Liberal racism in Berkeley: Cut h.s. science labs for “diversity’s” sake
Berkeley’s “progressive” educrats give us another perfect illustration of Diversity Uber Alles run amok. Because the government schools have failed to close the “racial achievement gap,” they’ve proposed cutting science labs and teaching staff from the high school curriculum because those resources benefit too many white students.
Via the East Bay Express (hat tip: Adam Baldwin):
Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.
The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High’s School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley’s dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.
Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.
Science teachers were understandably horrified by the proposal. “The majority of the science department believes that this major policy decision affecting the entire student body, the faculty, and the community has been made without any notification, without a hearing,” said Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School’s science department, at last week’s school board meeting.
Sincular-Mertens, who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and 13.9 percent Latino. “As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their education,” she told the board.
Such are the wages of political correctness and social justice.
Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker notes:
Aside from the repulsive racism of this move, the broader issue to be considered is whether society is better-served by cutting down the achievers and investing in the stragglers — or whether everyone benefits from the achievements of those who apply themselves enough to excel. I have no hesitation in saying that I am in the latter camp. How does it benefit anyone to have an America made up of mediocre minds?
As a matter of simple justice, it makes no sense to favor those who do not adapt to the norms and expectations of schooling and persist in behaviors that lead to failure. Berkeley High’s worse-than-average performance among black and Latino students almost certainly has something to do with the ideology informing its approach to racial problems. Teaching people that they are victims does nothing to encourage excellence. But rather than reconsider its failing efforts, Berkeley High is doubling the dosage of a medicine that isn’t working, and which carries bad side effects.
If the Berkeley public schools go ahead with this plan, they deserve condemnation and ridicule on a national scale.
While the Obama administration holds a “Race to the Top” education charade, the racial parity enforcers of the Left push academic achievers of all coloros to the bottom for diversity’s sake.
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Categories: Berkeley,Education,Race relations
Riehl World View
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Solution: on every student’s first day at school, give each a diploma. See who shows up the second day, and teach them.
Just making sure…It’s OK and good to discriminate against whites, but bad to discriminate against blacks.
Progressive encroachment on the Founding Documents has been the rule and goal of the Progressive Statist Collectivist Elitists almost since the first Congress.
They have made inroads, infiltrations in the war on Liberty, and it is war. There was a time when we believed they were just wrong and misinformed. We were naive (maybe just myself, but I think not). They had purpose, method, motivation and dogma; their dogma being ‘Higher Taxes, Bigger Government cures all’.
They’ve taken control of the education of the future generations of our Republic successfully undermining our Republic.
This status is at this cycle, fact. We may still reverse this situation. This action will be costly and painful.
It will take commitment of time and treasure.
The survival of the most unique and beneficial experiment in Mankind’s History depends this commitment, a commitment at times deemed heresy by the elitists, at times barely believed by patriots; such is the reluctance of warriors in the fog of battle the fog of war.
We who see are the harbingers of our grandchildren’s future.
These details chronicling the decay are more than news items. I for one accept as challenges these assaults on the reasoned, logical advance of our civilization.
This is so revealing and disturbing how facts about our “progressive” educrats and SOCIAL JUSTICE (even used to free racist evil monger Harry Reid of all his sins) is/are faulty from the get go, racist, and does great harm to the entire country… by stealthy use.
Obama is the biggest fan of this terminal disease called social justice and diversity.
Why don’t they just close all the schools? The students aren’t learning anything anyway, but how to be a good socialist. Think of the budget savings there. Of course, keep the teachers’ union happy by paying the salaries.
Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins on health care and achievement in the Black community and the nation as a whole. A must watch.
I had the honor of listening to a speech by him. Inspiring and hopeful, some of the blacks present did not like his success.
http://www.wsc.ma.edu/videos/bcarson.html
Bezerkely – keeping the blacks down by not allowing them the education that can get them the high paying jobs!
PSA Alert! Remember, safety first! You forgot to say that they’re supposed to put their hand in first to make sure there’s no mousetraps, It’s for the good of the children, don’t you know.
Living in the Baltimore Area I have had the priviledge of knowing about Dr. Carson for many years. I would put my life in his hands without hesitation. Because of his views he isn’t always accepted into some groups. The eduacational system has dumbed down so many minorities in this country.
Dr. Carson’s statement about a functioning, brain and being born in a free country like the US gives you many opportunities. If the majority of the minorities in this country had his ideals and ethics, we would be so far in front of any other nation they would never catch us.
And fisting. Never forget about fisting. It’s the next big thing, you know.
Next time someone complains that American students are slipping in math and science scores compared to even second-world countries, just show them how the morons at Berkeley are working for the “public good.”
ECS
But I thought the melanin content in one’s skin had nothing to do with academic performance. Maybe the achievement gap has something to do with culture, not skin color. Maybe it’s due to the last 100+ years of effort by naturalists and communists to achieve cultural hegemony, which is to say they have convinced the vast majority that non-whites are inferior and need the help of others, namely the government.
You know, when György Lukács tried to introduce sex education into Hungarian schools back in 1919, the Hungarian Christians rose up in rage and literally chased him out of the country. In this country, when cultural terror (Lukács’ term) and sex education were introduced, the Christians were/are virtually silent.
Why Christians continue to send their self-admitted most precious gifts from God to Caesar’s schools is beyond me.
I was riding the ferry from Seattle a couple of years ago and overheard a conversation where a guy was almost screaming about the changes in real estate law in Washington brought about by the same people who screwed up California: Californians who left because their state was so screwed up and proceeded to screw up Washington. This guy had a house listed that he couldn’t sell because the upgrades required to make it liveable would have violated someone else’s “view space.”
Dallas, Houston, and Austin have turned into sewers. OKC is not quite as bad, and Tulsa seems to be sliding that way, too, but at least has Sheriff Stanley Glanz. He’s no Joe Arpaio, but I like him.
ECS
Shockingly blatant racism, Resistance is futile.
Lead a horse to a waterhole.
If the horse doesn’t want to drink, then drain the reservoir so other animals can’t drink either!
I guess this move will handsomely benefit the Black Berkley kids in their academic achievements.
Geniuses at the helm!
These are the same fools who are UNEXPECTEDLY surprised at the monthly unemployment numbers month after month!
The half-Negro (Reid’s words not mine) in the White House will probably have Job / Racial summit with Silicon Valley executives: Topic?
How to gainfully employ Black Berkley kids at Intel / Cisco / Apple / Google even though they lack basic Math and Science skills.
Brains are a zero-sum distribution. Whites are hogging a disproportionate share. I’ll try to think some of my white-intelligence to the lesser folk. Obama wants me to spread my brains around. Here goes…. GRRR!! YARHHHH! UNH!
Yoh, Dog… Isa mixin me sum chimakals.
/negro-dialect-off
This can only mean that 9 out of 10 graduates will seek careers in Gangsta Rap Hip Hop and community organizing. That should create jobs, stimulate an economy, and lead the future of our nation into greatness!
//sarc
The irony of liberal democrats proposing such a blatantly racist educational practice drips with hypocricy – the very core of the idea’s message is, “Non-whites are simply too stupid to handle western education.”
We need to end all state & federal funding for Bezerkley.. let them fund their own insanity.