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Let's discriminate
Topic Started: Jan 1 2016, 06:21 AM (436 Views)
Quasimodo

Quote:
 

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/despite_superior_achievement_asian_students_being_held_back.html

December 31, 2015
Despite superior achievement, Asian students being held back

This is a disturbing article in the New York Post that chronicles the story of achievement by Asian-American students – and the policies adopted by school districts across the couintry to limit their advancement.

The reason for the success of Asian-American kids is the total committment and encouragement by their parents to their education. But other parents believe that their kids are at a disadvantage because they don't take the time or make the same effort as Asian parents. So school districts are now taking a "holistic" approach that keeps Asian kids down.



Here in New York City, Asian-Americans make up 13 percent of students, yet they win more than half of the coveted places each year at the city’s selective public high schools, such as Bronx Science and Stuyvesant.

What’s at play here? It’s not a difference in IQ; it’s parenting. That’s confirmed by a recent study by sociologists from City University of New York and the University of Michigan, which showed that parental oversight enabled Asian-American students to far outperform the others.

No wonder many successful charter schools require parents to sign a pledge that they’ll supervise their children’s homework and encourage a strong work ethic.

That formula is under fire at the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in New Jersey. The district, which is 65 percent Asian, routinely produces seniors with perfect SAT scores, admissions to MIT and top prizes in international science competitions.

But many non-Asian parents are up in arms, complaining there’s too much pressure and their kids can’t compete. In response, this fall Superintendent David Aderhold apologized that school had become a “perpetual achievement machine.” Heaven forbid!

Aderhold canceled accelerated and enriched math courses for fourth and fifth grades, which were 90 percent Asian, and eliminated midterms and finals in high school.

Using a word that already strikes terror in the hearts of Asian parents, he said schools had to take a “holistic” approach. That’s the same euphemism Harvard uses to limit the number of Asians accepted and favor non-Asians.

Aderhold even lowered standards for playing in school music programs. Students have a “right to squeak,” he insisted. Never mind whether they practice.

Of course, neither Aderhold nor parents in charge of sports are indulging nonathletic kids with a “right to fumble” and join a mostly non-Asian varsity football team.

Meanwhile, in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NAACP want to reduce the role the competitive exam plays in admissions for the city’s eight selective high schools in favor of a “holistic” approach. That means robbing poor, largely immigrant and first-generation kids — nearly half the students get subsidized school lunches — of the chance to study hard and compete for a world-class education.




Affirmative action programs at colleges already limits the number of Asians who can attend the best schools. Now high schools, under pressure from parents, want to limit the number of high-achieving Asian kids who enroll in the best schools and the toughest courses.

What's up with that? Are the parents of kids of other races lazy, or don't they love their kids as much? That's nonsense for the most part, although some parents probably fit that description. The key is a culture that celebrates achievement. I don't think you'll find too many "Participation Trophies" being handed out in Japan or China. In those countries, either you achieve or you're left behind.

The competition just to get into college in those two countries is far more cutthroat than in the U.S. The question is, rather than dumbing down our educational system, why not emulate Asian parents? The answer is that secondary education – except for some sports – has been trying to eliminate the very idea of competition, because it is believed that losing marks a student for life and leads to low self-esteem and other problems.

It is up to parents to instill the competitive spirit in their kids. Perhaps non-Asian parents can start with that and stop encouraging schools to put all students on the same achievement plane.



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Quasimodo



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It's 1966 (or so) and Gov Reagan is having one of his famous pool parties for the legislature hu-mons and their wives. AA [Affirmative Action] comes up. One of the liberal wives says "If we don't have AA all the math and science classes will be full of Asians",
to which Reagan says "So what?".


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Quasimodo

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Only minorities are eligible for preferred treatment. Asians and Jews are not officially minorities.

Minority has nothing to do with numerical incidence anymore. A city can be majority minority. A minority by definition is someone who is dysfunctional and belongs to an officially approved class of victims of discrimination and bigotry and historic injustice.

Don't write this down or try to understand it; it will not be on the final exam.


Recall that the civil right laws, granting permission to sue state authorities for violations of one's civil rights, were not,
according to the City of Durham pleadings (and the final decision by Judge Beaty) intended to apply (and so do not apply)
to white Duke lacrosse players.

So their rights can be violated without redress by the victims.

That's called Equal Protection of the Laws.

