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Academic Underachievement As a Permanent Condition

Academic achievement occurs through individual effort: One boy and one girl after another rising above

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On the state and local level, as decisions are made about how and in what form we will educate the nation’s children, an age-old issue remains. The underlying causes of income inequality and civil unrest likely has less to do with media-inflamed coverage and more to do with a lingering issue that few people want to earnestly discuss: educational disparity.

In virtually every U.S. school system, the disparity year after year, decade after decade, and even longer, in mathematics competency, reading proficiency, test scores, honor roll status, and graduation rates, between African American students and other students is disturbing.

A Disturbing Reality

Here in the third decade of the third millennium, with a male African American high school dropout rate at 40% across the U.S., can anyone view the situation optimistically? Any responsible American would understandably be concerned.

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As Eric Hanushek, who is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, as well as a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, exclaimed “It’s remarkable.” Following his extensive analysis of the situation, he remarked, “I knew that the gap hadn’t been closing too much, but when I actually looked at the data I was myself surprised.”

In one community after another, and one school system after another, when strenuous efforts to bridge the gap do not bear fruit, invariably someone yells “foul,” as if some grand conspiracy is occurring and a magic wand, yet to be waved, could suddenly redress all. And, as if hard-working, dedicated teachers are not attempting their utmost for each of their students.

An Undesired Path

Consider the school system in Chapel Hill-Carrboro, North Carolina. This locale, deemed, “The southern part of heaven,” by a variety of writers, is among the most progressive in the United States. The teachers and educators here have a vested interest in demonstrating that their school system, beyond all others, can succeed in the vital area of closing achievement gaps between whites and minorities.

Nevertheless, year in and year out the gap remains. So, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education becomes primed to try anything! Another in an endless line of supposed “fixes” was to eliminate the advanced math classes in the middle schools and to lump all non-pre-algebra students together, with similar plans to eliminate other advanced classes such as in language arts.

Just as you cannot easily erect a sound building on quicksand, and you cannot expect to solve a decades-old problem by starting with a shaky foundation. Taking a lowest common denominator approach to developing school curriculum has never consistently worked, anywhere. It frustrates the students and dramatically increases a teacher’s burden – all such students must then be taught at individual learning speeds. Do you know any superhuman teachers? If so, could you afford them?

Face the Real Issues

Permanently closing the academic gap between underachieving students and the rest of the student population requires addressing reality – airing the truth about the disparity – not resorting to politically “correct” psychobabble and curricula finagling for another ten years, and then another ten, and then another.

This disparity encompasses such issues as the number of hours the television is on in given households, family or parental encouragement for completing homework assignments, a regular workspace, and established hours for studying in a quiet environment, among other factors.

Until solid analysis, exploration, and programs that address these issues are undertaken, no amount of wrangling with classes will prove to be the “winning formula.” And, school boards will have no chance of effectively addressing the continuing problem of poor academic performance among student groups.

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story The Sign of Four, detective Sherlock Holmes says, “…When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” The schools in U.S. communities routinely exhaust talented teachers with a task that cannot be solved by them, nor is it theirs to solve.

Students Eager to Learn

However improbable to those who wish to pretend otherwise, academic achievement occurs through individual effort: One boy and one girl after another rising above and cracking the books, then coming to class as serious students, eager to learn, and primed to excel. Such achievement is not likely to occur any other way.

Otherwise, expect that income inequality and civil unrest will continue for decades into the 21st century.

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Jeff Davidson is the world's only holder of the title "The Work-Life Balance Expert®" as awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He is the premier thought leader on work-life balance, integration, and harmony. Jeff speaks to organizations that seek to enhance their overall productivity by improving the effectiveness of their people. He is the author of Breathing Space, Simpler Living, Dial it Down, and Everyday Project Management. Visit www.BreathingSpace.com for more information on Jeff's keynote speeches and seminars, including: Managing the Pace with Grace® * Achieving Work-Life Balance™ * Managing Information and Communication Overload®



 
 
 

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Education

My Woke Local Library in Woke America

At the rate of new woke holidays, the whole year will eventually fill up

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American Thinker:  I took time out during a weekday, two weeks ago, to visit my local library for the first time in many months. I know they’ve already changed the name. It used to be called the “Cameron Village Regional Library,” but apparently Cameron was a very bad man, a long time ago.

