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The Fairfax PC Crowd Explodes In Outrage
By Greg L | 10 April 2008 | Fairfax County | 23 Comments
Fairfax County is seemingly exploding in moral indignation following the release of a study by the public schools that attempted to measure “moral character” among school students and decided to break down the results by ethnic and racial categories. Fairfax County Public Schools engaged in an effort to provide “character education”, and as you’d expect, the first part of this effort was to evaluate where students were, so that after this effort was underway, they could circle back later and see how well they were doing. Since everything else measured in the school system gets sliced and diced by racial and ethnic classifications, perhaps out of sheer habit the school system decided to do so here. Bad idea. Especially in Fairfax County.
Raw Fisher probably explains best the disturbing nature of what happened:
What would drive one of the nation’s most successful and respected school systems to report which racial and ethnic groups demonstrate the soundest moral character and ethical judgment? How did the Fairfax County schools come to put out statistics claiming that black and Hispanic students are less likely than their white and Asian peers to “possess the skills to manage and resolve conflict”?
Why will the school board convene today to talk about what one of its members calls a “morality gap” that divides the county’s racial and ethnic groups?
Yes indeed, the results of this evaluation suggested that minority students had a lower set of moral standards than White and Asian students. As a result, the howls of outrage among liberals in Fairfax, who feel betrayed by their own normally-reliable school system are echoing in the Washington Post and the blogosphere. Now it’s quite possible that the methodology here was flawed, and that these results are just plain wrong. If so, the abuse being heaped on the Fairfax County School system is well-deserved, and I eagerly await the inevitable groveling by county school officials and the resulting blue-ribbon commission that will oversee a revamped effort to provide “character education”. I’ve no doubt that the interests of minority students and families in Fairfax will receive a strong defense by everyone in Fairfax County within the vicinity of a microphone, television camera, or Washington Post reporter.
Still, I have to wonder what would have happened if the results were different. Perhaps I’m a little cynical in this age of Political Correctness, but what might have resulted if the results showed that the moral underpinnings of minority students were superior? Instead of outrage and criticism about methodology, the School System would certainly have held a press conference complete with a grinning Gerry Connolly back-slapping school board member Tina Hone for demonstrating the proven benefits of “celebrating diversity”.
Let’s consider for a moment what happens if the methodology here, which was developed by some folks with quite a bit of experience in designing evaluation criteria that gets broken down into racial and ethnic classifications, wasn’t actually flawed. If there is in fact some sort of “morality gap”, wouldn’t it be a good idea to try to address that? Wouldn’t it be worthy of some good Bill Cosby-esque honest discussion about what gangster rap, “street cred”, and the other cultural garbage being force-fed to the young in minority communities is doing to these children? We can hide from a problem and pretend it doesn’t really exist because we’re too fearful of being branded as being intolerant, meanwhile being complicit in this epidemic of moral degradation that will erode the future of at least a generation of minority children.
Having said that, I’m certain that the results of this testing are in fact flawed in that they try to evaluate based on racial and ethnic characteristics. I’ve worked with disadvantaged youth before, and never encountered anything that would suggest that race or ethnicity has anything to do with morality whatsoever. It is profoundly disturbing that anyone would try to associate ethics or morality with race or ethnicity, although the story here is more likely a case of bureaucratic inertia. Since race and ethnicity is reported on everything else, it may just have seemed normal to report on that basis in this instance as well. Finally, this goofiness about statistical reporting using racial and ethnic factors gets effectively debunked, and in the end perhaps that will be the impetus to stop this practice wholesale, because it gets us nowhere and illuminates absolutely nothing. Collecting statistics based on race and ethnicity is about as useful as collecting statistical data based on the color of one’s eyes, or the first letter of their name. Why we ever bothered to do so in the first place is mystifying, although there is somewhat of a cottage industry of folks who seem to benefit from this useless practice.
To the extent that this study has any validity whatsoever, the factors at play here are surely economic and social in nature, and not racial or ethnic. Those deserve some attention, if it’s really the responsibility of the school system to provide “character education” in the first place. If we can honestly address as a society in some fashion the cultural disease that infests poverty-stricken areas which celebrate “thug culture”, we can dramatically improve the future prospects of a whole host of children — American children, not white, black, latino, arab or polka-dotted children. All of our children. In order to do that we must discard racial and ethnic labels and focus on the factors that actually do make a difference. In the haste to pile-on in righteous indignation about what the school system has done here, my expectation and fear is this that will not be done. We’ll scream about racism a bit, and crawl back into our comfortable existence of ignoring real problems where they actually exist, because it’s easier, and personally less risky.
