’s audition time. Oh, and it just so happens that you live in a town center-style redevelopment of a former business district. The subway stop is right across the street. You are accepted into the school. You are now on your way to intensive musical training, preparing you for acceptance into the country’s and the world’s music trade schools, colleges, and conservatories. At the same time, they will get your math skills way past the pre-algebra level. You will be able to pass whatever college math course you will need for your music degree.
You have the same kind of specialized education for the brainiac kids too. Yes, it is rocket science, and yes, we need rocket scientists. We also need doctors and nurses, lab technicians, radiology technicians, and physician assistants.
We need philosophers, lawyers, teachers, and spiritual directors. Our future generations have many varied interests. We need them all for a functioning society. We need to educate them to the best of their abilities in those interests. If we don’t who will?