You say “intellectual elitism” like it’s a bad thing

“‘Every child who enters the door deserves to learn and leave here with a diploma,’ said Butch Vaughn, principal of Oakland High in Murfreesboro [TN]. ” Blink. Blink. Am I the only one highly disturbed by this statement? Americans have gotten it into their heads that “equality” means “everyone is capable of the same things,” even though this is logically not true. No matter how hard I try, I don’t have the mad skillz (as it were) to make it in the WNBA. My husband would be hard pressed to survive as corporate upper management (he’s too honest in his opinions). And someone with an IQ of 70 just doesn’t have the mental capacity to become a college professor. Why is it, then, that we insist that everyone meet the same academic criteria?

If, as Mr. Vaughn suggests, everyone has the right to a diploma, then what is a high school education worth? I realize his intention was to proclaim that they would do whatever it took to bring students to minimum competency levels, regardless of race, creed, color, and all the other modifiers they toss in to be politically correct, but in order for “every child…[to] leave here with a diploma,” the minimums must be so low as to be meaningless. If competencies are raised to a meaningful level, some people will fail.

Story time: when I was in junior high and high school, the state required that every student pass a 9th grade proficiency test in order to graduate. This in and of itself is alarming; if one only needs to be competent at a 9th grade level in order to graduate, what are the remaining three years for? Since it took some people an unfortunate number of times to pass all four sections (as in close to double digits in number of times taken), we were given our first opportunity in the spring of 8th grade. I passed all four sections at this time and never had to deal with the absurdity again. I mention this not to brag (because, honestly, it really an accomplishment), but to show how low the criteria had to be set for most people to surpass it (eventually).

The problem of meaningless standards is only getting worse. As this Newsweek article elaborates, there is an increasing push to allow higher education opportunities for individuals with learning disabilities. Not content to make my high school diploma worthless, they now want my bachelor’s degree to mean nothing as well. I bear no animosity towards those with mental retardation, learning disabilities, developmental delays, or whatever the sensitive thing to refer to people with lower intellectual capabilities is these days; your intelligence is not the sum of your worth as a person. I simply think that too much value is being placed on getting a college education, to the point where we as a society have forgotten that many jobs really only need technical training pertinent to the task, not survey courses in western civilization and creative writing.

I don’t want to exclude from a university someone with, for example, Down’s Syndrome on the sole basis of their clinical diagnosis; if they can make it in regular college coursework, good for them. Institutional discrimination is always wrong and someone with MR/DD/etc has an equal right to try; this means they also have an equal right to fail. Too many concessions are being made already for “normal” students, in the form of courses in remedial pre-algebra or elementary writing skills for native English speakers. I’ll paint a giant target on my chest and say it: if you cannot master algebra and the intricacies of sentences starting with a capital letter and ending with a period, you should not be in college. Period.

The problem with making concessions to ensure equal treatment for all is that it inherently creates an unequal system. I had undergraduate classes with students who had Official Learning Disabilities (TM) and, as such, were allowed extras such as untimed tests. I know sometimes allowances are unavoidable, such as for the blind student who physically cannot read the test, or the person with cerebral palsy who can’t hold a pencil. Where does it stop though? Other people would likely have benefitted from an untimed test simply because it would have given them more time to think through the problem, but lacking the Official Diagnosis (TM), they had to struggle through with everyone else. Is the next step allowing learning disabled students to take the same courses for the same credit but with easier grading criteria?

I see the obvious solution as promoting technical/vocational education centers in lieu of general college educations, not just for special populations but for everyone. Not everyone who goes to college needs a four-year degree for any other reason than the industry they want to enter requires it. People (such as the students in the Newsweek article) can take skill classes like medical terminology and computer literacy to further their career goals while allowing universities to educate those who need to develop higher-order thought processes (lawyers, scientists, historians, etc).

If we want to continue proclaiming that education is a high priority, we must make sure that education continues to mean something.

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