March 26

Doomed to Disappoint Justice O’Connor

Five years ago, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor saved affirmative action in public college admissions when she crafted the majority decision affirming the consideration of race in admissions by the University of Michigan’s law school. While O’Connor found justifications for the (limited) consideration of race and ethnicity, she also spoke of the need for such consideration to stop at some point. “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today,” she wrote.

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The American Educational Research Association assembled a group of leading scholars Tuesday to consider the state of affirmative action. Officially they were looking at the state of the Bakke decision that first authorized affirmative action. But they kept returning to O’Connor’s deadline and her prediction that in 25 years (20 years from today), diversity would be possible without affirmative action.

The unanimous opinion: no chance in hell.

Scholars examined a range of demographic and educational data showing how little progress has been made in narrowing key gaps in the educational opportunities available to black and Latino students. Given how slowly American education changes, they said, the idea that the need for affirmative action will disappear in 20 years is almost impossible to imagine. A subtext for their discussion was the reality that some states have shown less patience for affirmative action than did Justice O’Connor and have gone ahead and banned affirmative action — and more states are expected to follow suit this year.

While much of the panel discussion focused on inequality in American society, another group of institutions was also criticized for decisions that — without affirmative action — hinder the enrollment of minority students. Top colleges, the researchers said, are putting more emphasis on extremely high SAT scores, even though this means that the resulting pool is increasingly white and Asian.

In a paper called “Is 1500 the new 1280?” Catherine L. Horn, of the University of Houston, and John T. Yun, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, looked at the verbal SAT score averages of students at the 30 top colleges and universities (as determined by U.S. News & World Report). At all but four of these institutions, at least 30 percent of the freshman class had scored 700 or greater on the verbal SAT, and at half of these colleges, more than 50 percent of freshmen have such scores. In 1989, only one of the 30 colleges reported that more than 30 percent of the freshman class had a score of at least 700 on the verbal SAT.

The shift is “extreme,” Horn said, “suggesting a real shift in admissions toward very high-scoring individuals.”

Raising the issue in this way is sensitive for supporters of affirmative action, even if they are skeptics of standardized testing. As Horn noted, two of the Supreme Court justices most critical of affirmative action, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, wrote a dissent in the Michigan law case in which they pointed out that the law school could easily have a diverse class without affirmative action. They said that a law school like Michigan’s could set admissions policies that were relatively open or relatively elitist, and that the former would result in more diversity than the latter. If Michigan really wants diversity, the justices said, it could just lower standards.

“No one would argue that a university could set up a lower general admission standard and then impose heightened requirements only on black applicants,” the justices wrote. “Similarly, a university may not maintain a high admission standard and grant exemptions to favored races. The Law School, of its own choosing, and for its own purposes, maintains an exclusionary admissions system that it knows produces racially disproportionate results. Racial discrimination is not a permissible solution to the self-inflicted wounds of this elitist admissions policy.”

Horn stressed that in questioning the elite colleges devotion to the highest possible SAT scores, she was not endorsing the Thomas-Scalia view. They are implying, she said, a strict dichotomy between academic rigor and diversity — a dichotomy she called “a false one.”

When the elite colleges were admitting students with 600 verbal SAT scores, they were still plenty competitive, she said, and the increase wasn’t necessitated by some terrible academic failings of those students or a national rise in scores. Rather she viewed it as part of a sense that higher numbers are always better (since U.S. News says so). If colleges stepped back a bit, she said, they would find they could attract very talented (and more diverse) students by focusing on admitting students who are very strong, but not necessarily part of the most elite (and less diverse) group out there.

“What we’re talking about is a reconceptualization of merit,” she said.

The Demographic and Policy Picture

If colleges are at fault for SAT obsessions, the researchers said, there are plenty of other trends for which the culprit is the failure of American society to tackle educational and economic inequity. The audience heard a range of statistics — most of them “depressing,” as one discussant said — that suggest that relatively few black and Latino students 20 years from now will end up in elite colleges without some kind of affirmative action.

