Recent educational trends focusing on anti-racism have raised eyebrows and sparked debates, particularly in more progressive areas of the country. In far too many cases, schools are employing policies and practices that overtly treat students differently simply on the basis of their ethnicity or skin color.
They do not view their skin-color-only categorizations as racist when employed AGAINST white people, as their twisted theory claims only white people can be racist. It is toxic, and leads only to endless racial strife and retribution.
For instance, using the 2023 ACT test results as a metric, once again, students in the four historically lowest performing groups (Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaska Native, Black/African American) who aspired to a Graduate or Professional degree outscored students in the historically highest performing groups (Asian, White, Two or More Races) who aspired to a Two-Year College or Voc-Tech degree by as much as 42%. In other words, aspirations are a better predictor of student performance than the ACT’s anachronistic racial/ethnic categories.
Which brings us to the second problem. Skin tone is not a designator of "race". Black, White, Hispanic, etc. are not racial categories. We might as well be dividing people up by height. It would make far more sense to serve children in terms of their preparedness for a particular class. But, politics will always trump reason… especially in academia. And, I say that as a biological psychologist who's spent his entire life in academia teaching at the special ed, high school, and university level in both psychology and biology departments.
Laughable. So students (of ANY race) with the demonstrated cognitive capability to take on and succeed at high-level academic work outscore those (of ANY race) whose (desperately hopeful) horizon extends only to community college or vocational training? And you find in that totally unremarkable fact set a complete and convincing refutation of the reality of racial differences in cognitive ability (as well as many other traits needed for high achievement). You're either a moron yourself, an inveterate liar, or a snake-oil salesman with an agenda seeking to bamboozle the feeble-minded. Go sell your wares elsewhere, charlatan!
Neo-racism is hate driven with the objective of achieving revenge against power structures and a culture that no longer exist. Today, we ALL struggle. My own view is that the middle class are the demographic under fierce attack and we all should focus our efforts on preserving the ability to climb out of poverty - which IS colour blind.
The people to feel sorry for are the kids. Evanston is a very diverse community. Including lots of mixed ethnic/racial families. How are their kids supposed to act and choose their classes? Pick the lowest or highest on the oppression olympics ladder? If they choose one over another do they become "race traitors" to the other? Adults are the only one who can stop the insanity. Where are they?
@BillD thanks for saying this. I lived in Evanston not long ago and was proud of how diverse my little middle-class cul-de-sac was. Neighbors ranged from a Turkish immigrant couple gut-renovating their house, a single white woman who struggled after losing her job, the elderly black couple who were still working past retirement, a Hispanic guy who inherited his home from his mom, a single white guy who was deaf and I wrote to about fixing my bike (because he fixed bikes), etc. -- the diversity was VAST! We all got along. We were just neighbors parking on the same street and saying "Hi!". Normal stuff when folks are colorblind.
Now I'm told colorblind *is* racism because I'm white.
I sold my Evanston home to a single white mother with a mixed daughter. She grabbed the house because of the school district. It's terrible to know that her daughter goes to one of these Evanston/Skokie schools that literally teaches: "the systems and the government are controlled by White people and racism being a result of it," This daughter could grow up thinking her mother is racist against her. How far we've fallen from our ideals.
I'm a former history teacher, and in my last ten years of teaching saw all this coming. So, for two weeks at the beginning of the school year, I had high school sophomores and seniors read John Rawls on "The Original Position" often called ,The Veil of Ignorance. The second week, we went over The UN Declaration of HUMAN Rights. This cut off a lot of the emerging- and divisive identity politics, instead focusing on civil rights for ALL human beings.
If you want to build a just society, John Rawls and the UN Declaration of Human Rights start by essentially saying we must ignore one's own identity and instead start from principles of a just society. By starting the school year this way, it tapped down 70% of the simplistic thinking of bad guys/good guys.
I so appreciate's FAIR's work, and articles like this one. Unfortunately and sadly, the school I worked at, now proudly lists all these group identity clubs: Jewish Student Union, Muslim Student Union, Christian Student Union, Black Student Union, Asian Student Union, Hispanic Student Union, India and Pakistani Student Union, Gender and Sexuality Alliance, and Women's Empowerment Association, the latter which I helped start, but bowed out of when the girls voted that boys who came to the meetings and disagreed with them....were barred from attending future meetings.
Honestly confounding. How can segregation lead to understanding and acceptance. What a missed opportunity for this. Creating echo chambers can only lead to entrenched bias to one's own group. I don't see how this works, frankly.
