A simple example where a false concept of progressive liberal "equity" is harming our educational system.
I live in California, and it has decided advanced math classes are "racist" and so they are eliminating them for students prior to their junior year in high school. Everything about that is insanity.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/state-advanced-math-equity
In the above link, it notes that...
"In California in 2004-2014, 32% of Asian American students were in gifted programs, compared with 8% of White students, 4% of Black students, and 3% of Latinx students,”
Those numbers don't surprise me, I am married to a Chinese woman. She had my youngest girl in private math classes at age 5. She is a computer management information major in college today.
My granddaughter's mom is African, my son and daughter-in-law have my granddaughter taking online college courses at Arizona State University each summer since she was 13.
Denying access to poor children is exactly the wrong thing to do. California's approach won't prevent affluent parents of all races from getting their children the education they need to succeed, but it does leave the poor almost no options to keep up.
Bottom line, progressive social engineering does not work in a world where successful parents know and are prepared to bypass public education if necessary to ensure their child has a good future.
Any attempts to "dummy down" their children's education in the name of equity won't work, but it will hold back poor children from having a shot to succeed.
On the other hand, I don't know a single parent who would object to a poor child being lifted up.
So, the proper approach is not to shut down advanced classes, but instead create a "catch up" program for students who start out behind. Children in this program would take an additional 60 days of school a year with the goal of preparing them to be ready for advanced classes by middle school. Let's lift our poor up, not push other children down.
Another related point is children simply have different IQs. I was a math whiz and was a behavioral problem due to boredom in regular math classes. Once I got into advanced math, I was challenged enough to mostly stay out of trouble (though I did get a "D" in Advanced Algebra for not doing a single homework assignment all semester even though I had a 99% average test score. The teacher told me he would keep giving me "Ds" if I did not do the homework, I told him he looked stupid giving a "D" to the student with the highest test score. But at least, the class was advanced enough for me to pay attention in class and not spend my time disrupting it.
God gives each person different gifts, the job of teachers is not to try to "smooth out" those differences, but to help children realize their full potential.
My greatest teachers were the ones that found a way to challenge me rather than the ones that tried to teach us all the same thing.
