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The Age of Educational Romanticism
Political Correctness; Posted on: 2008-05-14
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On requiring every child to be above average.
by Charles Murray
This is the story of educational romanticism in elementary and secondary
schools —its rise, its etiology, and, we have reason to hope, its
approaching
demise.
Educational romanticism consists of the belief that just about all
children
who are not doing well in school have the potential to do much better.
Correlatively, educational romantics believe that the academic achievement
of
children is determined mainly by the op****tunities they receive; that
innate
intellectual limits (if they exist at all) play a minor role; and that the
current K-12 schools have huge room for improvement.
Educational romanticism characterizes reformers of both Left and Right,
though
in different ways. Educational romantics of the Left focus on race, class,
and
gender. It is children of color, children of poor parents, and girls whose
performance is artificially depressed, and their academic achievement will
blossom as soon as they are liberated from the racism, classism, and
***ism
embedded in American education. Those of the Right see public education as
an
ineffectual monopoly, and think that educational achievement will blossom
when
school choice liberates children from politically correct curricula and
obdurate teachers’ unions.
In public discourse, the leading symptom of educational romanticism is
silence
on the role of intellectual limits even when the topic screams for their
discussion. Try to think of the last time you encountered a news story
that
mentioned low intellectual ability as the reason why some students do not
perform at grade level. I doubt if you can. Whether analyzed by the news
media, school superintendents, or politicians, the problems facing
low-performing students are always that they have come from disadvantaged
backgrounds, or have gone to bad schools, or grown up in peer cultures
that do
not value educational achievement. The problem is never that they just
aren’t
smart enough.
The apotheosis of educational romanticism occurred on January 8, 2002,
when a
Republican president of the United States, surrounded by approving
legislators
from both parties, signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act, which had
this as the Statement of Purpose for its key title:
"The purpose of this title is to ensure that all children have a fair,
equal,
and significant op****tunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach,
at a
minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards
and
state academic assessments."
All means exactly that: everybody, right down to the bottom level of
ability.
The language of the 2002 law made no provision for any exclusions. The Act
requires that this goal be met “not later than 12 years after the end of
the
2001–2002 school year.”
We are not talking about a political speech or a campaign promise. The
United
States Congress, acting with large bipartisan majorities, at the urging of
the
President, enacted as the law of the land that all children are to be
above
average. I do not exaggerate. When No Child Left Behind began in 2002, the
nation already possessed operational definitions of proficient in the math
and
reading tests administered under the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP, pronounced “nape”). NAEP is seen as the gold standard in
educational testing. Only about 30 percent of American students were
proficient in either reading or math by NAEP’s definitions when No Child
Left
Behind began. In other words, by NAEP’s standard, all students are not
just to
be brought to the average that existed when No Child Left Behind was
enacted.
All of them are to reach the level of students at the seventieth
percentile.
Continue...
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-age-of-educational-romanticism-3835
News Source: Charles Murray
2007-2008 European Americans United.
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