For instance, in another paper, Yun cited findings that in California, high schools with large minority populations are 6.75 times more likely than other high schools to have unqualified teachers. By numerous measures, he said, minority students are more likely to attend schools with fewer offerings and to end up with a worse education. For O’Connor’s vision to work in 20 years, minority and non-minority students would need to be “virtually indistinguishable” on a range of academic qualities, and the gaps in educational opportunity are too wide today for that to be viable, he said. He called it “very unlikely” that the high school student population 20 years from now would reflect O’Connor’s wishes.

Donald E. Heller of Pennsylvania then outlined a series of gaps in high school graduation rates and college enrollment and graduation rates. At every stage along the way, he noted, schools and colleges lose black and Latino students. For example, 84 percent of white students who enroll in 9th grade are enrolled in 12th grade three falls later, while the figures are 61 percent for black students and 66 for Latino students. Those minority students are then less likely to enroll in college and to graduate from college.

Heller’s paper focused on his attempts to identify states that have more success than others at closing the white-minority gaps, and he found that the states that do the best job at this are generally states without many minority students period.

The odds of achieving O’Connor’s goals in 20 years? “Slim,” Heller said.

The Research Agenda

Gary Orfield of the University of California at Los Angeles agreed. “These problems are not going to be solved” in 20 years, he said. Part of the problem, Orfield said, is that too many people assume that there has been steady progress on educational equity. In fact, he said that while some figures for individual students have improved, there have in fact been two distinct periods since the civil rights movement. In the 1960s and much of the 1970s, the government was creating new programs to promote equity, adding substantially to the budgets of schools and colleges, and demanding evidence that states were educating their minority students.

Much of that stopped in the Reagan administration, he said, and has never really been replaced. Lacking some sort of sustained movement, he said, “nothing suggests we will meet Justice O’Connor’s prediction. I think these trends suggest it will get worse.”

Orfield suggested that there is a next generation of research topics that education scholars should take on. Among his suggested topics:

Detailed analysis of the state of educational opportunity in the formerly segregated states of the South. Given the large black populations of these states, much more work needs to be done on the state of educational opportunity and the impact of the withdrawal of federal supervision, Orfield said.
The impact of students attending largely segregated high schools on their college-going decisions and experiences.
The social consequences of having large communities where educational opportunity has largely vanished. Orfield said that there is much data on how this hurts individuals, but not nearly enough on communities.
Latino students and the reasons for their relatively low enrollment and graduation rates in higher education.

Orfield challenged those in the audience to do work that would show what he termed the realities of education today, not the “wishful thinking” of the O’Connor opinion.

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

Just an opinion

I wonder if affirmative action is the cure-all for what ails American Education and diversity. Does anyone think that perhaps it has something to do with the rising cost of higher education or the decrease in overall funding to higher education or perhaps it has something to do with the economy and the difficulty that some minority groups have in securing loans and grants? Perhaps it has something to do with, God forbid, the actual African-American culture, itself? How many bright young African-Americans hide their intelligence from their peers because of a fear of being called “white” or worse. And, what about the culture that seems to prevail among those African-Americans with PhD’s who almost try to keep others from reaching their level out of fear that they will somehow lose their status? These are things that most Americans are afraid to talk about because their are placing the blame outside mainstream America. As I have said time and again, affirmative action in its current form only serves to divide this country more, not provide access to those who need it most. Level the playing field, yes, don’t give unfair advantages based soley on race or gender. There has to be a better way to ensure equity, there has to be.

martin, at 8:50 am EDT on March 26, 2008

Affirmative action is the Iraq War of discrimination; it goes on and on with no end in sight. The finding by Justice O’Connor of a putative constitutional right to discriminate that this article implies will go on until the crack of doom only highlights the importance of Ward Connerly’s heroic (and winning) battle to restore the 14th Amendment state by state.

End it now, at 8:55 am EDT on March 26, 2008

the shifting merotocracy

Alon & Tienda (ASR, August 2007) described this pattern and called it the “shifting meritocracy". they also show the consequences for affirmative action.

Sigal, at 9:00 am EDT on March 26, 2008

All the King’s men ..

