DIANE RAVITCH
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may be that boys take more math courses than girls (they do) . But
whatever the cause, the test reflects the problem, it doesn't cause it.
The larger issue behind the PC perspective is that objective measures
are not possible. Objective tests are never objective. Universal ideas are
never universal. The "canon" is an artificial construct invented to favor
dead white males and to disf.wor everyone else. Decisions about which
authors are " best" are always arbitrary and are always determined by the
race, ethnicity, gender, and biases of those who make up the list. All de–
cisions, all choices, all competitions are engineered to favor some group,
depending on who is in power. The idea of merit is a social construct,
invented by the powerful to protect people like themselves.
Since any means of allocating places or promotions is inherently bi–
ased, practitioners of PC seek out processes that produce equal outcomes
for all groups. Whereas "fa ir" used to mean that the test given was the
same for everyone, "fair" now means that the same proportion of all
groups will succeed on any test. The original version of President
Clinton's education reform legislation ("Goals 2000") contained lan–
guage about new occupational skill standards, written by the
Department of Labor, that would have required the use of "certification
techniques that are designed to avoid disparate impacts (which ... means
substantially different rates of certification) against individuals based on
race, gender, age, ethnicity, disability or national origin." When this lan–
guage was exposed to the light of day by the press, it was quickly re–
drafted. But the original intent was clear: to promote norming by race ,
gender, age, ethnicity, disability , and national origin. This would have
made a mockery of the bill's effort to establish standards, because the
process of "norming" by group is at odds with the fundamental concept
of standards that are the same for everyone. The public understands fair–
ness in its commonsense definition, that is, that everyone is judged in the
same way by the same criteria. The public, in other words, believes in the
possibility of objective standards.
It
is somewhat startling to realize that
no one who drafted or read the Clinton bill found the concept bizarre
until it was subject to critical comments in the press.
Given this background , it is hard to imagine that our society will
ever be able to establish real academic standards. Incredibly enough,
however, there is now a movement to develop national standards for
American schools.
It
has bipartisan support, to an extent, but it faces
formidable obstacles. (The Democratic left fears that standards will lead
to tests, and that tests will have disparate consequences for minorities; the
Republican right fears that the left will capture the process and produce
a national curriculum that will impose leftist ideology.)
The movement has many parents, but it probably got its start with
