Ed Wood "The Right Stuff" Published July 3, 2002

Lowering the fence

There are two ways of getting over a fence. Jump higher, or reduce the height of the fence. With all our talk these days about the need for excellence in education, it seems we have determined the best way to get there is by lowering the fence.

Our institutions of higher learning have always been able to provide the best education in the world to any student capable of earning it. That's right - earning it! For decades we have led the world in technological excellence. Why, we put men on the moon - and brought them back alive - what, 40 years ago? A feat that has never been equaled. So what has happened since then? Where are the budding Albert Einsteins of the 21st century?

Times have changed. It is no longer sufficient for our universities to provide equal opportunities for excellence. They must now provide equal results. The Bush administration's educational pledge says, "No child must be left behind." That no longer means left behind in opportunity, it means left behind in achievement!

But there is one little problem. In spite of Thomas Jefferson's statement to the contrary, all men (and most women) are simply not "created equal." Just look around. If we were, I would look like Robert Redford! Sadly, I don't.

So how can we start out with vastly different individuals, and have them all end up with equal achievement? Or at least with the documentation to show equal achievement?

Easy - just lower the requirement for excellence. As I have commented previously, in Florida's secondary schools, a history grade of 23 is passing, and 51 is an A. No problem. But how do we get the uneducated to qualify for admission to our institutions of higher learning? Same thing. Lower the standard.

Our colleges and universities have used the Standard Assessment Test (SAT) for decades as a yardstick to quantify the scholastic achievement of high school graduates. The SAT allowed the more prestigious universities, the Ivy Leagues and others, to accept only the best and the brightest, regardless of race, color, creed. But in order to comply with affirmative action quotas, such a standardized test forced admission boards to accept black and Latino students with much lower scores than white or Asian applicants. The results were predictable, and politically unacceptable.

So at the insistence of University of California president Richard Atkinson (Why does everything bad have to start in California?), the Princeton Review Board, who produces the SAT exams, has agreed to junk the traditional SATs in order to provide a more intellect-neutral criteria for college entry. Gaston Caperton, president of the Board, says the revised test will require students to provide "a handwritten short essay and multiple-choice writing questions, and math problems based less on aptitude and reasoning, and more on problem-solving learned in second-year algebra."

So there you have it. Now everyone can be a genius, and have a diploma to prove it! Is this a great county, or what?

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Ed Wood is a resident of Sparta, TN. His column is published each Wednesday in the Crossville Chronicle.