« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Leftists Attempt to Destroy Academics

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  February 12th, 2009 at 09:34 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Look, we always joke that the left is more about indoctrination than education, but this is ridiculous.

Bill Ayers (yeah him), the Woods Fund of Chicago that Barack Obama used to manage, and George Soros are funding some program called the “Fair Test.” And it’s not just them. The Fair Test has ties to NARAL, various Democratic party sub-groups, and a host of other left wing interests.

The “Fair Test” isn’t really a test at all. It’s a movement to scrap standardized tests for college admissions standards because the left is convinced they discriminate. In fact, under the “Fair Test”, the left doesn’t even really want colleges to look at a student’s grade point average.

Why?

The left has so bought in to the notion that standardized tests discriminate against preferred groups, they need a new end-run around the growing effort to get rid of race-based preferential admissions policies.

Given how entrenched the Fair Test movement is in the Democrat Party, watch for Congress to start whittling away at standardized tests for college admissions in favor of a more “holistic” approach.

Tags: , , , ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • Raven

    They managed to get the SAT to incorporate a new “Essay” section because “Girls don’t do as well in English and Math as boys.”

  • http://www.ufcle.com/willis/willis.htm Steven Willis

    They have already destroyed academia. Please do not get me started on this – it is too depressing.

  • JoeG

    Is that your view in the scientific and engineering fields too?

  • evanm

    “…and that’s why I think, like, NAFTA is totally so, like, whatever…”

  • Alberta

    nt

  • gekster

    To graduate?

  • Brian Hibbert

    The students who aren’t capable of doing college level work waste resources that should be put to students who ARE capable of keeping up. The students who SHOULD be in college due to their good academic work have to compete for seats with people who have no business attending college. The students who try and fail to make the grade flunk out, have a mound of debt (assuming student loans), miss out on opportunities to take technical training that better suites their skills, and become despondent about being a miserable failure in school when they could have been successful in some other endeavor.

    Those tests have a purpose.

  • Read Chesterton

    As an EE with 27 years in the business I have never been more pessimistic about the future of the profession in the US. It’s not just that there are fewer and fewer brainy self-starters with each new batch of fresh grads hired. PC cultural changes are producing a generation of young people completely unprepared to to take direction from adults. Instead, they expect to be “mentored” into highly visible technical roles and leadership positions. The beauty of the “mentoring” movement is that it places the burden of failure solely on the shoulders of the experienced senior engineers doing the mentoring. Young people simply are not permitted to fail anymore.

    Give me a veteran of the US military as an entry level engineer any day of the week, and trust and competence can almost be assured. But most kids graduating from even the best engineering universities today are indoctrinated to believe that feelings have a role in technical decision making.

  • JHancock

    the more important fields they will liberalize, but not dumb down. It’s more difficult than ever to get into med school now. Many of the teachers in medical school would not be able to make it into medical school now, because their MCAT’s are too low. Several of my teachers didn’t pass boards their first try-now if you have to retake boards (unless you destroy them the second time) you are pretty much relegated to family practice.

    However, liberal thought is firmly entrenching itself in the next generation of physicians-most tend to be populist if not socialist, and think healthcare is a right. Some think that DOCTORS MAKE TOO MUCH, and it is their job to serve the comunity reguardless of their 200k in student debt. Still more see nothing objectionable about abortion or assisted suicide, while most advocate national healthcare rationing, even of privately insured patients.

  • JHancock

    to keeping a socialism/communism running without riots in the streets. Of course engineering, business, and econ are critical in a free capitalist society

  • JHancock

    Socialists figure that as long as poor people can’t afford the technology and buildings we have now, why should we innovate better, when less trained engeneers can build more of the same cheaply—just stand on the shoulders of giants and don’t reach any further, or do anything new and expensive. Some of this thought entering medicine too with cost effective analysis slowly replacing patient outcomes analysis

  • JHancock

    we can try to weed out before school or weed out after people have invested years and thousands of dollars for a school they can’t compete in. Take a look at the graduation/attrition rates at Harvard vs. most state colleges.

  • Raven

    Do some serious checking on any new doctor you have. Chances are he’s not as well trained as your vet.

  • Common_Cents

    How do you instill discipline into teachers/profs to not pass the buck with grade inflation.

    I heard a story about South Korea testing day.

    Our problems are really growing in our culture. Changing that is really tough.