” .. In the 1960s and much of the 1970s, the government was creating new programs to promote equity ..”

.. and in the process destroying two-parent households, the strong family base needed for lifelong stability, and portending high rates of STDs and single-parent births.

After the “Great Society,” “Peace With Honor,” “WIN,” “national malaise,” “I did not have sex with that woman,” and “heck’a job Brownie” — there is a deep cyncism when the claim “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” is heard.

There has never been enough tax-money to fix all of society’s ills. There never will be. Anyone who thinks so, step forward with your budget spreadsheet for review.

B.J.S., at 9:05 am EDT on March 26, 2008

SAT score renorming

“At all but four of these institutions, at least 30 percent of the freshman class had scored 700 or greater on the verbal SAT, and at half of these colleges, more than 50 percent of freshmen have such scores. In 1989, only one of the 30 colleges reported that more than 30 percent of the freshman class had a score of at least 700 on the verbal SAT.”

I hope that everyone is aware that the SAT underwent a massive score renorming in 1995 or 1996. Here’s a conversion table — a pre-renorming 640 verbal is a post-renorming 700.

jcl, lecturer, at 11:00 am EDT on March 26, 2008

The Problem is the Standardized Test

Standardized tests have enduring and pervasive racial score gaps that can not be eliminated by controlling for class and other such factors. The tests also predict little to nothing about students’ performance in higher education. Getting rid of the tests, therefore, would not affect the academic quality of the student body (and might, in the experience of those colleges that have already stopped relying on them, even improve the academic quality of the student body). But getting rid of standardized tests would drastically increase the admissions competitiveness of black college graduates. Look! A way to increase student diversity without affirmative action!

ML, Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology, at 11:00 am EDT on March 26, 2008

I am not opposed to all forms of affirmative action. But, since we have had aa for many years, and since the good researchers claim little to no progress has been made, then it seems aa is just not the solution. What is?

The biggest factor in students’ success is the number of hours per week they study. Public school students who fall behind should be required to stay after school to do their homework and get extra help if they need it.

Oh, but that would cost money and aa programs are cheap. Perhaps we should bill their parents. Maybe then they’d make their kids study.

This would not work for the lowest income groups, but would push a lot of middle to low income families in the right direction. Universal health care and living wages must be part of any solution. Education does not function in a vacuum. And giving everyone a college degree just means the guys filling pots holes and the lady behind the perfume counter will have diplomas.

Math Prof, at 11:00 am EDT on March 26, 2008

Disappointing Justice O’Connor

Just posted this on National Review Online’s “Phi Beta Cons” (link: http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/):

There’s an article in InsideHigherEd today that reports on a panel of “leading scholars” at the American Educational Research Association, all of whom concluded that there’s no way in the world that the performance of black and Latino students will improve enough to meet Justice O’Connor’s 2028 deadline for getting rid of university admission preferences for them. Link: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/03/26/bakke

Twenty years out, there’s of course no way of knowing if they’ll be right, but even if they are that doesn’t mean (a) that the preferences should continue (or have been allowed by Justice O’Connor in the first place), or (b) that the Left has any idea of how to close the white-Asian/black-Latino gap.

On the first point, I’ll just note that, in order to justify racial discrimination, you need a really, really good reason—and no such reason exists for university affirmative action. Nor, incidentally, is one offered in this article; rather, it is just assumed that every group should have its share of slots: what Justice Powell called “discrimination for its own sake” and rejected many, many years ago in Bakke.

The second point is more interesting. The solution for closing the gap in the article is encapsulated in a wonderfully Orwellian phrase: “the reconceptualization of merit.” In other words, if there’s a gap in SAT scores, just change the definition of merit so that the gap doesn’t matter. (As I’ve written before, the left doesn’t really believe in standards: http://article.nationalreview.com...jQ3YzI4YzYzNDlmNmExNjAwOWZjNGQ1Y2E=).

The panelists are also unhappy at the educational opportunities given black and Latino children at many public schools. Did any of them suggest that perhaps those children should be given more choice about where to attend schools, or that incompetent teachers ought to be more easily fired? No mention of that in the article if they did.