Had this discussion not started out in such a terrifically flawed way, we might have actually benefited here. Since it did, expect this discussion to immediately shut down, and the topic indefinitely declared out-of-bounds. Our collective neglect of the predatory culture which bombards so many of our children continues, but at least we’re not a bunch of racists. We might feel a little safer as a result, but will our children? Probably not.
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23 Comments
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What do yo expect from libs who are so focused on race and gender, except of course when the results are negative.
I can’t help but recall a letter to the editor in the COMPOST after the 1998 World Cup that took place in France. The French team won the Cup and of course the COMPOST ran an article that mainly focused on the “multi-culturalism” of the French team and how that some how made a difference in them winning the Cup. Well, the letter writer rightly pointed out how America’s team had a similar make up but of course finished in last place.
FFX didn’t like the results. That is too funny. They have no business teaching those kids anything about morality. Look at our society and tell me how moral it is.
Maybe there is something to this study. Aren’t these the two groups that cry racism the most? Do these children get this from their parents? I understand that black people were oppressed and slavery was abolished. Voting rights have been established and other rights have come about. Instead of focusing on the past, why can’t the Blacks and Latinos focus on how to make the future better and quit bringing up the race card and oppression argument all the time? Once you move past the wound and quit scratching at it all the time, it WILL heal!!
I am sure Al and Jesse are going to be all over this. Just wait and see.
Is there a link to the actual study?
Does the study also do socioeconomic breakdown, or, say, if the student is living in a two-parent household?
Correlation and causation, gotta love it!
It’s because of global warming and Absolute Vodka caving and pulling their AztLan ads. That’s where the “character gap” comes from. Children are hot because of the warming, confused because of the disappearence of the add, and they are scared. The children are scared. HSM has scared them and made them desperate. Desperate children can’t develop character. Pobre ninas bonitas.
The year that I left Manassas (2004) the elementary schools would not allow the Cub Scouts to set up an information table at back to school night. Instead, we were allowed to put fliers in each teacher’s mail box. It was up to the teacher if he/she wanted to distribute them to the children. Of course, more than half chose not to and we raised our concerns with the school board. The information tables were allowed back the following year. The Cub Scout theme at the time?
“Character Counts”.
FFX could use some character building.
“Does the study also do socioeconomic breakdown, or, say, if the student is living in a two-parent household?”
Ron, Ron, Ron, surely you know that this is the question that dare not be asked for we ALL know that is not a relevant question. I mean, father only homes, mother only homes, two parent homes, it doesn’t matter, all the kids in such homes get the same a mount attention, love, and guidance right?
How dare you even bring it up?
(sarc)
The study is racist. Gerry Connolly is a racist. Don’t tell me there isn’t a connection between the racist study in Fairfax and the racist resolution in Prince William. I see the racism. I see Greg’s fingerprints all over this study. I know Greg commissioned the study. He is the puppetmaster. HSM and Greg were behind this, because they are racist. I am going to write a poem about this, and send it to Sub-commandante Marcos, or as I like to call him “Commander McDreamy”.
Kgoatherd, take a chill pill!!!
I’d be willing to bet that most of the “screeching” is coming from self loathing, guilt ridden, apologist whiteys.
Kgoatherd @ 10 Apr 2008 at 5:36 pm:
LMAO! Keep up the good work!
kgoatherd,
is that kgotthardt? Wonder if they are one in the same. Lay of the hormones.
Ted said on 10 Apr 2008 at 4:04 pm:
Ted, you forgot 2 father or two mother homes.
Kgoatherd said on 10 Apr 2008 at 5:36 pm:
Goatherder must be off his medication!
I read the article. I think it is interesting to note something that board member Ilryong Moon said. I will quote some of the passages from the Washington Post, Thursday, April 10, 2008, page A7.
“Board member Ilryoung Moon (At Large), a Korean American, said he was “perplexed” that disparities in measures of character education seemed to echo academic achievement gaps.” ….
“Moon and some other board members said it is valuable to learn about differences in the way students are being assesseed.”
“Do we just brush this aside as if it never existed or do we do something constructive?” Moon said.”
“Moon said he wants school officials to study whether teachers “have a full understanding of whom they teach, and their different learning styles and family backgrounds.”
His key points are the observation that character does factor into achievement and the family is important in that character development. Yes, family is important in character development and educational achievement unless the moral fiber of the family is not intact.
Yes folks Bill Cosby is right!!!! Everyone needs to listen to his message not just blacks but everybody. Character counts!!!
Everyone seems to miss the point that Humans, are “individuals”, not Groups. There are “individuals” that are thugs, because they have no moralistic environment to teach them to be anything else. However some criminals are born that way, just plain mean, but even most of those can be saved as a yong child and the cycle broken. There are a full range of thugs to “saints” in every ethnicity, race, gender and religious group. You cannot address the problems by gender, by race, by ethnic group or by religion, except the parents of these kids are from the same ethnic background and as such came from a “REGION” of corruption and moral/social decay, whether it was the inner city or another country.