Its back to the Dark Ages for those unfortunate souls forced by nefarious top-down brainwashing to divide and conquer. Its us vs them: us vs government and its evil. Virtue signalling instead of real words of love, caring and positive encouragement replaced by vitriolic division. The road to hell is paved with evil intent indeed.
Wanna compare the rise within 2 generations of penniless Jews immigrating to the USA from Europe (not speaking English) during the late 19th/early 20th century to the big city black ghettoes, riots, and despair over the last 4 generations (and with no hope of change for the better)?
What the fuck are you talking about. You literally just made my point. If you have “no hope” you are destined to fail. I don’t have the time to argue with a dogmatic zealot.
Agreed! At bottom, the universalist values that are now rejected and replaced by "stand
point theory" and lived experiences have left us in solipsistic cages. I'm not sure how we get back to those values of empathy (not just sympathy) for others. The values of free speech, listening and not just hearing, and empathy seemed to work for the last 50 years, and we have made enormous progress, with more to come---We can only do this with non-strident push back and rational discussion that starts from "we are all human"....as a first principle.
Thank you both for investigating this highly charged topic.
The public needs to know what's been happening recently in schools. The media claims that CRT (Critical Race Theory) is not taught in public K-12 schools (like the example below from a superintendent in Wisconsin). I assumed CRT was a theory taught only at universities to adults. But the lesson plans you found at Evanston/Skokie are evidence that CRT is being taught at least as early as Grade 5. "Intersectionality" is found as vocab in the lesson plan for 5th graders, and its the theory developed by Crenshaw several decades ago. Crenshaw also edited the seminal book entitled "Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings". At a minimum, your investigation means 2 things: 1) districts claiming that they weren't teaching CRT to young kids were lying to parents and the public, 2) that CRT is not limited to university classes. I support parents who are telling their school boards to get rid of CRT.
They do not view their skin-color-only categorizations as racist when employed AGAINST white people, as their twisted theory claims only white people can be racist. It is toxic, and leads only to endless racial strife and retribution.
Sigh.
The problem, of course, is twofold. First, the academic disparities do not have to do with race, per se.
https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/when-black-and-hispanic-students
For instance, using the 2023 ACT test results as a metric, once again, students in the four historically lowest performing groups (Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaska Native, Black/African American) who aspired to a Graduate or Professional degree outscored students in the historically highest performing groups (Asian, White, Two or More Races) who aspired to a Two-Year College or Voc-Tech degree by as much as 42%. In other words, aspirations are a better predictor of student performance than the ACT’s anachronistic racial/ethnic categories.
Which brings us to the second problem. Skin tone is not a designator of "race". Black, White, Hispanic, etc. are not racial categories. We might as well be dividing people up by height. It would make far more sense to serve children in terms of their preparedness for a particular class. But, politics will always trump reason… especially in academia. And, I say that as a biological psychologist who's spent his entire life in academia teaching at the special ed, high school, and university level in both psychology and biology departments.
Laughable. So students (of ANY race) with the demonstrated cognitive capability to take on and succeed at high-level academic work outscore those (of ANY race) whose (desperately hopeful) horizon extends only to community college or vocational training? And you find in that totally unremarkable fact set a complete and convincing refutation of the reality of racial differences in cognitive ability (as well as many other traits needed for high achievement). You're either a moron yourself, an inveterate liar, or a snake-oil salesman with an agenda seeking to bamboozle the feeble-minded. Go sell your wares elsewhere, charlatan!
Neo-racism is hate driven with the objective of achieving revenge against power structures and a culture that no longer exist. Today, we ALL struggle. My own view is that the middle class are the demographic under fierce attack and we all should focus our efforts on preserving the ability to climb out of poverty - which IS colour blind.
Appallingly. Who would think they are helping students with this program? There is something seriously wrong in our education practices.
Clearly Helping anyone is not the agenda, far from it! Destruction by clever is the name of the game.
The people to feel sorry for are the kids. Evanston is a very diverse community. Including lots of mixed ethnic/racial families. How are their kids supposed to act and choose their classes? Pick the lowest or highest on the oppression olympics ladder? If they choose one over another do they become "race traitors" to the other? Adults are the only one who can stop the insanity. Where are they?
@BillD thanks for saying this. I lived in Evanston not long ago and was proud of how diverse my little middle-class cul-de-sac was. Neighbors ranged from a Turkish immigrant couple gut-renovating their house, a single white woman who struggled after losing her job, the elderly black couple who were still working past retirement, a Hispanic guy who inherited his home from his mom, a single white guy who was deaf and I wrote to about fixing my bike (because he fixed bikes), etc. -- the diversity was VAST! We all got along. We were just neighbors parking on the same street and saying "Hi!". Normal stuff when folks are colorblind.