There’s also no mention in the article that any of the panelists pointed out that seven out of ten black children are born out of wedlock, or that half of Latino children are (versus only one of four whites and less than that for Asians), and that growing up in a home without a father makes academic excellence less likely. See, e.g., my recent Phi Beta Cons posting: http://phibetacons.nationalreview...YmJlNmEwMTNjYTk5YjFmM2MyMzkwOWEzZTY=

As I’ve also written for NRO—hey, if I don’t cite myself, then who will?—“It is ironic but likely that preferences are themselves a critical element in keeping the [academic excellence] gap wide. They enable politicians to sweep the real problems under the rug by, to mix a metaphor, using preferences to paper over them; and preferences also remove the incentive for academic excellence at the same time that they stigmatize and encourage a defeatist and victim mentality among their supposed beneficiaries.” Link: http://www.nationalreview.com/clegg/clegg200401151004.asp

Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel at Center for Equal Opportunity, at 11:00 am EDT on March 26, 2008

African Americans and Hispanics have done less well academically than their White and Asian peers in every socio-economic class. To blame poverty and discrimination exclusively for their situation is not valid.

Eventually, sooner rather later would be better, we have to judge, like professional athletics does, on the basis of performance rther than political correctness.

Bob, at 11:00 am EDT on March 26, 2008

Inanity that knows no bounds

Once again, the diversicrats assemble and speak nonsense. As any academic will tell you (behind closed doors), any black or Hispanic academic who can walk and chew gum without falling down can get tenure, and any good (not great) black or Hispanic academic has a realistic shot at an Ivy League full professorship. Yet we still hear relentless nonsense from diversicrats about lack of “opportunity” for “minority” academics.

The problem with our current “lack of diversity” is not the system, which is fine. It is simply that there is no supply. You cannot solve the lack of supply by dropping standards — this simply leads to a cadre of students totally unequipped to survive in the competitively charged environment they suddenly find themselves in.

Imagine the NBA if diversicrats suddenly descended on it and declared that Japanese basketball players are “underrepresented” and “denied opportunity,” and therefore required the NBA to insert one Japanese starter on each team. The NBA would become a chaotic joke.

Several years ago, the dean of the law school at my university approached me about a “problem.” Not one (zero, nada) black law student ever qualified for the Law Review! The qualification evaluation procedures were done “blind,” and were based on objective criteria. The dean lived in mortal fear of being attacked for supporting a racist, exclusionary environment, and wanted me to help him devise a way of getting some black students qualified. Of course, quick perusal of data revealed the black students were admitted with weak qualifications, had weak performance, and simply couldn’t make the cut. “Are you sure you have a problem,” I asked him. These students had bachelor’s degrees. Many came from upper middle class homes. So what was their excuse? He couldn’t answer. He just knew he had a serious problem.

Re-read the article above. If you cannot see the obvious circularities in its reasoning, you need to go back to undergraduate school.

I have a radical idea: terminate racial quotas in all their sleazy permutations, and bring back meritocracy.

Stubbornly Rational, at 11:00 am EDT on March 26, 2008

My post was supposed to have a link to a conversion table: it’s at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/...ws/recent_news/chance_news_5.12.html

jcl, lecturer, at 11:55 am EDT on March 26, 2008

I know that the “legacy of slavery” is an oft cited excuse for black group underperformance, what is the pat excuse for Hispanic group underperformance? Is it invisible discrimination or the setting of low expectations?

We need to abort the goal of equalizing group results and simply assure that every single individual is treated fairly. No more individuals benefiting from demographic lotterys in order to inflate group results.

Since individuals don’t participate in demographic co-ops — women pooling their money with other women, blacks pooling their money with other blacks — equalizing group results is meaningless. It makes as much sense as dividing individuals by the spelling of their last names. Would we achieve fairness for everyone when people with last names A thru H have as much success as those I thru P and Q thru Z?

