Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Diversity Over Merit

A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal detailed how the progressive mayor of New York City (NYC), Bill de Blasio, wants to water down admission standards at eight public high schools where kids are achieving. At present admission to these high performing high schools is determined by the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), but according to Mr. de Blasio something is wrong with this because 21 out of about 600 middle schools send almost 50% of the students that are enrolled in these high achieving high schools. To me, a rational person would conclude that the education process at the vast majority of the NYC public middle schools needs to be spiffed up. However, the progressive mayor wants to lower the bar for admission by scrapping the SHSAT, and introducing quotas so that 20% of the new students come from high poverty areas. Never mind that these students will not have the necessary skills to compete at these high performing high schools . . . it will look very good on paper as the percent of “poverty-area” students (predominately black and Latino) admitted to these schools will increase. Again to me, logic would dictate that more of these “poverty-area” children should be receiving a better middle school education perhaps by going to parochial schools (via vouchers) or charter schools. In the New York City Catholic schools the bar is set high. In the  Catholic high schools 97.9% graduate and 92% go to college. As far as charter schools go, in NYC there is presently a waiting list of 47,800 students! Perhaps instead of lowering the education-bar for all of these NYC children, he should try to improve the education of more of them.
I can hear many of you saying that you feel bad for these unfortunate school children, but actually Bill de Blasio’s progressivism in New York City will have little effect on any of us. Would you have a different attitude if this progressive way of thinking did actually have a real life effect on us. What if the “lowering of standards” had an effect on something many of us do not infrequently?
Look no further than airplane travel and the air traffic controllers. Obviously the air traffic controllers are critical to the safety of any of us who fly. I would bet that most, if not all, of us, would want the smartest and the most qualified individuals occupying those positions in the control towers. Well fasten your seat belts and prepare for a hard landing. In May 2013 Obama’s FAA changed the process for hiring air traffic controllers and applied this new process retroactively. They decided that beginning in 2014 the Air Traffic Selection and Training exam (AT-SAT) would no longer be used to select candidates for training. The AT-SAT is an 8 hour test that assesses numeric ability, tolerance for high intensity work, and the capacity for solving problems. The AT-SAT was scrapped  and a Biographical Questionnaire (BQ) was added to the screening process. This questionnaire asks questions like “How many high school sports did you play?” and “ What has been the major cause of your failures?” If a candidate did not score high on this “woe is me” test, he/she was no longer eligible to be an air traffic controller! Whereas the AT-SAT assessed merit and ability, for this high risk (for air travelers, very high risk!) occupation, the BQ instead uses more subjective “standards” to foster diversity in the air control tower! Yikes!
So while in NYC the brightest students who are striving to gain admission to these high performing high schools will suffer for the sake of diversity over merit, all of us who travel by air are now at risk for the sake of diversity over merit. Go figure!!
7/2/18

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