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Quasimodo

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http://www.spiked-online.com/spiked-review/article/the-crisis-of-character#.VoZod8Sx_ce

December 2015
[
THE CRISIS OF CHARACTER
BRENDAN O’NEILL
Identity politics and the death of the individual.

DECEMBER 2015


(snip)

In student life and new-left circles, people are ‘identified as’, or they self-identity as, white, black, men, women, gay, straight, bi, trans, agender, non-binary and so on, and their politics takes place entirely at this level. White privilege is kept in check. Male privilege is policed. Gay culture is chastised for its incursions into black culture. White women are admonished for their attitudes to black women. Politics is no longer the sphere in which interests are expressed and convictions crash, but rather has become an arena for the pitting of personalised identities against one another: a new caste system, in effect.

The individual with conviction has given way to the insecure possessor of an identity, whose primary concern is with the protection of his or her identity from ridicule or assault. We enter the public sphere as self-ossified categories rather than as thinking, convinced persons; as ciphers, representing something, rather than characters, containing something.

Facebook now has 71 gender identities to choose from. Forms used to ask us to circle M or F; Facebook offers the option of everything from ‘agender’ to ‘bigender’, ‘neither’ to ‘neutrois’, ‘two spirit’ to, of course, ‘other’, because in a world of narrow self-identification, there must always be space for the other, for the identity that hasn’t invented itself yet. Facebook justifies its many genders as a chance for people ‘to describe themselves as they are now’, again speaking to the changeability, transience, the fundamental flimsiness of modern identity.

Women’s colleges have been propelled into crisis by the cult of self-identification. In an era when a man can become a woman by saying ‘I identity as a woman’, can women’s colleges continue to exist? It seems not. Mount Holyoke College in the US used to describe itself simply as a ‘women-only institution’. Now it grants entry to the following dizzying array of identities: ‘Biologically born female who identifies as a woman; biologically born female who identifies as a man; biologically born female who identifies as other; biologically born female who does not identify as either woman or man; biologically born male who identifies as a woman; biologically born male who identifies as other when the other identity includes woman.’ In short, Mount Holyoke is no longer a women’s college. Men can enter, too, so long as they ‘identify as’ women. Identifying as a woman is now equal to being a woman. Feeling is reality. The entirely subjective sentiment becomes objective, legal fact.


(snip)

The new identitarians, or self-identifiers, might technically be liberated from old social pressures, gender norms and moral expectations – though it’s more accurate to say that those things fell apart rather than the identitarians having broken free of them – but they have become locked into new and even more insidious relationships of dependency. Their need for constant validation, for self-consolation, for an ‘admiring audience’, means that while they may be free of past, burdensome social expectations, they have become psychic slaves. They are dependent upon the recognition of others, especially officialdom.

(snip)

This explains the angst-ridden nature of much self-identification, the feeling of being under siege, of being at risk. Whether it’s trans campaigners trawling for evidence of transphobia and insisting that their very ‘right to exist’ is constantly being called into question, or student-union officials erecting safe spaces in which no Islamophobia, transphobia or any other phobia may be expressed, these supposedly free and easy new identities feel anything but free and easy. They’re tetchy, needy, defensive, ugly even. They need validation, and they seek it everywhere.

(snip)

And it’s never enough: for the fragile identity, validation is a constant necessity. The self-identifiers are liberated from the past, yes, but they’re enslaved by the 21st-century validation machine, their esteem locked in a danse macabre with the self-esteem industry.

(snip)




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Quasimodo

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http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/31/read-the-epic-social-justice-warrior-smackdown-that-is-going-viral/

Read The Epic Social Justice Warrior Smackdown That Is Going Viral

31 Dec 2015
I can’t help but share this amazing anonymous smackdown of the odious cult of social justice with readers. It’s currently doing the rounds on Twitter and reddit. If anyone knows the author, do get in touch…




“We are fighting to end hate, to unite as one and love each other. We are fighting to be treated right without discrimination and for everyone to have equal opportunities.”


Bullsh&t. You have no quantifiable metrics for injustice, so you have no victory conditions (for a very simplified example, when blacks hold X% of all engineering jobs and are only Y% of all prisoners, racism is ended). That would be fine by itself, but you believe in fighting injustice with injustice (gays have historically been denied gay marriage? let’s get random CEOs fired for opinions they held six years ago). You don’t seek converts, you seek to punish and bully – straight white males who disagree with you must be purged and publicly humiliated. Even the jihadists will spare you if you convert; no apology or future correction will satisfy a SJW.

