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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (65314)	1/10/2003 8:26:08 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Bill, You can't possibly have looked up the serious reviews of the Bok book; many of them are in scholarly journals that are not easy to find. When you bring minority students in to schools with test scores way below the other students, you get bad results. And trying to make up for it by giving them an easy ride in Minority Studies programs just makes the things worse. Three things are simply wrong about this statement. First, test scores are not the best predictors of college performance. Second, presuming you mean students with bad preparations rather than low test scores, your statement might be true of any students who are underprepared for whatever college they are admitted into, minority or whatever. That's a large set. Three, almost all colleges and universities, in addition to having categories such as alumni children which tend to get a pass on other criteria, also change admission criteria depending on program. So the term "test scores" simply is way too simple. As for getting an "easy ride in Minority Studies programs," that's certainly the usual myth that goes along with the arguments above. I have little doubt that the comparable difficulty of minority student programs, that is compared to other programs on campus, varies a great deal. On two campuses with which I was familiar, the courses varied enormously, some were among the more difficult on campus, some were among the "gut" courses. No one I know ever did a serious comparison as to whether the median "difficulty" and/or standard deviation of "difficulty" varied more for those programs than others. No one is talking about not letting them in. They are talking about making sure they go to schools they can succeed at an equal level. When you "Overpromote" them, it leads to failure and bad feelings on the part of all students. Not to mention the lies the Administration has to live with. That's certainly a part of the mythology of the right. Bok and Bowden refute that. Sowell is not a credible, repeat, critic. Note that Sowell does not refer to the literature, does not refer to debates the book generated. That should be a give away. I'm not going to go check the literature on these points. I'm quite satisfied. If you wish to do so, please do. But come back with citations. The book was quite important so there will be, not only singular reviews in the more major journals, but, without a doubt, panels of reviewers. I don't know why you twist and turn on this point. It is really obvious, IMO. Nope.