Your views are now clearly at odds with those of Mr. Clifton Roscoe and the vast majority of "race men" who focus on disproportionate representation of blacks, IN THE AGGREGATE (ITA), in both desirable positions (too few Nobel Prize winners) and socially destructive ones (too many criminals, school dropouts, and single mothers). The very concept of an "achievement gap" both acknowledges and implicitly demands action to equalize aggregate metrics by forcing proportional representation.
When the great equalizer, education, is shown to fail utterly in its mission to "close the "gap," other more slippery methods are used. These include lowering admission and examination standards and lessening academic rigor so black high school and university graduation rates show improvement. Alas, those lowered standards apply to everyone, so the children of high-achieving racial groups and cultures must seek effective education elsewhere, an increasingly difficult task. Meanwhile, newly-minted black "college graduates" in meaningless majors from such diploma mills are then placed as tokens in professional positions where few demands for real work output are placed on them. And everyone is happy. Individuals gain monetary success and social status (for producing no real value), proportional representation goes up, Mr. Roscoe and you see "progress," and a new round of official obfuscation and social censorship ensues lest the emperors new clothes be revealed for what they truly are.
You simply cannot have it both ways. Either individuals are tested against assessment standards and those passing move on to positions of real authority and efficacy while those who fail are denied sinecures and must find other, less prominent and remunerative paths to follow. This will result in disproportionate representation of blacks (ITA) in desirable professional, business, and scientific pursuits. While this may suit you just fine, it is NOT acceptable to Mr. Roscoe, Glenn Loury, American liberals, and the United States government.
Let me add a small quibble... I would never "see progress' if the only thing that changes is cosmetic (e.g. meaningless college majors being plugged into worthless positions in organizations large enough to absorb this idiot practice without suffering overly much). And I would agree entirely that real standards must be applied to all populations, regardless of race, creed, color, sex, or shoe size. Always.
You highlight, exactly, the problem with aggregate measures and aggregate 'solutions': they drive, most typically, only superficial, cosmetically-pleasing, non-solutions. When we look at a population (any population) and say, "My goodness fat kids never win any of the foot races," clearly we have identified an 'aggregate performance problem. The real solution, obviously, is to work, diligently, with every fat kid to get them to eat less, lose weight, and improve their athletic performance. These are all VERY difficult tasks, made more difficult if the kid doesn't care and prefers eating pizza for every meal.
On the other hand you can get a lot of fat kids to win races if you give them a different starting line....move the finish line closer....and make the faster runners carry a 20# weight. Tah Dah! Look at the diversity & equity we've achieved!
The solution, as a society, that we seem to have adopted is to sidestep those very difficult tasks (particularly since the population whose performance metrics we'd like to improve doesn't seem especially motivated)....and -- to your point -- eliminate standards. This is disgusting and worse than disgusting; it is dangerous.
If you're not qualified to get into college then you're not qualified. Period. If you're not qualified to become a doctor then you can't become a doctor. To move goalposts, lower hurdles, eliminate testing, and substitute personal essays on ME for GPA's is just insane. But -- such cosmetic 'solutions' do indeed change those aggregate performance measures.
When that happens we can only say, "Welcome to the Idiocracy!"
Just taking a break from reading Professor Loury's *fine* article. TY. What You "say" is pretty much true, but it's a partial truth.
The lessening of standards, like You point out, lessens them for everybody. And majority of people who are getting diplomas with little value and HR, DEI jobs, and other sinecures are whites, right?
Numbers of them being white women, to be frank. But that's a different story.
Also, I'm not so certain that blacks don't have as good a chance at entrepreneurship as whites do. ICBW. Thing is, too, IQ isn't really a limiting factor in a lotta jobs. And these things, mostly, depend on how well the individual reaches his *full* potential, than what IQ they *start* with, right?
Good comment. Points taken with one to be made.