I could forgive that too if you weren’t all hypocrites and liars. Your treatment of women and minority dissenters is appalling; if they don’t want you acting on their behalf, that’s their choice, not “internalized patriarchy” or whatever. You rob them of moral agency. When called out for these behaviors (as you always insist on calling out others), you lie. You strawman your opponents (criticized a woman? misogynist!), you group them with the worst (you’re a gamer? you’re as bad as the anonymous rape threateners!) and when confronted with your own flaws, you restate them less threateningly (motte and bailey argument). You phrase all arguments as kafkatraps (disagreeing with your assertion that we are evil is taken as proof that we’re evil). You publish manipulated and misleading statistics, then lambast anyone who questions them.

(snip)

Historically ignorant SJWs think whites hold collective guilt for the awful things our ancestors have done. But they don’t care about the unspeakable atrocities by other races. The only difference between whites and others was that whites had the social and technological prowess to do evil efficiently; Africans, Asians, Indians, and everyone else practiced genocide and slavery, they were just less adept at doing it right. Given the means, they would have done the same. But nope, only whites are guilty; Arab oppression of blacks and caucasians never happened, not to us, nope.

I’ve been lucky enough to grow up in America, so this sh&t is new to me. But I’m descended from puritans, and I know my history; I know how they treated dissent. I also know how commies treated dissent; I grew up next door to a grizzled old Russian who barely avoided the gulag by smuggling himself out of the country. I know what you petty tyrants have turned into every time you gained enough power.

Worst of all, you turn the very principles of freedom against us. We tolerate you because we believe in free speech and civil discourse, not bullying and violence. But that means we have to watch you advocate against that very freedom. We don’t believe in ruining a stranger’s professional life over an opinion, but that means that we can’t punish your actions.

We believe that the rightness of our actions should speak for itself. You believe in bullying, even as you claim to love the oppressed.

Funny how the evil and all-powerful patriarchy has seen fit to act according to SJW whims for all of recent memory, punishing those they hate and protecting those they love. Funny how the evil oppressor males have to speak anonymously, while the SJWs fighting the power can use their real names and get mainstream media coverage for fun and profit. How when a million straight white male nerds get bullied, no one cares, but the minute one fag hangs himself, suddenly bullying matters – and the solution, of course, is more bullying, but by the “right” people.

That’s the arrogant core of it. You do the same evil, in the same pattern, as so many before you, because mob justice, punishing dissent, and repression of others is just fine and dandy so long as the “right” people are doing it to the “wrong” people.


Eat sh&t and die. All I ever asked was to be left alone.


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Quasimodo

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http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/ebony-editor-wed-all-be-easier-cosby-if-he-supported-blacklivesmatter

Ebony Editor: We'd All Be Easier on Cosby IF He Supported #BlackLivesMatter
Brought to you by MSNBC.

12.31.2015

In a conversation with resident race-baiter Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC about the sexual assault charge against Bill Cosby, Ebony senior editor Jamilah Lemieux implied that if the embattled comedy legend were to have been known as a supporter of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, he wouldn't have faced as much criticism.

Lemieux said:

And I can’t help but to wonder -- say Mr. Cosby didn’t have that sort of respectability politics, you know, heavy-handed against single-mothers and complicating sounding names and wearing your pants low and listening to hip-hop. Say that wasn’t who he was. Say that he was a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement. Say that he was a leftist. Say that he was really on our side, quote unquote, politically. Would we be having this conversation? How willing would people be to turn their backs on him?


(snip)




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Quasimodo


Prepare to hiss menacingly when this picture is displayed during the Two Minute Hate rally :


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MikeZPU

Quasimodo
Jan 1 2016, 06:42 AM
POSTER COMMENT at site:

Quote:
 
Only minorities are eligible for preferred treatment. Asians and Jews are not officially minorities.

Minority has nothing to do with numerical incidence anymore. A city can be majority minority. A minority by definition is someone who is dysfunctional and belongs to an officially approved class of victims of discrimination and bigotry and historic injustice.

Don't write this down or try to understand it; it will not be on the final exam.
A minority by definition is someone who is dysfunctional and belongs to an officially approved class of victims of discrimination and bigotry and historic injustice.

I think this person is being facetious, but I am not 100% certain.

I love when they use the phrase "by definition" -- ostensibly so you can't dispute it.

