Education Failure: Education or Failure... Either Or

Educational achievement is one significant indicator of potential economic success. CNN reported the following:

Nearly 50 percent of Asians hold a college degree or more, compared with 30 percent of whites, 17 percent of blacks and 11 percent of Hispanics.

But the statistics need to be examined before one makes assumptions about the "intelligence" of an ethnic or racial group.

• A high percentage of Asian immigrants had college degrees
• A high percentage of Hispanic immigrants were poor and poorly educated
• A high percentage of Blacks were poor or from single parent families
  

After the statistics have been examined, one can draw the conclusion that the data tell us absolutely nothing about intelligence... only that some groups have a much greater need to focus on education to overcome significant discrepancies in their earnings potential and what they can contribute to our society.

It is a really nice effort toward improving the self-esteem of poorly educated groups to say how important "ethnic diversity" is to our society. But quite honestly, having a lot of poorly educated people who do not contribute to the overall well-being of our society is really not made up by their contributions in the area of music, food and cheap labor.

At some point, the sheer weight of their ignorance will become overwhelming... such an anchor on the rest of society that social systems will start failing. Think about how those that are the source of cheap labor or no labor create a drag on any effort to improve health systems... they can't pay for hospitalization or doctor care and they can't qualify for jobs that have health insurance... so society eats the cost of health care. Likewise, they don't contribute much to the general fund for running our government at all levels... no income, no taxes.

And then we are supposed to make special accommodations for the less-than-qualified so that they can "have an opportunity be included".... Even that approach seems to backfire. Richard H. Sander, UCLA law professor described as "a soft-spoken former VISTA volunteer who for years has studied housing discrimination and championed efforts to fight segregation in Los Angeles" has concluded that:

law school affirmative action programs often draw African Americans to tougher schools where they struggle to keep up, leading many to earn poor grades, drop out and fail their state bar exams.

Well, duh. Common sense reigns at last. Law schools attempt to do what no college football coach in his right mind would do... bring in mediocre players into a premier league and expect them to be successful. If the students are not prepared... whether for law school or football... they simply will not do well competing and may, in fact, have a worse experience than if they competed at an appropriate level.

Until those groups who have failed to embrace education as the top priority for their children do so, their children are destined to have a much more difficult time competing as adults for the rewards of education.