Groups don’t matter, individuals do.

eddy, at 1:20 pm EDT on March 26, 2008

Conundrum and Hypocrisy

Here’s the conundrum—if high standardized test scores (SATs, LSATs, MCATs, etc.) are a primary filter for determining admissions, then why are these standards so readily waived when it comes to admitting “under-represented minorities?” Either high test scores are essential or they’re not. If they’re not, then why are such standards applied to whites and Asians? I also wonder whether the general public is aware as to how greatly such standards are waived. For example, in the potentially life-saving issue of candidates for medical school, I myself have seen top 15% scorers in the MCAT fail to even achieve an interview and bottom 30% “disadvantaged minorities” admitted to that very same medical school. It’s gross, not subtle. If scoring well on the MCATs is so essential, then why is it COMPLETELY DISREGARDED with respect to some minorities and why are doctors on admission committees allowed to practice sociology without a license? And here’s the hypocrisy: I’m pretty sure those docs wouldn’t appreciate having sociologists practice medicine without a license.

GD, at 1:30 pm EDT on March 26, 2008

I believe a solution to the problem would be to have the NCAA require that all college athletic teams reflect the racial makeup of their undergraduate student bodies. I’m sure the alumni, athletic directors, and coaches would find ways to improve the diversities of their student populations. No government interference required. We would never have had the government use force with Title IX for gender equity had the NCAA done the job itself.

Hans Gesund, at 1:50 pm EDT on March 26, 2008

ML, visiting assistant professor of sociology, claimed that standardized tests “predict little to nothing about students’ performance in higher education.”

I doubt that. Five minutes with the website of the Office of Planning and Analysis at my own institution (Kansas State) shows a clear and unequivocal correlation between ACT scores, retention, and eventual graduation:

http://www.k-state.edu/pa/statinfo/retention/index.htm

Dave Stone, at 4:40 pm EDT on March 26, 2008

Whoa!

” .. The tests also predict little to nothing about students’ performance in higher education ..”

Mr. Stone is correct. Personally, I dislike testing as too monolithic. But knowing some of the folks at ETS, I know they are pretty rigorous in their methodology.

Inconvenient truth: time-on-task matters. Family and friends matter. High expectations matter. There are no “silver bullets” — including tax-monies — that can fix deficits in those areas — none.

L.L., at 7:00 pm EDT on March 26, 2008

Global Economy

Read the ‘Gathering Storm’ report pdf summary on this site, if you haven’t. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11463 The urgency for educating Black and Latino students is now no longer a matter of equity, but of national survival. The pipeline is mostly diverse, and leaking all over the place. We either educate our young Black and Latino students or we- all Americans — fall out of the global economy. Affirmative Action or not may be splitting hairs, compared to the great and urgent need to plug up the leaks every way we can.

barb, at 7:00 pm EDT on March 26, 2008

How?

” .. compared to the great and urgent need to plug up the leaks every way we can.”

And .. how? Throw money at the issue? Excuse me — that’s already been tried and failed.

How?

L.L., at 10:30 pm EDT on March 26, 2008

Standardized testing myths.

Of course it figures that the sociology professor would ignore the clear and overwhelming evidence that there’s a strong correlation between SAT/ACT scores and college success. There’s even a stronger correlation with success when a composite of these test scores and previous achievement (high school GPA) is used. If it’s a bad idea for colleges to try to admit the students most likely to succeed and instead admit people based on a sociology department formulated oppression index, at least be honest about it. In the mean time, you might want to look into the effects of admitting students to schools in which their peers all performed at a higher level on standardized tests and at the previous education level — a good place to start is with the graduation and bar passage rates of affirmative action-style admits into law school.