The race-baiters have been peddling this BS at universities for a while now:
"anyone who is in the majority is by definition a racist"

I kid you not. There are still group-think sessions at my university
where that phrase is being peddled: "anyone who is in the majority is by definition a racist"

Let's just continually change the definition of "minority" so that it always
supports giving handouts and major preferential treatment to blacks.
Edited by MikeZPU, Jan 1 2016, 12:14 PM.
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comelately

MikeZPU
Jan 1 2016, 12:13 PM
Quasimodo
Jan 1 2016, 06:42 AM
POSTER COMMENT at site:

Quote:
 
Only minorities are eligible for preferred treatment. Asians and Jews are not officially minorities.

Minority has nothing to do with numerical incidence anymore. A city can be majority minority. A minority by definition is someone who is dysfunctional and belongs to an officially approved class of victims of discrimination and bigotry and historic injustice.

Don't write this down or try to understand it; it will not be on the final exam.
A minority by definition is someone who is dysfunctional and belongs to an officially approved class of victims of discrimination and bigotry and historic injustice.

I think this person is being facetious, but I am not 100% certain.

I love when they use the phrase "by definition" -- ostensibly so you can't dispute it.

The race-baiters have been peddling this BS at universities for a while now:
"anyone who is in the majority is by definition a racist"

I kid you not. There are still group-think sessions at my university
where that phrase is being peddled: "anyone who is in the majority is by definition a racist"

Let's just continually change the definition of "minority" so that it always
supports giving handouts and major preferential treatment to blacks.
And still, Chinese as a group vote for Democrats - as do Jews. Does this behavior qualify both groups as low-IQ ones, and thus eligible for the Affirmative Action? :biggrin:
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
http://collegeinsurrection.com/2016/01/oregon-state-to-hold-racially-segregated-social-justice-retreats/

Oregon State To Hold Racially Segregated Social Justice Retreats

Friday, January 1, 2016 at 3:30pm

For people who call themselves progressives, the left has some very backwards ideas.

The Daily Caller reported:



Public University To Hold Racially-Segregated ‘Social Justice Retreats’

Oregon State University will hold four racially-exclusive “Social Justice Retreats” focusing on “white privilege,” “microaggressions,” and “institutional racism” in the first month of 2016 alone.

During the weekend of January 8-10, the university will have two retreats — one specifically for white students, “Examining White Identity in a Multicultural World,” and “Racial Aikido,” which is specifically for non-white students.

According to the university website, the white students’ retreat will focus on “white privilege,” while the retreat for non-white students will seek to “empower students of color.”

The university will hold another retreat on January 30th titled “Multiracial Aikido”– just for multiracial students. The university website invites multiracial OSU students to attend and gain “a better understanding of your multiracial identities.”

The university will hold an additional “Examining White Identity in a Multicultural World” retreat specifically for white faculty and staff members on January 8th and 9th.

The university does not appear to offer any social justice retreats specifically for non-white faculty and staff. In order to register for any of the retreats, potential attendees are required to disclose their “racial identity,” sexual orientation, preferred gender pronouns, and whether or not they “identify with a religious or spiritual practice.”




What if I don't have a "racial identity"? What if I identify today as a member of one race, and tomorrow as a member of another race?
How about another gender?


This is a state university, segregating by race -- and forbidding members of other races to attend state-sponsored events.

Will they stand in the door to prevent entrance by members of the "wrong" group?

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Edited by Quasimodo, Jan 1 2016, 08:50 PM.
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Quasimodo

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http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/12/louisville-law-prof-objects-to-chinese-mind-control-diversity-training.html
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Louisville Law Prof Objects To 'Chinese Mind Control' Diversity Training

A couple of years ago, the acting dean of the law school ordered all law faculty and staff to attend “diversity training” sponsored by the vice president for diversity. At that training, we were first asked to identify our religious preferences: Would everyone who is Catholic please stand up? Would everyone who is Jewish please stand up? Would everyone who is agnostic please stand up? Would everyone who is atheist please stand up? We were then asked to identify our sexual orientation. Would everyone who is gay please stand up? Would everyone who is a lesbian please stand up? We were asked then asked to stand if we were disabled.

The session was conducted like Chinese mind-control training. Before the first group was asked to stand up, we were instructed that we were expected to clap for each group, and we were told that polite clapping was simply insufficient. For each group, we were required to clap and affirm with a “woo-hoo” level of vigor. Thus, devout Catholics were required to go “woo-hoo” for agnostics and atheists, agnostics were required to do likewise for Catholics, and heterosexual individuals were required to go “woo-hoo” for gays and lesbians.