Now I'm told colorblind *is* racism because I'm white.
I sold my Evanston home to a single white mother with a mixed daughter. She grabbed the house because of the school district. It's terrible to know that her daughter goes to one of these Evanston/Skokie schools that literally teaches: "the systems and the government are controlled by White people and racism being a result of it," This daughter could grow up thinking her mother is racist against her. How far we've fallen from our ideals.
The adults? They're busy creating, embellishing, and publishing modern-day fairy tales for all of us to believe in...OR ELSE!
I'm a former history teacher, and in my last ten years of teaching saw all this coming. So, for two weeks at the beginning of the school year, I had high school sophomores and seniors read John Rawls on "The Original Position" often called ,The Veil of Ignorance. The second week, we went over The UN Declaration of HUMAN Rights. This cut off a lot of the emerging- and divisive identity politics, instead focusing on civil rights for ALL human beings.
If you want to build a just society, John Rawls and the UN Declaration of Human Rights start by essentially saying we must ignore one's own identity and instead start from principles of a just society. By starting the school year this way, it tapped down 70% of the simplistic thinking of bad guys/good guys.
I so appreciate's FAIR's work, and articles like this one. Unfortunately and sadly, the school I worked at, now proudly lists all these group identity clubs: Jewish Student Union, Muslim Student Union, Christian Student Union, Black Student Union, Asian Student Union, Hispanic Student Union, India and Pakistani Student Union, Gender and Sexuality Alliance, and Women's Empowerment Association, the latter which I helped start, but bowed out of when the girls voted that boys who came to the meetings and disagreed with them....were barred from attending future meetings.
Honestly confounding. How can segregation lead to understanding and acceptance. What a missed opportunity for this. Creating echo chambers can only lead to entrenched bias to one's own group. I don't see how this works, frankly.
Its back to the Dark Ages for those unfortunate souls forced by nefarious top-down brainwashing to divide and conquer. Its us vs them: us vs government and its evil. Virtue signalling instead of real words of love, caring and positive encouragement replaced by vitriolic division. The road to hell is paved with evil intent indeed.
Simple choice, really.
If racial disparities are not due to racism, then they're due to race. Pick your poison.
C.) They’re due to culture ( which includes parenting methods ).
Culture is race's response to environment. Carry on.
If the environment is poor education and poverty you remedy that. Or do the poor have no agency?
Carry on.
Wanna compare the rise within 2 generations of penniless Jews immigrating to the USA from Europe (not speaking English) during the late 19th/early 20th century to the big city black ghettoes, riots, and despair over the last 4 generations (and with no hope of change for the better)?
I didn't think so.
What the fuck are you talking about. You literally just made my point. If you have “no hope” you are destined to fail. I don’t have the time to argue with a dogmatic zealot.
Also one emigrates from and immigrates to💫
Two races, same environment, different cultures. Even you should be able to decipher that.
Agreed! At bottom, the universalist values that are now rejected and replaced by "stand
point theory" and lived experiences have left us in solipsistic cages. I'm not sure how we get back to those values of empathy (not just sympathy) for others. The values of free speech, listening and not just hearing, and empathy seemed to work for the last 50 years, and we have made enormous progress, with more to come---We can only do this with non-strident push back and rational discussion that starts from "we are all human"....as a first principle.
Thank you both for investigating this highly charged topic.
The public needs to know what's been happening recently in schools. The media claims that CRT (Critical Race Theory) is not taught in public K-12 schools (like the example below from a superintendent in Wisconsin). I assumed CRT was a theory taught only at universities to adults. But the lesson plans you found at Evanston/Skokie are evidence that CRT is being taught at least as early as Grade 5. "Intersectionality" is found as vocab in the lesson plan for 5th graders, and its the theory developed by Crenshaw several decades ago. Crenshaw also edited the seminal book entitled "Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings". At a minimum, your investigation means 2 things: 1) districts claiming that they weren't teaching CRT to young kids were lying to parents and the public, 2) that CRT is not limited to university classes. I support parents who are telling their school boards to get rid of CRT.
* example: https://www.htrnews.com/story/news/education/2021/07/23/manitowoc-schools-not-teaching-critical-race-theory-mark-holzman-says/7788982002/
* note: Critical Race Theory shouldn't be confused with Culturally Responsive Teaching though both have the same acronym "CRT".