CULTURE, and group Sel-association and self segregation does create a culture of thuggery, or a culture of integrity. The study must show the thugs by REGION and number of individuals by REGION that are a problem, and focus the effort to fix it there.
Then you have to remove all Group advocacy labels that demand special provilige and encourage people to associated themselves with cultirally “corrupt” and un-lawful groups. Change the labels to something people can understand, really bad people, and not so bad people, at worse republicans and democrats would be a better definition than race, religion, gender or ethnicity, unless you want everyone to only take pride on only their own people and “dis” everyone else as a “gringo” or “homey” or “ho” or whatever esle stands in for racial, ethnic, gender of religious hatred of other not belonging to your special and privoliged group, be it Black American, Hispanci American, Asian American or “whatever”.
Just like their is a distribution of stipud and brilliant people there is a distribution of unethical and ethical people from really bad to really good. That’s why you can’t use and “average-Norm, or “expectatin Value” to define who has the biggest problem, we all do at the low end of our humanity distribution curve, based entirely on the specifics and character of each individual.
That is why this is such STRONG evidence for why we desperately need to get rid of “group” privilige and advocacy, and self idenification as BLACK, WHIT, BROWN, RED and YELLOW AMERICANS. Get rid of the concept and the problem is now a problem of individual HUMANS, some are just BAD and need punishment, fear of consequence, and positive encouragement to change.
There are NO GROUP CIVIL RIGHTS, only individual ones.
Blacks & Hispanics need to start taking some personal responsibility for high rate of high school drop out, sexual promiscuity, children born out of wedlock, , absence of male parenting/role models, drugs, crime, incarceration, AIDS, and lack of personal responsibility instead of playing the victim hood game and blaming everyone else for their plight! Until that time there will always be hate mongers & race baiter,s to use them and profit from their plight like the Rev. Wright, Rev. Jessie Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, as well as 10,s of thousands of White and Black Politicians. In fact the whole Democrat party! Hand outs, instead of a hand up, is the means of keeping Blacks down and economic Slaves! Keeping Blacks as an race of victims and believing all of the above is Whitey fault is designed to keep them from progressing instead of a race of achievers! It is in the best interest of Black preachers and Democrat politicians! They will never be lead to the promise land by hate mongering Preachers like Rev. Wright or by bottom feeding Politicians that wants and works to keep Blacks in the Ghetto, on Welfare, and voting Democrat!
That happens to other folks who are subjected to the conditions commonly associated with urban thug culture. It’s not a black or a hispanic thing, but does show up in areas where African-Americans and Hispanics may be prevalent.
The whole point here is that we need to identify the real factors at play and honestly address them. We’re not served by making this a racial or ethnic issue any more than we’re served by hiding the fact that there’s a real problem here.
I agree with Greg and Ron.
Kgoatherd presented strong evidence that some people here miss sarcasm.
Bl I don’t disagree with evrything you’ve said, but :
1. As Greg says it’s not really a “race” thing. PEOPLE need to start taking responsibility. If you argue that political correctness, white guilt, black anger, or whatever are clouding the issue to a greater degree for black people or Hispanic people, I don’t disagree. But I think it’s best to keep in mind that there are many good, strong people of each race in the world, and many triflin’ whites. Didn’t I just read that some huge percentage of West Virginia is on public assistance?
2. I don’t think Jeremiah Wright is accurately portrayed as someone who wants to keep black people down. I think you’ve projected that onto him.
Regardless of whether the study is valid or not, breaking the results down by ethnicity is perfectly in line with No Child Left Behind. The scores are broken down that way in order to ensure that changes in teaching methods benefit each group. If not broken down, then improvements in white and Asian scores would hide the fact that some new method did not benefit blacks and Hispanics. Which is to say that the new method is inadequate and likely biased.
Presumably the reason for measuring moral character is to develop methods to improve moral character. I would not do to have a method that improved moral character for whites and Asians but would not improve moral character for blacks and Hispanics. Hence the need to break out a measure of moral character by ethnicity.
I really don’t see the problem. Is it racist to dwell on lower academic test scores for blacks and Hispanics? Perhaps, but it is done on the authority of Republicans and Democrats; Blacks and Whites.
I don’t consider myself particularly “PC” and I don’t know how they were planning to conduct this study. But I have a real problem with the general idea that goverment employees are somehow going to teach and measure “character.” It seems that some of us on the conservative side of the ledger might have legitimate problems with this departure from the 3Rs. Maybe they had this all figured out, but the sound of it is a little creepy.