Former Cornell Professor Thomas Sowell writes about an absurd proposal at Berkeley that would cut several science positions in order to save money for programs that help underachievers. Here’s a short excerpt:
The point is to close educational gaps among groups, or at least go on record as trying. As with most equalization crusades, whether in education or in the economy, it is about equalizing downward, by lowering those at the top. “Fairness” strikes again!
This is not just a crazy idea by one principal in Berkeley. It is a crazy idea taught in schools of education across the country. A professor of education at the University of San Francisco has weighed in on the controversy at Berkeley, supporting the idea of “projects designed to narrow the achievement gap.”
He goes on to discuss how liberals have utilized the the term “privilege”- equating it with success in every arena of life- to evade “the question [of] whether individuals’ own priorities and efforts affect outcomes, whether in education or in other endeavors.”
This particular proposal has received some national attention, but perhaps it is only an isolated incident. I would be interested to know how other schools have redirected funding away from or towards these special programs during the inevitable budget reviews of the past two years.
