| I wrote: The idea in education is that everyone is intellectually equal. Therefore the racial achievement gap in mathematics is due to racism. The solution is to change things. This is a line of reasoning used by people to advocate for things like getting rid of remedial math. The problem with this line of reasoning to me is the premise that everyone is intellectually equal. Not all premises have to be wrong for an argument to be wrong. This comports with my later statement that too many people are going to college. There is nothing of a racial nature in any of the statements I made in this regard. To reiterate, I believe that there is meaningful variation in the intellectual ability of humans. I believe too many people are going to college. My problem with the California initiative is that it is based on the idea that everyone has the same intellectual ability and, furthermore, it does not meaningfully address the true cause of the problem of the racial achievement gap. It’s worthy to address biases amongst institutions and I agree with their efforts in this regard. The racial achievement gap is a systemic wide problem caused by the structure of our society and nothing meaningful will improve until these things are addressed at a higher level. The effect of the California reforms, I fear, will cause more harm than good. |