Engineering Grad Student, at 10:30 pm EDT on March 26, 2008

White People Just Don’t Get It

The overwhelming comments on this topic continue to show white ignorance and white racism. As I wrote in my doctoral dissertatin, “Playing by the Rules and Losing: The Merit Myth in Selected African American Fiction,” black people who play by society’s rules—get a good education, make appropriate contacts, invest wisely, use tact and decorum, have a sense of morality, and work hard—are still hampered in their efforts to fully achieve the American dream because of centuries of systemic racism in the United States. White people, as I also pointed out in my research, are born enjoying the benefits of affirmative action; that is, their skin color, regardless of individual merit, assures them of access to society’s “goodies.” By the way, I am black, was born poor, graduated class valedictorian of my high school class, did poorly on the SAT, graduated number 5 in my college class, did poorly on the LSAT and GRE, attended and graduated from two historically white institutions, have four degrees from accredited institutions, and will earn my fifth degree in May. Since whtie people control the major institutions in society—government, business, media, ETS, education—they make and shape the rules to insure their continual control of America’s resources. If black people were the major authors of standardized tests, I suspect many whites and Asians would fail them. Finally, I commend many Asians for their strong work ethic, but my contact with many of them has shown that their racial attitudes—their racism, that is—is even more appalling than that of white Americans.

The Rev. Dr. Donald Ray Jenkins, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Donald Ray Jenkins, at 12:00 am EDT on March 27, 2008

Donald, you make a bunch of broad sweeping claims there, so how about a few citations? (I am not even saying that sarcastically—given that you wrote a dissertation, it shouldn’t be difficult)

“Since whtie people control the major institutions in society—government, business, media, ETS, education—they make and shape the rules to insure their continual control of America’s resources.”

Um, exactly how do you think affirmative action came into place? Last time I checked it was instituted and has been maintained by that American power structure you’re decrying (which generally involved a whole lot of white people) so while racism is horrible I’d cool the “world is out to get me” rhetoric just slightly here.

“black people who play by society’s rules—get a good education, make appropriate contacts, invest wisely, use tact and decorum, have a sense of morality, and work hard—are still hampered in their efforts to fully achieve the American dream because of centuries of systemic racism in the United States.”

Do you bother to check if the ancestors of the people being hindering were oppressing black people for centuries before someone decide the other person deserves it more? Do you bother to check if their ancestors (as many white people did) just came over in the last century? Do you bother to check if the beneficiaries of affirmative action actually had ancestors in the United States more than a few decades ago? (or as turned out to be the case with Harvard recently two-thirds of beneficiaries were either immigrants or the children of recent immigrants, though I’ll admit that sort of situation is much rarer)

For that matter, do you bother to check if they were poor? Do you bother to check if the beneficiary was rich? Do you bother to check if, say, the person being hindered say had their parents murdered at a young age, grew up in a foster family and, hence, might deserve a little bit more of a boost than a wealthy minority applicant?

Because if you’re part of an affirmative action program that does all that, you’re the exception, not the rule. If you want to help poor people, help poor people; if you want to help disadvantaged people, help disadvantaged people. Affirmative action, by and large in its current form, takes into account one criterion and one criterion only—race, and I have little sympathy for people who bring in oppression and being disadvantaged when, in the end, that’s all the program looks at.

“Finally, I commend many Asians for their strong work ethic, but my contact with many of them has shown that their racial attitudes—their racism, that is—is even more appalling than that of white Americans.”

That’s painting with a pretty broad brush there—Can Asians get absolution by demonstrating their non-racism or is this just tossed at the whole race in their entirety?

SB, at 1:10 am EDT on March 27, 2008

On the subject of the authors of standardized tests.

Is there any evidence whatsoever that “if black people were the authors of major standardized tests ... many whites and Asians would fail them?” Perhaps, Rev. Dr. Jenkins, you might care to develop or encourage the development of a standardized test in mathematics or abstract spatial reasoning by black people that will demonstrate that high test scores are more closely correlated to group authorship than to any kind of potential for academic achievement. As it stands, counter to your personal anecdote, standardized test scores are highly correlated to academic achievement but no authorship effect has been shown. This is easily verified by looking to the high performance by Asians, a small group that does not control standardized test authorship by any reasonable metric.

Engineering Grad Student, at 1:10 am EDT on March 27, 2008

Black academic performance

Gary Orfield proposes more research in three areas. I suggest that he add two more areas. One is to investigate the actual differences in black IQ versus other races. The other is to determine, if possible, the degree to which intractable cultural differences impact measured IQ and academic ability.