Group speak was the agenda of the day. Individuality and, indeed, diversity of thought were adamantly discouraged. ... Even more troubling, Brandeis law school’s acting dean and the vice president for diversity ordered students to undergo the same type of diversity training at orientation. ...

From faculty hiring to diversity training, the University of Louisville has veered badly off course in recent years. It is time for change.



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Quasimodo

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http://www.dartblog.com

JANUARY 2, 2016

A day at Dartmouth would not be complete without a message from the College about diversity and inclusiveness. Rumor has it that ever-politically-correct Provost Dever has gone so far as to program Microsoft Word on her computer to add these terms to each paragraph of every e-mail that she writes:

Posted Image


(snip)



Addendum: Another rumor circulating on campus is that the Provost’s New Year’s message in 2017 will focus on academic excellence, creative scholarship, and the life of the mind. Let me quash that one right now. Nobody in the current administration is interested in stuff like that.

Edited by Quasimodo, Jan 2 2016, 08:04 AM.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
http://www.dartblog.com

Compare and Contrast: Meanwhile, in an interview with Tuck Today magazine, incoming Dean Matt Slaughter shows that it is possible to articulate an institution’s purposes without sounding like an automaton:

Posted Image


The above two administrative communications illustrate succinctly why Tuck [school] does so well in the rankings, and why the College is in freefall.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/concerning_dear_white_america_in_the_new_york_times.html

January 2, 2016
Concerning 'Dear White America' in the New York Times

The great irony of a hunger strike is that it does nothing to prove the morality of the hunger striker. It does everything to prove the morality of the man he's striking against. Millions of horrible people have been willing to die for horrible causes, and we have only been the worse for it. Far fewer have been willing to save the life of a suicidal enemy. And if you do happen to go on a hunger strike and win, the only thing you've done is proved that your enemy cares more about you than his cause. You can win a hunger strike only against a person who cares about people. You can defeat your enemy only if your enemy is actually a saint. Gandhi may have saved the Indians from the English. We can only wonder how successful he would have been against al-Qaeda.

In almost exactly the same way, writing an open letter to white Americans doesn't prove that white Americans are racists; it proves only that black men believe that white men are capable of listening to other races. And if blacks believe that whites are capable of listening (as their hundreds of open letters implicitly insist), blacks can only believe that white people are capable of society. The franker and more frequent your pleas to the people you've judged without meeting, the more you have glorified their radical empathy and tolerance. The fact that a black man can publicly admonish every white man leaves us wondering why black men are largely incapable of taking criticism from whites.

The Golden Rule is a central tenet of every serious religion in the world, which makes many black Americans (whatever the PEW Research Center says of them) easily the most irreligious. To deal fairly with one another is a central principle of universal justice, which is why many black men are frequently proving themselves the most unjust. They ask everyone to imagine what it's like to be black and rarely consider the feelings of whites. They make wild accusations against an entire race and then have the insolence to complain about white racism. They riot because someone was shot by the police and then immediately pronounce our policemen guilty without a trial. If there is any empathy or fairness in the black community, it has been obscured by acts of mass hypocrisy and slander. If there is any chance of brotherhood between our races, it is being smothered by untrustworthy and unreasonable fanatics. A transfer of power from white men to black wouldn't signal an end to any abuses at all. It would only serve to change the color of our abusers.

[Is the lax case a proof of that?]

(snip)

The undeniable gist of the piece in the New York Times was that black people cannot any longer live in black society and are jealous of the stability, success, and harmony of white businesses and neighborhoods. It was a cry for inclusion masked in the unsociable language of the excluded. Nobody can deny that a history of oppression and indigence has created an almost unlivable ghetto, and nobody can deny after looking at the comments of any racially sensitive article that racism is existent in America. But if racism is our problem, have we forgotten the only solution? Almost openly denying the foundations of peaceful coexistence, the New York Times asks us to get along with someone whose open condescension and indefensible dishonesty would make him a terrible neighbor to the people of his own race – who he in turn implicitly admits are terrible neighbors.

The brotherhood of humanity will not be reunited by smug letters from effeminate and irrational back-stabbers. It will be re-established when men of all colors expect the same things from one another and know that they're playing by the same rules. Our peace is in the Laws of Nature, which the New York Times apparently believes to be irrelevant, and regarding which large sections of the black intelligentsia are either ignorant or hostile.

