Racist UC to turn its back on academic merit?

Anti-Asian and pro-black policy under consideration

Any plan to change the undergraduate admissions system at the University of California is likely to bring charges that it's yet another politically correct attempt to reinstitute race preferences. That applies especially to reforms that de-emphasize grades and test scores. A set of major revisions now proposed by BOARS, UC's Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, will be no exception. It would make more high school graduates eligible for consideration for UC but end the virtual guarantee of eligibility that students with high grades and test scores - those in the hypothetical top 12.5 percent of California high school graduates, many of them Asians - now enjoy. Only those in the top 4 percent in their respective schools would still be guaranteed a place in the system.

Yet complex as they are, the proposals and BOARS' analysis of the flaws of the existing system are buffered with enough reasoning to be worth the debate, if not the backlash that could follow if they're adopted.

The UC admissions system is now a two-step process: (1) achieving eligibility for some UC campuses, though not necessarily Berkeley, UCLA or San Diego, on the basis of a combination of SAT or ACT test scores and grades in the UC-required "a-to-g" high school courses, and (2) "comprehensive review" of an eligible applicant's entire record by the campuses to which he or she applies, from grades and test scores to extracurricular achievements, community service and handicaps overcome.

The board, said BOARS chairman Mark Rashid, an engineering professor at UC Davis, would like to loosen the "prefilter" now imposed by the eligibility requirement and put more weight on the comprehensive review of each applicant at the campuses to which the student applies. There would still be minimum requirements - completion of the 15 "a-to-g" courses - English, math, science, social studies, etc. - that UC demands, a GPA of 2.8 or higher in those courses and the SAT Reasoning Test, formerly the SAT I. But the SAT II subject-matter tests would no longer be required. Since the SAT I was revised to include writing and more substantive math items, UC believes, scores on the SAT II tests contribute little additional information in predicting whether an applicant will be successful at the university.

At the same time, BOARS says, because a large percentage of poor, Latino and black students don't take the SAT II tests, that requirement alone - not grades or test scores - has shut out a large percentage of those groups from the pool of eligibles. The largest disqualifying factor among students taking the "a-to-g" courses is students' failure to take the SAT II tests. Moreover, says Rashid, the current guarantee of eligibility for students with a combination of high grades and test scores adds almost nothing in practical terms. Students who are guaranteed eligibility for UC but aren't admitted to the campuses to which they apply are bumped to a campus - inevitably Riverside or Merced - where there is space. But almost nobody takes those offers. "By inviting a broader pool of prospective students to apply and be evaluated under comprehensive review," Rashid says, "campuses can make a better and more fair determination of academic merit by looking at all of the students' achievements in the context of their particular schools and personal circumstances. "This is what our selective campuses do now when they choose among eligible students; every applicant should get the same opportunity."

BOARS calculates that without the SAT II requirements many more students would be UC eligible. The existing system, Rashid maintains, denies the campuses the opportunity to choose students who might contribute more than those admitted now. Obviously, elimination of the SAT II requirement doesn't mean that thousands more applicants will be admitted. But it would enlarge the pool from which campuses can choose. And it's here that the plan becomes vulnerable to criticism and dispute.

Leaving aside suspicions of bad faith by admissions officers - that in applying the more squishy criteria of comprehensive review, they'll pursue diversity and overlook competence by giving blacks and Latinos preferences, either consciously or otherwise - the system will still find it tougher to justify its decisions.

When hard numbers - tests, grades - are used at least to define eligibility for the pool from which campuses choose, decisions can always be defended with "objective" facts. That those numbers sometimes don't mean much doesn't make the alternative criteria any easier to defend. And, of course, the numbers do mean something. There may not be much difference between 650 and 700 on an SAT math test, but there surely is between 500 and 750.

In the decades before (and just after World II), the Ivy League and other elite colleges downplayed tests and grades in order to pick the "whole man," meaning white shoe WASPS from the right social backgrounds. Comprehensive review may never become the black-brown version of that, but UC could still have a hard time persuading the skeptics.