The name change, however, came because owners of the shopping center, which was built on land owned by people who had held slaves, chose to drop its connection to the contemporary Cameron family. Hmmm, I wonder how many properties, owned by people who had held once slaves, the shopping center owners have lived on.

Ultimately, the Wake County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to rename the library to the “Oberlin Regional Library.” Is that not a heartwarming move?

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Change Happens

As I stroll around the library, I notice numerous changes. There are many more large-print books. The youth section is larger as well and offers a variety of woke titles which, in some instances, would alarm even the most liberal of parents. Every other book is about “brown girl” or “the boy who feels like a girl inside.”

In perusing the audiobook shelves, I see that it is a fraction of what it used to be. Most everyone has switched to downloads. The physical CDs, the kind I like to pop into my car player, are becoming rare, but isn’t it safer to insert one into the CD player than to fiddle with one’s cellphone to air a podcast?

At the librarian’s desk, I see all manner of flyers and announcements. One flyer stands out in particular. It is a page which lists all library activities for the coming month. This list interests me because one never knows — there might be a visiting author or some type of how-to program that is worthwhile to me.

Closed in Observation

The middle of this sheet says: “The library will be closed on June 19 in observance of Juneteenth.” Juneteenth, bad grammar and all, is a federal holiday since 2021, commemorating “the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.” Wait a second, the Emancipation Proclamation occurred on January 1, 1863. Did I miss something? The library will be partially open on July 4. Is that now a lesser holiday?

Juneteenth is acknowledged on the anniversary of the order by a Major General Gordon Granger proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865.  So, now we ignore the Emancipation Proclamation?  One keen social observer commented that the left still thinks of minorities, especially black people, as their pets who they like to spoil with little baubles like Juneteenth.

Real equality is out of the question. To let people rise of fall on their own merits? Well those poor folks would never find their way without the largess of tax payers. And that’s the ploy to keep them “in their place.” Simply vote Democrat and eventually you’ll be just fine. In the meantime, enjoy all the great gifts. And don’t forget to vote.

Perpetual Baubles

What about Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, celebrated on the third Monday in January? It is now a federal holiday. Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays in mid-February used to be known by every school-aged kid as I was growing up. These birthdays have now been homogenized and combined, and called Presidents Day, with not even 1 in 10 Americans knowing what that relates to.

Malcolm X said: “The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man who runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked, or deceived by the white liberal, then Negros would get together and solve our own problems.”

“I only cite these things to show you that in America, the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man.”

Dedicated Months

We have a whole month devoted to black history, each and every day in February. Depending on where you turn, you’ll gain news and information about black authors, politicians, poets, cooks, freedom fighters, soldiers, actors, inventors, and pioneers of industry.

The consequence of note of all these holidays is that government employees receive yet another paid day off without having to bargain for it. Nearly everybody else, who actually work for a living, still go to work on those days. Few people care about the holiday except for those seeking to conjure up the next one.

Still, perhaps we ought to have Black History Month for a few more years but, eventually, it needs to fade and simply be part of American history. Otherwise, are we also going to have a Hispanic history month, Jewish month, Asian month, Muslim month, and so on? Are not all the historical experiences, and contributions, by all these groups simply a part of American history?

Years ago, when I lived in D.C., one of the morning radio shock jocks made an inexcusable joke for which he should have been fired but he was not. This was long before the wokesters took over the media and he knew what the boundaries were. In observation of Martin Luther King’s birthday, he said, it’s too bad four more civil rights leaders weren’t slain so that we could have a whole week off. A terrible statement by any means, but he thought it was funny.

Fill Up the Year!

The odd thing is, at the rate of new woke holidays, it wouldn’t be surprising if the whole year was eventually filled up. Every group that has ever been aggrieved in one way or another, at any time, gets a holiday or a week, or why not a month?

So let’s have a short people’s day, a stutterer’s  day, a nearsighted people’s day, and on and on, until every single person in America is covered (except, of course, white males, Christians, and Jews). Let’s devote a whole month to those who have a different sexual outlook, inclination, or orientation than everyone else. Let’s hold it in, say, June. Let’s call it “Pride Month.” What do you think of that?