The question of innate IQ differences is highly contentious. As an alternative, I propose research that would attempt to prove, if possible, that all races have inherently identical intelligence, to the thousandth decimal place. If existing IQ tests are deemed suspect for various reasons, create new tests, revise old tests, or use other innovative means.

A lifetime of experience and reading suggests to me that the racial differences are not limited to the trivial aspect of skin color.

Marvin McConoughey, at 2:45 pm EDT on March 28, 2008

Whoa

Dr. Jenkins, I know of you, not know you personally, and I have respected your work and your work ethics, but I have to question several things you have said. First, typically, you blame the entire breadth of problems faced by African-Aericans on white people. That has been proven NOT to be factual. Black on black crime is NOT a white issue, it is a black issue. Drug use among African-Americans is a black issue, as is teen pregnancy, single parent households, the AIDS epidemic among blacks, economic issues, and many others. Education equality is but one issue among the many, but most so called experts agree that time management, perception, leadership, mentorship, and others, are the key factors for the failure to achieve among particularly African-American males. Racism is not likely to ever just go away, it is one of those factors among the American people that we must work with, not try and eliminate. I veiew it much like having conservatives and liberal in America, I for one don’t see the conservative point of view, but I have learned to live my life with them, not trying to eliminate their views. We can try all day to find the reasons for keeping Afirmative Action, but I think we should expend some of that energy to find solutions to social problems that continue to plague Americans which will eliminate many of the excuses we use for being poor, undereducated, drunk, high, sick, etc. Just a humble opinion from a man who has live, worked, and studied both sides of the race issue.

Martin, at 2:50 pm EDT on March 30, 2008

Rev. Jenkins —> Conclusions in search of data

Rev. Jenkins gives us what is, no doubt, a preview of the level of thinking to be found in his various theses. Basically, we see conclusions in search of data.

His statements about standardized tests are nonsense, pure and simple. The notion that the huge deficiencies in black SAT performance are the result of some kind of test developer conspiracy is right up there with Reverend Wright’s belief that the US Government invented AIDS.

Rev. Jenkins, I have a challenge for you. Get a copy of an SAT preparation test and point out which items on the math SAT you think discriminate against blacks, and why.

If you can’t solve 2x = 5 for x, then you can’t blame it on the test maker.

Every year in the US, there are now talent searches in which 12 year olds take the math SAT. That’s right, the same SAT given to 18 year olds. Every year, many of these 12 year olds score above 600. More than a few score over 700. Recent research demonstrates that such performance hugely increases the odds of a student achieving high academic success.

On the other hand, every year, in the entire US, you can count on the fingers of the hands of a half dozen people the number of *18 year old* blacks who break 700 on the math SAT.

If you want Rev. Wright’s paranoia and claim that this deficiency is due to the testing industry, feel free. All you’re doing is raising the suspicion that, more than you know, your own degrees were the product of lax standards, imposed for the sake of “diversity.”

Why, by the way, if the white establishment is so racist, has it continued to ignore the well known fact that Rev. M. L. King plagiarized his doctoral thesis?

Stubbornly Rational, at 2:50 pm EDT on March 30, 2008

It’s Standardized Test Stupid

It does not matter what color you are, standardized tests do not measure ability or potential success. I have a master’s degree, but if you looked at my SAT and GMAT scores, one would think I could not have graduated high school and can barely read much less function in society.

ADD is part of the problem — some people JUST do not test well.

Marie, at 12:05 pm EDT on April 2, 2008

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Doomed to Disappoint Justice O’Connor

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Comments

Just an opinion

the shifting merotocracy

All the King’s men ..

SAT score renorming

The Problem is the Standardized Test

Disappointing Justice O’Connor

Inanity that knows no bounds

Conundrum and Hypocrisy

Whoa!

Global Economy

How?

Standardized testing myths.

White People Just Don’t Get It

On the subject of the authors of standardized tests.

Black academic performance

Whoa

Rev. Jenkins —> Conclusions in search of data

It’s Standardized Test Stupid

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