THE INTELLECTUAL ACTIVIST (TIA)
December 1, 2005
In the 1960s, freed from segregation, blacks began to buy homes outside the ghettos in which the white majority had contained them. And many of the white majority responded by moving out of the newly mixed neighborhoods, because the neighbors were no longer "good enough" for them. Now, in the high-tech corridor of California, many upper middle-class white families are fleeing from neighborhoods that are "too Asian." The reason: the neighbor kids are too smart, too good for them.
This event shows how deep the roots of progressive education go in America.
The central idea of progressive education--that imparting "social skills" is more important than imparting knowledge--leads directly to "social promotion" and "outcome-based education," policies that see the child's inclusion in the social collective of his peers as more important than mastery of his subjects, good grades, and advancement to the next year's class.
Progressive education policies--policies that purposely stunt the development of young minds, leveling the performance of all children down to that of the slowest and laziest among them--were pushed on us by the anti-reason ideologues of America's teachers' colleges. In the decades
since these policies took over, they have been perpetuated by the non-competing class of publicly-employed teachers and politically-entitled public school systems.
Progressive education has faced inarticulate but deeply rooted opposition from parents ambitious for their children's opportunities in life. But, it turns out, this opposition has limits. When the children of white middle-class parents are faced with stiff competition from the children of immigrants, a significant number of them are joining the axis of anti-education educators.
The upper-middle class parents of California's technology belt are acting on the same premise that drives welfare mothers to condemn any disciplinary action against their children, no matter how disruptive they are in school. Some middle-class parents who consider themselves to be ambitious feel that their children are entitled to the same good grades and advancement they had--just as welfare mothers feel their children are entitled to be treated as young scholars even though they can't read or write or even sit still for five minutes in a junior high school class.
White flight-- in the wrong direction
Dumbing down of education gives way to new, sad phenomenon between races
Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist based in Washington: Knight Ridder/Tribune
Published November 29, 2005
Perhaps you remember white flight.
That is, of course, the term for what happened in the '60s when blacks, newly liberated from legal segregation, began fanning out from the neighborhoods to which they'd once been restricted. Traumatized at the thought of living in proximity to their perceived inferiors, white people put their houses on the market at fire-sale prices and took flight.
Well, something similar is happening now in northern California. Similar in the sense of being completely different.
Where whites once ran because they felt they were superior to their new neighbors, they are apparently running now because they feel they are not quite as good.
I refer you to a Nov. 19 story in the Wall Street Journal. Reporter Suein Hwang interviewed white parents who are pulling their kids out of elite public high schools, schools known for sending graduates to the nation's top colleges. They are doing this, writes Hwang, because the schools are too academically rigorous, too narrowly focused on subjects like math and science.
Too Asian.
Yes, you read right. Hwang reports that since 1995, the number of white students at Lynbrook High in San Jose has fallen by almost half. At Monta Vista High in Cupertino, white students now make up less than a third of the population.
White parents are putting their kids into private schools or moving to areas where the public schools are whiter, less Asian and less demanding. Where sports and music are also emphasized and educators value, as one parent put it, "the whole child."
One white woman told Hwang how she dissuaded a young white couple from moving to town, telling them their child might be "the only Caucasian kid in the class." Another said, "It does help to have a lower Asian population."
Which plays, of course, into the old stereotype of the hyper-competitive Asian. But the new white flight has also given rise to a new stereotype one educator calls "the white boy syndrome." It says that white kids don't have it between the ears.
The irony speaks for itself.
I have no idea why Asian kids tend to lap the field, academically speaking. I do know it has nothing to do with the simple fact of being Asian, any more than the fact of being black makes you a great basketball player. To attain proficiency in any field, it helps to want that proficiency and to belong to a culture that rewards it. We strive for the things we deem important.
I make no argument for punishing, joyless education. Sports and music are important too. On the other hand, most kids are hardly in danger of studying too hard or being insufficiently entertained.
Consider the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal study released last month. It found that, despite some improvement, American kids remain academically underwhelming. Only 31 percent of 4th graders, for instance, were rated proficient or better in reading.
In recent years, I've taught writing at an elite public high school and three universities. And I've been appalled how often I've encountered students who simply could not put a sentence together, had no conception of basic grammar and punctuation. They tell me I'm a tough grader. "I've always gotten A's before," sniffed one girl to whom I thought I was being generous in awarding a C-plus.
It occurs to me that this is the fruit of our dumbing down education in the name of "self-esteem." This is what we get for making the work easier instead of demanding the students work harder--and the parents be more involved.
