The Noble Pundit

Who Has Failed The Student-Athlete?

Earlier this week, there was a federal court ruling that cleared the way for Maurice Clarett, former Ohio State running back for a total of one season, to enter the NFL draft, effectively nullifying some NFL rules about draft eligibility. The NCAA is, to be expected, up in arms about the ruling, claiming that it will further harm young men who simlpy aren't capable of playing at the NFL level. The real question here, isn't the one surrounding the draft eligibility ruling. No, the real question is:who is failing the student-athletes?

Is there really any blame that can be placed on the NFL here? You can maybe make the argument that they should have put stiffer eligibility language in the last collective bargaining agreement. But in the end, the league was trying to keep the youngest of the young out of the league. Education may not have been their top concern, but they certainly were not attempting to poach the cream of the crop. Their rules were applied fairly across the board.

Did the court system fail the student-athletes? Perhaps. A little common sense applied by the judge probably would have gone a long ways here, but the judge followed the letter of the law. If blame were going to be placed on government, it would probably be better placed on the legislatures that passed the laws the strictly interpreted.

No, the real failure was by the NCAA and the colleges themselves. How can a graduation rate of 54% be called successful? There are now college football games on ESPN or ESPN2 nearly every day of the week. It's nice as a football fan, but it is terrible for the student-athletes.

Why? Money.

College football generates a huge amount of revenue for both the schools and the NCAA. At many universities, at least some of the money coming in from football is used to improve the quality of education for all students. But is the trade-off worth it?

I don't think so. It is exploitation. Many of these "student-"athletes are kids that really are ill-equipped to be in school in the first place, much less taking on the added stresses of athletics along with their studies. It is not fair to the athletes and it is not fair to the rest of the student body that school funding is being spent on these kids that shouldn't have made it out of high school much less into a major university.

If the NCAA and the universities are looking to place blame, they need to look no further than the closest mirror. The biggest failure of the student-athlete comes from programs that try to convince kids that they are student-athlete material when a 10 year old can read better than they can. Yes, the argument can be made that they are giving underprivleged kids opportunity. But it can also be argued that these same kids are being lied to. Do the ends justify the means?

The state of the student-athlete is deplorable. Something needs to be done to fix the system. Blaming courts and the NFL is not the way to do it.

The NCAA needs to get its own house in order. The 54% graduation rate is their fault - and no one else's. It's time for the NCAA to own up to its failings.

School Choice & Charter Schools

I don't think that I've ever come out and stated this before, but I am in favor in school choice, vouchers, scholarships, and whatever else might be out there that gives parents a real choice in deciding what kind of education they want their children to receive.

The one thing I do not agree with, however, at least not the way that Seminole County, Florida has implemented them, is the concept of the charter school. For the uninitiated, let me fill you in on how the charter school is sold around here:

It's supposed to have smaller class sizes. The teachers are supposed to be better equipped, especially when it comes to dealing with some of the more challenging children. There is a strict dress code requiring uniforms. Specially designed teaching methods ensure that the average kid in the charter school will perform better than his counterpart in the traditional public school. But most importantly, everyone, from the principal on down, is supposed to be committed first and foremost to ensuring a top notch education for the kids.

Sounds great, huh? The sad part is that the only part that seems to ring true is the part about the school uniforms - and even then they don't tell you that you must purchase them through the school only with the shirts costing nearly as much as a quality adult polo shirt from a mall department store (oh, and by the way, you'll need at least three per kid unless you want to do laundry every night.)

Me and my other half bought into the spiel after last year's school year ended. The local elementary charter school was right up the street and we, like all other parents, wanted the kids to get the best possible education that they could. We can't afford private school, so we thought that this might be a good, quality alternative. Boy, were we wrong.

We have two kids in elementary school, one currently in second grade; one in third. When they finished up last year, the one going into second grade was reading at a level just above the required first grade level needed to pass; the other was reading at a mid-year third grade level. The youngest was excelling at math and science. The older one struggled some with math but was catching it without too much extra effort. Both could be considered challenging as the older of the two doesn't know how to be quiet and the younger will deliberately defy you, as seven year old boys are wont to do sometimes (I seem to remember having done the same thing more than once.)

