It may be that politics should be defined in terms of
deceit. At least, modern government policy is built on
deception, and a central feature of every bit of
policy legislation is a lie.

"No Child Left Behind" is an obvious case. The idea is
to raise educational standards, and hold people to it.
The inevitable result of raising standards is that
some people will fail. People are not the same. People
are different, with differing interests, abilities,
desires, fears and revulsions. So, if we raise
standards, some children are going to be left behind.

That doesn't mean, of course, that we shouldn't raise
standards. But isn't it interesting that raising
standards must be supported with dishonesty?

You have to be more than a tad naive or forgiving of
language to repeat the title of President Bush's
educational bill without snickering. That being said,
though raising standards has as an almost necessary
consequence that some will fail, it also means that
others (perhaps more others) will succeed in what we
hope to be practical ways. Over the last thirty or so
years, educational standards have eroded, in part
through grade inflation and other administrative
gambits of letting failures squeak by. We now expect
of high school graduates what we once expected of
elementary school graduates: basic literacy and
numeracy. High school should be a time to expand upon
the building blocks learned earlier. That much of it
is remedial work, bringing students up to Sixth or
Eighth Grade standards, is a great miscarriage of
public governance of schools. The raising of standards
is a necessary first step. Perhaps some of the
elements of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program does
just that. I'm not sure.

But I do know that the title and supposed intent of
the bill is an example of (at best) pious fibbing.
Since some people are just less bright than others —
slower to learn, and in some cases incapable of
learning — the result is that some children will be
left behind.

One likely result of raising standards is that,
ceteris paribus, we will have fewer people graduating
from high school. (Actually, since high school will
become more meaningful, there may be fewer dropouts;
bright and average kids who now quit early will
perhaps stick to it. But that's another element I
won't get into right now, other than to say that this
would be a good consequence of setting the right high
standards.)

And that is, in its own way, a good thing.

Some people just will not be able to become engineers
or doctors or computer programmers or the like. They
will work, instead, in the lower-level jobs that
require other skills — such as physical skills, or
social skills, or even basic virtues, like patience —
and they will have to be happy with that.

If you find this tragic, well, blame God, or blame
evolution, or blame whatever causes base-level
inequality. But that's just the way it is folks. To
demand of schools that they level the bumpy field of
humanity is to demand the impossible.

Still, it is amazing what an academic dullard with
less-than-average speech skills, dyslexia, a
demonstrated bad temper, and a startling poverty of
cultured interests can accomplish. Why, in America,
it's even possible to become President of the United
States!

No lie, folks.

www.wirkman.net | March 7, 2005 | Virkkala




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