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Parents Are Idiots, or So Believes the State

The perils of vouchers. Tax relief for anybody with kids who are not using government schools would be a better start -- but getting government to make its own services completely optional will be a huge hill to climb

Thank goodness parents are idiots. Otherwise, at least half of the current tax-funded bozos - the so-called public servants whose sole mission is to supplant parental rights and decision-making - would be unemployed, taking their aggressive panhandling to the streets nonetheless. And, we can't have that, can we?

Of course, not all parents are idiots. One special class of the omniscient exists; those parents employed by government or associated organizations (can you say teachers unions). These folks are never idiots since they drink from the fountain of enlightenment. The fountain whose source is the never-ending stream of tax dollars, and whose drain is the never-clogged pipeline of bloated salaries.

Parents are idiots. Yes, that is a harsh statement. However, from what I read - from what the state and its minions believe, it is absolutely true. Offensive, but true.

Alright, put up or shut up! Fair enough. A recently published study on public school choice looked at the schools parents chose when they were allowed to select between the various Milwaukee public schools. The study reports that many parents chose schools based on nonacademic reasons; parents chose schools for reasons other than the state's definition of a quality program.

So there you have it, parents are idiots simply because they do not choose the state solution. Moms and dads failed the test of parenting as defined by the state. Remove the children and begin mandatory indoctrination, for parent and child alike.

This is by no means the first study to report such findings. In fact, this study is but one of many that defines the abilities of parents solely on their choosing, or not choosing, the state-defined correct answer.

Let's take a different look at this logic: Consider the intelligence of leaders in the market place. For example: We know that many business are run by idiots. How do we know that? Well, we know for certain that many businesses do not use the government-favored solution for sending documents and packages. That's right. In case you were unaware of it, many businesses owners choose to bypass the US Postal Service when they need to send important, time-sensitive stuff in a cheap, competent manner. Amazing, isn't it? These seemingly intelligent and successful folks actually forgo the government solution in favor of a free market one. Our conclusion is obvious: Based on the logic applied to parents and school choice, these business owners must be idiots. In fact, they are idiots. Call in the bureaucrats to stop the madness.

Here is the rub for all systems of so-called choice under a government-funded - taxpayer-funded - system of education: Parental choice will always fail to meet the arbitrary standards and ends of the political effete . er, elite. No, wait, effete was correct. This will be true whether the system is one which includes choice of schools within a school district, charter schools, or any of the assorted voucher programs or proposal. In all cases, parents will choose UPS and FedEx when the correct choice - in the eyes of the state - is USPS.

It's a rainbow that many like to chase, looking for the pot of gold that is government-funded school choice. But, like any true rainbow, the end - the pot of gold - is over the next hill, just out of reach. Choice cannot exist when the ends are politically defined. And, no market can exist where goods must conform to government standards.

Ardent voucher advocates believe that parents will spend government funds in a manner that provides the best education for their children. Setting aside for the moment the fact that vouchers are theft and can never be associated with a free market solution, it is true that parents will choose what is best for their children. Nevertheless, what is best is never the ends deified by the state; politically-derived curriculum, tests, and standards.

Just as in Milwaukee, parents will opt for something else; something better. And, with each parental choice, government, the teachers unions, and many so-called advocates of school choice, will begin to build a case against the abilities of parents to choose what is best for their children. Regulation upon regulation will appear. The promised land of innovation and entrepreneurship associated with tax-funded school choice will never be reached. Private suppliers of education will be forced to conform to the ends defined by the blobs that suffocate DC and every state capital. And, these ends will never be the ends desired by parents.

The assumed array of educational programs will begin to look like shelves of generic food; cans with white wrappers that read "Education. Caution: contains state indoctrination." The consumers - the parents and students - will not be sovereign under this system. No, only the state will have control. You can paint the pig - government-run education - and dress it up as choice, but it will be the same pig nonetheless. Advocate for vouchers and know for a fact that the end result is more studies claiming that you are an idiot. Advocate for the end of tax-supported, government-run schools and the only thing that you have to fear is the hobo village of educrats searching for handouts. Not too worry, they are neither too bright nor too ambitious.

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