So off to charter school they went. We started having problems almost right away. There were the racial bus stop incidents that I mentioned in the past (no response from the school about them). We also discovered that their specially designed reading and math programs were the Success For All, or SFA, programs developed by Johns Hopkins, I believe, as "a better way of teaching kids." We were familiar with SFA because the Seminole County Public Schools, even the traditional ones, use the reading program - the exact same one that the youngest struggled with so much the year before.

Simply put, the reading program uses the "whole language" approach to reading. In other words, instead of using phonics to sound out words the kids are supposed to memorize the words so that they know them by sight. For simple books, like those on a kindergarten or first grade level that's fine. But when you have second grade books using multiple pitcures in place of words because there are too many for the kids to learn in one book, there is something wrong. The third grade books also make heavy use of the little picto-words.

In the traditional public school, however, the teachers were willing to take a little more time to at least attempt to teach a basics of phonics to the kids that were really struggling with the whole language approach. That was the only way that the youngest managed to make it through first grade. Not at the charter school however. They dogmatically stuck to the plan, refusing to deviate even an iota - mainly because the teachers didn't know how to teach phonics, not even a little. As a result, despite everything we were doing (and numerous nights of the the youngest crying that "they won't let me do it like that at school!") the older of the two made exactly zero progress in her reading, luckily she was far enough ahead going into third grade that she didn't need to make any progress. The youngest actually regressed.

Math was no better. Understand now that the traditional public schools around here rejected the SFA math program as it was too far out there even for them. But not the charter school. They stuck to it dogmatically. It was "new math" in all its glory, but with a small twist. In traditional new math (there's an oxymoron), the right answer isn't important, all that matters is the process. And the process is figured out, not by the teacher teaching, but by a bunch of unknowledgeable kids, working in groups, figuring out whatever process they want to use. And that was ok. Except that the charter school used a hybrid approach. New math, with all it's touchy-feely teamwork, for the process; traditional math, with its emphasis on the right answer, for the answer. You would not believe how many times we had to reeducate the third grader on the proper way to solve a problem after her groupmates came up with something completely bizarre. And for the second grader, well even with the explaination from the school as to what they were trying to do with a given assignment, half the time we could not figure out what they were doing. It made absolutely no sense, and I'm not exactly a math dummy!

We also had other quirks that made us wonder about the intent of the school. At the beginning of the year we got home a letter in which the school was offering a bounty for any new student that you could convince to enroll. Later, we got home a letter that gave us more specific details X number of fourth graders are needed, no second graders as we'd have to hire another teacher, and so on. They principal even came out and said that his goal was to increase the number of students because each student added a certain amount of money to the funding (oh, and they had to enroll by a certain date. After that date, tehy weren't going to accept any new enrollments). And he wanted to increase the amount of funding for the school, without increasing the expenses of the school, because it would allow for more and better special events (like the fundraising fair). They ignored the fact that their enrollment drive increased class sizes to one similar to the traditional public school and that virtually none of the extra money wsa to be spent on educating the children!

The staffing was of very poor quality. The principal himself, rather than being interested in educating children, was far more concerned with dotting "i"s and crossing "t"s, along with his precious empire expansion. We met with him several times and never once did he exhibit even the slightest bit of concern about the quality of the education in his school. He did complain about paperwork and had some very, very nice new computer equipment on his desk, however. The teachers were no better. One was suspending for abusing a child - in front of the entire class (she was later allowed to return). The youngest one's teachers used to say that he was uninterested in school, a problem child, this, that and the other, and then would mention in passing that he had a 100 average in the class. It never occured to them that he might be lacking in challenge more than he was in discipline.

A lot of ranting to be sure, but I wanted to make sure that you had the background. In December, we pulled both kids out of the charter school. The older went back to the traditional public school; the younger we enrolled in a private school (after we were able to get a scholarship to help with the costs). The difference is amazing.

When the youngest started at his new school he could barely functionally read and, in second grade mind you, had no idea how to carry the one in math. In one month - with time off for the holidays - he is already back to making progress above his end of the year reading level last year and is now doing math similar to his sister. The staff has been great, the quality of the education has been outstanding, and the kid has responded. He's a very bright kid, but one that had been written off for dumb by the charter school.

