Originally Posted by Taichiliberal View Post
Your first sentence says it all....If you're not sure, it's better to err on the side of caution. Suspending or cancelling the test does that.
No, that is NOT the intent. The intent is to find some type of generalized academic test to determine the next step in a young adult's education. Some are ready for Ivy league but hit just below the requirements for scholarship because the parents can't afford the tuition. Some are NOT ready but have parents who are "legacy" and/or prominent donors. Some are ready but the tests ask the wrong questions, and visa versa.
I know of kids who are auto mechanical geniuses doing "pick up" work for friends and local garages, but never saw the inside of a tech school and were generally low performing grade & high school students. SAT doesn't do a damned thing for them.
And so it goes, as the lady said.
I don't want my comments to convey either an anti-education vibe or an elitist vibe, even though the later is part of my schtick for humor purposes.
Our public schools are funded by local property taxes and controlled by locally elected amateur school committee members.
I can't think of a better way to institutionalize inequity in education.
If the schools were funded by the federal income tax and controlled by qualified Doctors of Education in the Department of Education,
we might come close to an education system worthy of the wealthiest nation on the earth. Resources would reflect equality and create equal opportunity.
I grew up in the city. We didn't have school buses. Our schools were right around the corner. We could walk to them K-12.
[Living in Boston, I could walk to them K-16.]
Then some judge decided that since the neighborhoods were not all ethnically diverse, the students weren't being educated properly.
Well, the truth is that the students weren't all educated properly because the schools weren't necessarily funded equally.
You would not have gained a fucking thing being bused to my neighborhood to attend class with some Italian kids from the North End.
You would have met them anyway at the baseball [we win] and basketball [you win] games.
You didn't need Italian kids to learn. You needed a good fucking school with good fucking teachers, and if your classmates were all a similar color or
if they looked like a bag of M&Ms, that wouldn't matter one fucking bit.
You see, good intentions, like the ones that broke up the neighborhood school system, don't get jack shit done.
Making the right moves get worthwhile things accomplished, and nothing is more worthwhile than
all kids getting good education opportunities,
You can't do well in college if you didn't kill your K-12 shit, but let's help everybody kill their K-12 shit right now, not get kids who didn't do that into Harvard and MIT..
And you're right to bring up post high school vocational education which is a good choice for many people of every ethnicity and which will support
a good standard of living.
Beyond that, while there may still be a place for expensive private education, even if it's just to keep the public schools honest, public education for ALL has to be extended way beyond K-12.
Plenty of America's best universities are not private schools, and employers recognize that. Let's make them recognize that more.
And as we know, it's not just traditional colleges but
vocational colleges that are needed badly.
If nobody can fix our plumbing, we're all fucked. Doctor of PVC is one of the most essential careers in America.
People who can fix electric cars aren't exactly bloating the population either.