Your views are now clearly at odds with those of Mr. Clifton Roscoe and the vast majority of "race men" who focus on disproportionate representation of blacks, IN THE AGGREGATE (ITA), in both desirable positions (too few Nobel Prize winners) and socially destructive ones (too many criminals, school dropouts, and single mothers). The very concept of an "achievement gap" both acknowledges and implicitly demands action to equalize aggregate metrics by forcing proportional representation.
When the great equalizer, education, is shown to fail utterly in its mission to "close the "gap," other more slippery methods are used. These include lowering admission and examination standards and lessening academic rigor so black high school and university graduation rates show improvement. Alas, those lowered standards apply to everyone, so the children of high-achieving racial groups and cultures must seek effective education elsewhere, an increasingly difficult task. Meanwhile, newly-minted black "college graduates" in meaningless majors from such diploma mills are then placed as tokens in professional positions where few demands for real work output are placed on them. And everyone is happy. Individuals gain monetary success and social status (for producing no real value), proportional representation goes up, Mr. Roscoe and you see "progress," and a new round of official obfuscation and social censorship ensues lest the emperors new clothes be revealed for what they truly are.
You simply cannot have it both ways. Either individuals are tested against assessment standards and those passing move on to positions of real authority and efficacy while those who fail are denied sinecures and must find other, less prominent and remunerative paths to follow. This will result in disproportionate representation of blacks (ITA) in desirable professional, business, and scientific pursuits. While this may suit you just fine, it is NOT acceptable to Mr. Roscoe, Glenn Loury, American liberals, and the United States government.
Thanks for the discussion.
Always a pleasure -- these back & forths.
Let me add a small quibble... I would never "see progress' if the only thing that changes is cosmetic (e.g. meaningless college majors being plugged into worthless positions in organizations large enough to absorb this idiot practice without suffering overly much). And I would agree entirely that real standards must be applied to all populations, regardless of race, creed, color, sex, or shoe size. Always.
You highlight, exactly, the problem with aggregate measures and aggregate 'solutions': they drive, most typically, only superficial, cosmetically-pleasing, non-solutions. When we look at a population (any population) and say, "My goodness fat kids never win any of the foot races," clearly we have identified an 'aggregate performance problem. The real solution, obviously, is to work, diligently, with every fat kid to get them to eat less, lose weight, and improve their athletic performance. These are all VERY difficult tasks, made more difficult if the kid doesn't care and prefers eating pizza for every meal.
On the other hand you can get a lot of fat kids to win races if you give them a different starting line....move the finish line closer....and make the faster runners carry a 20# weight. Tah Dah! Look at the diversity & equity we've achieved!
The solution, as a society, that we seem to have adopted is to sidestep those very difficult tasks (particularly since the population whose performance metrics we'd like to improve doesn't seem especially motivated)....and -- to your point -- eliminate standards. This is disgusting and worse than disgusting; it is dangerous.
If you're not qualified to get into college then you're not qualified. Period. If you're not qualified to become a doctor then you can't become a doctor. To move goalposts, lower hurdles, eliminate testing, and substitute personal essays on ME for GPA's is just insane. But -- such cosmetic 'solutions' do indeed change those aggregate performance measures.
When that happens we can only say, "Welcome to the Idiocracy!"
Just taking a break from reading Professor Loury's *fine* article. TY. What You "say" is pretty much true, but it's a partial truth.
The lessening of standards, like You point out, lessens them for everybody. And majority of people who are getting diplomas with little value and HR, DEI jobs, and other sinecures are whites, right?
Numbers of them being white women, to be frank. But that's a different story.
Also, I'm not so certain that blacks don't have as good a chance at entrepreneurship as whites do. ICBW. Thing is, too, IQ isn't really a limiting factor in a lotta jobs. And these things, mostly, depend on how well the individual reaches his *full* potential, than what IQ they *start* with, right?
Exactly right!
(Not sure about the 'majority of people' (if we measure majority as a % of the available population....but your point is accurate, regardless)