Expecting Students to Try Is “Racist”

“Progressives” really do seem to have a very low opinion of “people of colour”. Ami Horowitz hilariously captured the superiority of white progressives in a vox pop video regarding voter ID. Black people interviewed were flummoxed at the idea that they were – according to “liberals” – unable to grasp such simple tasks as finding the local DMV or using the internet.

But, hey, black folks, what would you know? White liberals are your saviours and they just know better than you.

And if your kids are flunking school because they’re skipping class and missing assignments, it’s not their fault – it’s because of “racism”.

San Diego’s public schools want to be anti-racist, so they’re…abolishing the traditional grading system?

“This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district,” San Diego Unified School District Vice President Richard Barrera told a local NBC affiliate. “If we’re actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years.”

You mean, for all those years and years like the late 70s and 1980s, when the gap between white and black SATs declined dramatically? How, also, do they explain the radically better scores of Asian and Indian students than whites?

District officials evidently believe that the practice of grading students based on their average score is racist, and that an active effort to dismantle racism necessitates a learning environment free of the pressure to turn in assignments on time. As evidence for the urgency of these changes, the district released data showing that minority students received more Ds and Fs than white students: Just 7 percent of whites received failing grades, as opposed to 23 percent of Native Americans, 23 percent of Hispanics, and 20 percent of black students.

Under the new system, students will not be penalized for failing to complete assignments, and teachers will give them extra opportunities to demonstrate mastery of subjects. The grades they receive upon completion of a course will no longer reflect their average test and assignment scores[…]And a great deal of leniency will now be given to students who don’t do the work for a course, including those who don’t show up at all: Attendance can no longer be a factor in grading.

This is a classic case of the foundational racism of “progressives”: the racism of low expectations. If minority students are failing, it can’t possibly be that they’re capable of doing better but don’t try. It must mean that they’re just too dumb to succeed.

As Charles Murray has pointed out, this sorted of dumbing-down and head-patting by white saviours actually sets up low-achieving minority students for even more failure. As Murray shows, artificially elevating students’ scores based solely on their skin colour does nothing to help them. In fact, it hurts them.

Years ago, my eldest son was learning the trumpet. He was moderately good. Then his music tutor elevated him to the highest-tier school band in the district. Rather than revel in the opportunity, he quickly gave up. “It was just too hard,” he said. “I can’t keep up with the others and the music is too advanced.” His tutor conceded his fault: he had, he admitted, pushed him too early to a grade far beyond his level. If he’d joined the second-tier group, he’d have been among equals and, encouraged, worked his way up until he was ready for the top.

Similarly, low-SAT minority students who might otherwise have gone to a second-tier college and shone, are instead falsely elevated to elite schools where they are frankly out of their league. Surrounded by brilliant Asian and Jewish students who are miles ahead of them, they can never keep up. So they give up and drop out.

Ending these kinds of grades doesn’t actually eliminate the underlying inequities that produced the disparate Fs. It may actually cover those inequities up: Given that grades are a tool for evaluating students’ progress, the district is essentially announcing that it will no longer gather as much evidence about the negative social phenomena it would probably like to address. Better grades do not mean students will suddenly have a better grasp of the material. They certainly won’t be better prepared for college (where traditional grades are very much still a thing).

We’ve already had the “Everybody Gets A Prize” generation. Stand by for the “Everybody Gets A Diploma” generation.

I’m sure it will work out just as well.

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