We agree with the New York Times racist that there is no hope for racial reconciliation when nobody is willing to admit the offensiveness of his failures. There is also no hope for humanity when nobody is willing to accuse other people fairly. And there can never be any kind of livable society when nobody is willing to forgive his repentant enemies. But there can never be peace when nobody is willing to out our impostors, to war against our criminals, and to distinguish the character of our neighbors in the true light of reason. The problem with Americans today is not that we're racists (even if it can be debated that we are). It's that some of us find "racism" more offensive than criminals, and those among us perpetuate the same injustices that they claim to deplore in others.

I admit, as the New York Times racist maintains, that I am prejudiced. I'm prejudiced against him, and against everyone who values a lack of judgment more than character itself. And as such, I hold my hand in friendship to every black and white man who deserves it – and deny my support, concern, and society to anyone who doesn't. I say as the angels announcing the arrival of our Savior, peace and joy, good will to men. I add, like King David, may God suppress, convert, or destroy the wicked.

Jeremy Egerer is the editor of the troublesome philosophical website known as Letters to Hannah, and he welcomes followers on Twitter and Facebook.

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foxglove

Quasimodo
Jan 1 2016, 06:21 AM
Quote:
 

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/despite_superior_achievement_asian_students_being_held_back.html

December 31, 2015
Despite superior achievement, Asian students being held back

This is a disturbing article in the New York Post that chronicles the story of achievement by Asian-American students – and the policies adopted by school districts across the couintry to limit their advancement.

The reason for the success of Asian-American kids is the total committment and encouragement by their parents to their education. But other parents believe that their kids are at a disadvantage because they don't take the time or make the same effort as Asian parents. So school districts are now taking a "holistic" approach that keeps Asian kids down.



Here in New York City, Asian-Americans make up 13 percent of students, yet they win more than half of the coveted places each year at the city’s selective public high schools, such as Bronx Science and Stuyvesant.

What’s at play here? It’s not a difference in IQ; it’s parenting. That’s confirmed by a recent study by sociologists from City University of New York and the University of Michigan, which showed that parental oversight enabled Asian-American students to far outperform the others.

No wonder many successful charter schools require parents to sign a pledge that they’ll supervise their children’s homework and encourage a strong work ethic.

That formula is under fire at the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in New Jersey. The district, which is 65 percent Asian, routinely produces seniors with perfect SAT scores, admissions to MIT and top prizes in international science competitions.

But many non-Asian parents are up in arms, complaining there’s too much pressure and their kids can’t compete. In response, this fall Superintendent David Aderhold apologized that school had become a “perpetual achievement machine.” Heaven forbid!

Aderhold canceled accelerated and enriched math courses for fourth and fifth grades, which were 90 percent Asian, and eliminated midterms and finals in high school.

Using a word that already strikes terror in the hearts of Asian parents, he said schools had to take a “holistic” approach. That’s the same euphemism Harvard uses to limit the number of Asians accepted and favor non-Asians.

Aderhold even lowered standards for playing in school music programs. Students have a “right to squeak,” he insisted. Never mind whether they practice.

Of course, neither Aderhold nor parents in charge of sports are indulging nonathletic kids with a “right to fumble” and join a mostly non-Asian varsity football team.

Meanwhile, in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NAACP want to reduce the role the competitive exam plays in admissions for the city’s eight selective high schools in favor of a “holistic” approach. That means robbing poor, largely immigrant and first-generation kids — nearly half the students get subsidized school lunches — of the chance to study hard and compete for a world-class education.




Affirmative action programs at colleges already limits the number of Asians who can attend the best schools. Now high schools, under pressure from parents, want to limit the number of high-achieving Asian kids who enroll in the best schools and the toughest courses.

What's up with that? Are the parents of kids of other races lazy, or don't they love their kids as much? That's nonsense for the most part, although some parents probably fit that description. The key is a culture that celebrates achievement. I don't think you'll find too many "Participation Trophies" being handed out in Japan or China. In those countries, either you achieve or you're left behind.

The competition just to get into college in those two countries is far more cutthroat than in the U.S. The question is, rather than dumbing down our educational system, why not emulate Asian parents? The answer is that secondary education – except for some sports – has been trying to eliminate the very idea of competition, because it is believed that losing marks a student for life and leads to low self-esteem and other problems.

It is up to parents to instill the competitive spirit in their kids. Perhaps non-Asian parents can start with that and stop encouraging schools to put all students on the same achievement plane.



The War on Excellence.
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