His sister, in the traditional public school, is just now starting to progress beyond where she was at the end of last year. Her reading level is still at a mid-year thid grade level. She is finally starting to remember the importance of process in math. She is not a dummy either, but she literally just went through half a year of educational stagnation. If we had the money, we'd have her in the private school also. Maybe if I start making some good money at work....

Last night was very instructive for me though. For Christmas, the youngest got a PlayStation 2. He had been getting addicted to his oldest sister's Grand Theft Auto III, so to try to get him to play something a little more worthwhile, I bought him Metropolismania yesterday. A very interesting game to say the least. The kids are supposed to build a city, but to do so you have to talk to existing residents to get new leads. The game looks cartoony, but is actually pretty deep.

What really hit me as interesting though was that the communication interface is all written, not verbal. So you have to be able to read the words coming across the screen, kind of like a closed captioning. And they're not all easy words. Some of them are pretty challenging.

And the youngest one could now only play the game, he could play it well. He knew how to read most all the words going across the screen. I was completely amazed.

Charter schools are, in my opinion, a failure. They combine all the worst traits of the traditional school system - uninterested administrators, poor teachers, and personal fiefdoms - with unproven and counterproductive teaching methods. Parents should have a choice. But selling abject failure as the greatest thing since sliced bread should not be one of them. The money wasted on the charter school would be far better spent in providing vouchers or scholarships to students so that they can attend a school where they might actually learn something.

This Is A Practical Skill?

OK, for those who have a lot of theorectical education, but not much in the way of practical skills New Canoe University (sounds like something out of Rocky and Bullwinkle) is offering a class in "How To Sell Your Body...."

The full name of the course is actually "Body Bucks: How to Sell Your Body to Science While You're Still Alive," but that still doesn't make it much better. Some of the desrciptions in the article are priceless:

"By selling bodily fluids.... a human being can earn $20,000 or more per year"

"[T]eaches students how to make money by legally selling their blood, sperm, eggs, hair and bone marrow...."

"The sale of vital organs is illegal in the United States."

"The university specializes in Internet-based training courses in practical skills needed to set up unusual....businesses."

I guess it's better that the graduates of this course have some kind of practical skill for life, but might there be some other skills that might be a bit more useful, ones like effective communication or lawnmower repair?

I wonder what UCF would say if I tried to transfer this course for credit towards a second bachelor's degree....

TCU: Finals Over Football

Quite a while ago (right around the beginning of college football season), I wrote a post lambasting a number of colleges for not recognizing that even football players are student-athletes. Now comes a report, first reported in the Washington Post, that Texas Christian University may forego a bid to the GMAC on December 18 because it would interfere with finals.

"I have to be sensitive to our young people," [Athletic Director Eric Hyman] told the newspaper. "They are student-athletes, but they are also students, and they are coming to school to get an education. We cannot disrupt their exams. It's not fair to them."

Now the cynic in me says that if this were a BCS bowl bid, TCU would have figured it out and that this is all a bit of posturing because the GMAC Bowl has a much smaller payout for the schools. But at the same time, TCU did lose to Southern Miss and really wasn't a BCS caliber team so they really don't have too much room for being upset. They were Cinderella and the clock stuck midnight as it struck 0:00 on the scoreboard in the Southern Miss game. The GMAC Bowl isn't in the same league as the Orange Bowl, but it's still better than sitting home (and more profitable to the school).

But at the same time that I'm feeling cynical about the motivations I also think here's a guy who's actually making the unpopular statement that football players are students first.

It's tough to decide whether or not this is motivated by a true concern for the educational welfare of the students or by the hubris of a 9-1 team that feels they deserve better than a pre-New Year's Day bowl. But regardless of the motivation, in the end, the AD is supporting the very core of college athletics - the student-athlete concept.

It's going to be real interesting to see what happens when the invitation is formally extended by the GMAC Bowl officials. Does AD Hyman have the strength of conviction? Or will he accept the bid despite the statements made in these reports?

