The failure of No Child Left Behind


Before the blame game begins, look at why it is not working
LaShawn Barber has a great article on the failures of the No Child Left Behind program. You should really read the whole thing, but this leapt out at me.

Third, we’re almost two generations past the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, and the idealistic among us envisioned a future Utopia where all the races would get along and have an equal amount of stuff — however you want to define “stuff.” This became the goal, and falling short of this goal is evidence to some people that the Civil Rights “dream” has not been achieved and that racism is “institutionalized” and must be eradicated by any means necessary, hence, race preferences and quotas.

But the goal itself was unrealistic. Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome, is the best you can do in a free, capitalist country; otherwise, you have to start discriminating in the other direction to ensure that people with vastly different talents and skills end up with equal outcomes. Such a notion is legally, morally, and logically unsustainable. (Equal has become an idol, by the way.)

The emphasis should be on opportunity. If people don’t seize it when it’s right in front of them, which I argue it is most of the time in a country like the United States, they can’t blame “the system.”

I wrote about diversity earlier for this reason. While I believe that generations immediately after Emancipation had a lot of catching up to do, we are too far past slavery for that excuse to work anymore. In my admittedly lay and amateur opinion, I don’t think we can even blame Jim Crow for the achievement gap and other ills. Many ethnic groups throughout the world at some point in the history of the world have been discriminated against, demeaned, enslaved, subjugated, beaten, and killed. There is nothing unique about the “African American” experience in this regard.

What is unique about the “African American” experience is that we live in a country that has bent over backwards to make amends for past injustices. That some people are “left behind” is not evidence of racism. I believe that in 2006, it is imperative that blacks understand this and embrace the idea of self-help, self-improvement, and accountability for our lot in life as individuals.

The lady gets it. It's not about class, it's not about "race," and it it's not about one group being better than the others. It's about individual opportunity. Some individuals will be exceptional, some won't. But no amount of social tinkering will work better than the people who make it up. People aren't remarkable because they belong to a group, they are remarkable because of the actions they take.

Education is too important to leave to the government.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - June 16, 2006 at 06:45 PM  Tag


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