Four years ago,
Thomas Sowell castigated the policies of the Obama administration that would lead, more or less directly, to the Parkland school shooting (thanks for
the Instalink and for
the Farm link). In April 2014, he wrote that
Of all the cynical frauds of the Obama administration, few are so
despicable as sacrificing the education of poor and minority children to
the interests of the teachers' unions.
Attorney General Eric Holder's attempt to suppress the spread of charter
schools in Louisiana was just one of the signs of that cynicism. His
nationwide threats of legal action against schools that discipline more
black [and other minority] students than he thinks they should are at least as damaging.
Charter schools are hated by teachers' unions and by much of the
educational establishment in general. They seem to be especially hated
when they succeed in educating minority children whom the educational
establishment says cannot be educated.
… Fortunately, a court order prevented [the 2013] planned vindictive closing of
this highly successful charter school [the American Indian Model Schools in Oakland, California] with minority students. But the
attempt shows the animus and the cynical disregard of the education of
children who have few other places to get a comparable education.
Attorney General Holder's threats of legal action against schools where
minority students are disciplined more often than he wants are a much
more sweeping and damaging blow to the education of poor and minority
students across the country.
Among the biggest obstacles to educating children in many ghetto schools
are disruptive students whose antics, threats and violence can make
education virtually impossible. If only 10 percent of the students are
this way, that sacrifices the education of the other 90 percent.
The idea that Eric Holder, or anybody else, can sit in Washington and
determine how many disciplinary actions against individual students are
warranted or unwarranted in schools across the length and breadth of
this country would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
Relying on racial statistics tells you nothing, unless you believe that
black male students cannot possibly be more disruptive than Asian female
students, or that students in crime-ridden neighborhoods cannot
possibly require disciplinary actions more often than children in the
most staid, middle-class neighborhoods.
Attorney General Holder is not fool enough to believe either of those things. Why then is he pursuing this numbers game?
The most obvious answer is politics. Anything that promotes a sense of
grievance from charges of racial discrimination offers hope of
energizing the black vote to turn out to vote for Democrats, which is
especially needed when support from other voters is weakening in the
wake of Obama administration scandals and fiascoes. …
Read
the whole thing™…
No comments:
Post a Comment