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Education

Youth Under Assault

The Left corrupts and thwart today’s youth from cradle to high school, and from college to young adulthood

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American Thinker — The Biden administration aims to make America a third-rate nation.  In 28 months, our corrupt, doddering, feeble “leader,” a puppet to Barack Obama and other leftists, has initiated legions of programs and policies to decimate our nation.

Atop the list is dislodging the American family as the primary social unit.  The Biden administration seeks to keep wealth redistribution schemes and welfare sufficiently attractive to disincentivize marriage and on-the-scene fathers.

While They’re Young

The leftist agenda for destroying America though its children is multifaceted:

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  • Confuse children at a very early age.  Convince them that they were born as the wrong gender and need to use surgery to make themselves look like members of the opposite sex.
  • Concurrently, make it difficult for parents to even know what is occurring.
  • Infuse the schools with teachers who preach transgenderism, sexuality, crossdressing, and a variety of other such behaviors.  Indoctrinate children each day.
  • De-emphasize reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Focus on equity, feeling good about yourself, disparaging the U.S., and denigrating White people.
  • Discourage children from being proud Americans.
  • Schedule drag queen story hour so that children are exposed to men who mock women and prance around as if it’s commendable behavior.
  • Intimidate teachers.  Make them fear using the wrong pronouns and being fired even after twenty years of dedicated service.
  • Convert children into little fascists, ready to report on any adult, including their own parents, who “step out of line.”

Fractured History

  • Support the 1619 Project, which asserts that American history begins with the introduction of slaves.  Never mind that tens of thousands of people lived here before slavery flourished in the South and that millions of people afterward had nothing to do with the slave trade.
  • Magnify America’s role in the global slave trade.  Ignore that of 10,700,000 slaves who withstood the horrific Atlantic crossing, 388,000 (3.6%) disembarked in America.
  • Overlook that while Denmark was the first nation to abolish slave trade shipping in 1803, Britain and the United States followed four years later.  Downplay that America fought a four-year Civil War, where 600,000+ troops, 360,000 of them for the Union, died, with millions more suffering life-altering casualties.
  • Censor the fact that since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the U.S. has spent $21+ trillion on affirmative action, equal opportunity, welfare, and other transfer payments — a staggering sum equal to $500,000+ per black person, for every year anyone was alive from 1965 to the present.
  • Don’t teach America’s role in World War I or World War II, and how we defeated the Nazis, vanquished fascism, and won the 44-year Cold War against an evil empire, the Soviet Union.

Un-level the Playing Field

  • Ensure that the average U.S. student lacks the academic skills to compete with immigrants from China, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, Japan, and Vietnam, whose per family income exceeds that of American Whites within one generation.
  • Overwhelm school systems by allowing torrents of illegal aliens to overpopulate small towns, while draining municipal budgets, health care facilities, first responder departments, and all else that supports a healthy community.
  • Install a buffoon, Miguel Cardona, as secretary of education to promote a transgender invasion of women’s sports.  Make sure that females face grossly unfair competition.  If they protest, shun, bar, or cancel them.
  • Support unions and school boards that target parents who wish to safeguard the education of their children.  Label these parents as enemies of the state.  Install a corrupt, demented attorney general, Merrick Garland, who regards concerned parents as domestic terrorists.

Toss Out Merit

  • Dumb down testing.  Do away with letter grades where possible.  Throw out the SAT and GRE to benefit those who cannot academically compete.  Remove the written essay as a college entrance requirement.
  • Promote and eventually graduate those students who can barely read even after twelve years of school.  Then claim that school systems are racist.  Later, when these academic laggards can’t compete in the economy, blame White society for these ills.
  • Encourage the underemployed to join Black Lives Matter and Antifa.  Pay them to be vocal and violent at events where no protests would otherwise occur.  Ensure that no one spends more than a night in jail, regardless of the crime, before he’s bailed out and exonerated by lawless, George Soros-funded district attorneys and dishonest prosecutors.

The Prescription

So there you go.  Corrupt and thwart today’s youth from cradle to high school, and from college to young adulthood.  This is the prescription for a doomed generation, courtesy of the twisted policies and programs of the Biden administration.

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