So this new white flight is less a surprise than a fresh disappointment. And I've got news for those white parents:
They should be running in the opposite direction.
----------
E-mail: lpitts@herald.com
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
This event shows how deep the roots of progressive education go in America.
The central idea of progressive education--that imparting "social skills" is more important than imparting knowledge--leads directly to "social promotion" and "outcome-based education," policies that see the child's inclusion in the social collective of his peers as more important than mastery of his subjects, good grades, and advancement to the next year's class.
Progressive education policies--policies that purposely stunt the development of young minds, leveling the performance of all children down to that of the slowest and laziest among them--were pushed on us by the anti-reason ideologues of America's teachers' colleges. In the decades
since these policies took over, they have been perpetuated by the non-competing class of publicly-employed teachers and politically-entitled public school systems.
Progressive education has faced inarticulate but deeply rooted opposition from parents ambitious for their children's opportunities in life. But, it turns out, this opposition has limits. When the children of white middle-class parents are faced with stiff competition from the children of immigrants, a significant number of them are joining the axis of anti-education educators.
The upper-middle class parents of California's technology belt are acting on the same premise that drives welfare mothers to condemn any disciplinary action against their children, no matter how disruptive they are in school. Some middle-class parents who consider themselves to be ambitious feel that their children are entitled to the same good grades and advancement they had--just as welfare mothers feel their children are entitled to be treated as young scholars even though they can't read or write or even sit still for five minutes in a junior high school class.
White flight-- in the wrong direction
Dumbing down of education gives way to new, sad phenomenon between races
Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist based in Washington: Knight Ridder/Tribune
Published November 29, 2005
Perhaps you remember white flight.
That is, of course, the term for what happened in the '60s when blacks, newly liberated from legal segregation, began fanning out from the neighborhoods to which they'd once been restricted. Traumatized at the thought of living in proximity to their perceived inferiors, white people put their houses on the market at fire-sale prices and took flight.
Well, something similar is happening now in northern California. Similar in the sense of being completely different.
Where whites once ran because they felt they were superior to their new neighbors, they are apparently running now because they feel they are not quite as good.
I refer you to a Nov. 19 story in the Wall Street Journal. Reporter Suein Hwang interviewed white parents who are pulling their kids out of elite public high schools, schools known for sending graduates to the nation's top colleges. They are doing this, writes Hwang, because the schools are too academically rigorous, too narrowly focused on subjects like math and science.
Too Asian.
Yes, you read right. Hwang reports that since 1995, the number of white students at Lynbrook High in San Jose has fallen by almost half. At Monta Vista High in Cupertino, white students now make up less than a third of the population.
White parents are putting their kids into private schools or moving to areas where the public schools are whiter, less Asian and less demanding. Where sports and music are also emphasized and educators value, as one parent put it, "the whole child."
One white woman told Hwang how she dissuaded a young white couple from moving to town, telling them their child might be "the only Caucasian kid in the class." Another said, "It does help to have a lower Asian population."
Which plays, of course, into the old stereotype of the hyper-competitive Asian. But the new white flight has also given rise to a new stereotype one educator calls "the white boy syndrome." It says that white kids don't have it between the ears.
The irony speaks for itself.
I have no idea why Asian kids tend to lap the field, academically speaking. I do know it has nothing to do with the simple fact of being Asian, any more than the fact of being black makes you a great basketball player. To attain proficiency in any field, it helps to want that proficiency and to belong to a culture that rewards it. We strive for the things we deem important.
I make no argument for punishing, joyless education. Sports and music are important too. On the other hand, most kids are hardly in danger of studying too hard or being insufficiently entertained.
Consider the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal study released last month. It found that, despite some improvement, American kids remain academically underwhelming. Only 31 percent of 4th graders, for instance, were rated proficient or better in reading.
In recent years, I've taught writing at an elite public high school and three universities. And I've been appalled how often I've encountered students who simply could not put a sentence together, had no conception of basic grammar and punctuation. They tell me I'm a tough grader. "I've always gotten A's before," sniffed one girl to whom I thought I was being generous in awarding a C-plus.
It occurs to me that this is the fruit of our dumbing down education in the name of "self-esteem." This is what we get for making the work easier instead of demanding the students work harder--and the parents be more involved.
So this new white flight is less a surprise than a fresh disappointment. And I've got news for those white parents:
They should be running in the opposite direction.
----------
E-mail: lpitts@herald.com
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
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