Greetings, Dear Reader,
Yesterday we covered a new level of stupid, ie, Hasan Piker publicly disclosing a potentially criminal financial roadmap for foreign influence money.
I wanted to try to fold this next bit in, but it seemed better on its own.
There was another disclosure around the same time …
DUMB AND DUMBER
Sometime around 2020’s “summer of love,” when violent left-wing activists were destroying, burning and looting minority communities over the death of George Floyd, the UC school system thought it would be a good idea to ditch the SAT/ACT admissions requirement.
In fact, around 700 additional universities joined the UC university system in going “test optional,” nearly doubling the total number of test-optional higher learning institutions in the US from 1,000 to 1,700.
There was good reason for this, they said, because test-taking facilities were closing under pandemic conditions and many students would not even be able to take the exams.
At the time, various black and “latinx” activist orgs hailed the decision as a victory for “equitable admissions.” They’d waged a decade-long campaign to institute racial quotas and to water down or outright abolish admissions requirements.
To them, relying on (racially aggrieved) personal essays and (wildly inflated) public school GPAs was enough.
Now, six years later, STEM professors awash under a human tidal wave of literal stupidity have decided to take action.
A whopping 720 named signatories, mostly from UC Berkeley, but also San Diego, UCLA, Irvine, Davis and Santa Barbara, have published a document demanding a return to test taking. Their disciplines range from math to physics to computer science to engineering.
According to the letter, so many students entering STEM schools aren’t even literate in middle school math.
Yes, you read that correctly. Students entering California’s premiere higher learning school system for science and technology are not doing math adequately enough to pass eighth grade.
“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” the letter states.
The whole thing is worth reading, but here are some highlights:
We predicted this
“This outcome was explicitly predicted by the Academic Senate’s 2020 Standardized Testing Task Force (STTF) report, which warned that removing these tests would eliminate a vital predictor of college success and obscure the impact of severe high-school grade inflation.”
Your crusade for equity has trapped unprepared students
The SAT/ACT mathematics requirement is not an obstacle to equity; rather, it is a prerequisite for it. Failing to measure preparation gaps does not remove barriers; it moves them into the classroom, where they become harder to overcome. An admissions process that ignores foundational readiness does a disservice to the most vulnerable students.
And the coup de grace, among the demands
Establish Faculty Oversight: Ensure STEM faculty oversight of readiness standards and of admissions policies that materially affect STEM programs.
Aside from demanding a return to test taking, STEM faculty want to wrest control of the admissions process – at least for STEM applicants – from the corrosive, activist grasp of the bloated University bureaucracy.
Ouch.
To bring this full circle, were schools and essential services for kids really a risk factor during covid?
By the numbers, not even close. People 18 and under had a total Case Fatality Rate of .01-.03%. We knew those numbers by mid summer 2020. They equate to the flu (in some time periods, even less fatal).
So, scientifically speaking, there was very little risk sticking 200 17- and 18-year-olds in a gymnasium to take a test.
Dumb begets dumber, Dear Reader, never been a clearer case.
MORE LINKS
Mamdani’s Bone-Chilling Pledge Shows Depths He’s Willing To Go With Government Force
This is what happens when you have a proudly open socialist as mayor of America’s biggest city.
—
Jill Biden Thought Husband Was Having Stroke During Disastrous 2024 Debate
Just one, months-long stroke?
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White House Budget Office Launches Probe Into 49 Activist NGOs
More of this.
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