Redefining Culture Through Education

As I'm looking around at Free Republic this morning, I found an excellent column by Bill Maxwell of the St. Petersburg Times in which he discusses "black culture" and how it seems to be related to a loss of focus in the areas of education, manners, and work ethic. I've got to say, his statements hold true not only for blacks, but for everyone. Where I live, we've got white kids and Puerto Ricans running around pretending that they're "gangsta." They don't know how to communicate in any way other than swearing every third word. They don't know how to resolve disputes without violence, usually extreme violence. They are rude. They are impolite. Reading, writing, 'rithmetic? They have no clue how to do stuff that I used to do in junior high (and I'm only 30 for God's sake!) As far as I can tell, we have an entire generation setting itself up for massive failure.

Sure, in Generation X we have our issues. For a long time the talk was have about we X'ers would never amount to anything because we lacked this or that or the other. And we're still faced with significant obstacles, most commonly a ceiling on opportunity in the business world due to the large number of boomers working later in life. But we have also taken the tools we have: education, communication skills, and a certain civility to still forge ahead and to make progress despite everything.

Generation Y, my little sister's generation, is facing much the same as the X'ers. But like us, they are finding ways to succeed and to prepare for the time when they become the big dogs.

But this new generation, call them Z or whatever you want, I don't think that they're going to be able to adapt as well as X & Y did. Huge numbers of them are lacking the manners and civility needed. Many are dismissing as useless the education, and more importantly the educational ethic of lifetime learning, that will be needed to improvise, adapt and overcome. Generations X and Y headed into the world with a lack of focus and a disheartened attitude, but we had the tools in our toolbox to create success. Generation Z seems to be heading into the world with an empty toolbox.

I know I'm not the only one who shares these concerns. Look at some of these comments I've pulled from the Free Republic thread:

"I remember how these unflappable people put their families before everything else; how children dared not insult an elder inside or outside the home; how doing well in school was taken for granted; how "cutting up" in public and "shaming the family" were not tolerated.

Good article. More white people should have these standards, too." - Tax-chick, post #7

"White culture and white Americans, Eminem, and a host of other substitutions could be made for the authors reasons of why this country as a whole needs to wake up and get back to basics before the sound of a toilet flushing can be heard 'round the world." - freeangel, post #9

"Excellent points. A polite society is a civil society. We've become very course and it shows." - Cincinatus' Wife, post #13

"Very good post. You are absolutely right, of course. I would only point out that you black leaders are going to have to do the heavy lifting to effect corrective action in the black community. In today's PC climate, for a white to comment on, much less be critical of anything "black", gets him labeled racist. Perhaps that's the first problem you need to work on." - zebra 2, post #23

"I agree with this column. People are judged - black or white - by their behavior. More specificially, their attitude, the words they use, their ability to interact with others in a civil manner, even the way they dress.

I know young white men who similarly place themselves at a socio-economic disadvantage. You know the type, the ones who are always copping an attitude, wearing a baseball cap backwards with sneakers and baggy ill-fitting pants, spewing obscenities, "talking trash" and showing no mastery of the English language whatsoever. Well this is the way that many young black men are perceived as well, and this, not race, is what is holding them back." - SamAdams76, post #25

I'm starting to fear that we may actually have an entire generation coming along without the skills needed to function properly. And people without functioning cognative skills are easily manipulated and terrorized, as I pointed out in my last post.

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism...The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin...would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities." - Teddy Roosevelt

The hyphenated Americans are starting to impose their will on the majority of American-Americans. They can only succeed if we are too intellectually weak to resist their simplistic demagoguery. The tyranny of the minority starts up front with a lack of education.

Where Is The Accountibility In Education?

"There are countries which don't get the bang for the bucks, and the U.S. is one of them'

We're spending over $10,000 per student per year to educated our kids to a substandard level (14th of 25 nations studied - the 56th percentile).

And it's not as if all that money is going to pay for basic supplies like paper, pencils, crayons or stuff that kids might need. No, those costs are increasingly being shouldered by the parents - to the tune of several hundred dollars per year for stuff that their kid most likely will never be use.

And what are we getting for all this? Kids that have trouble reading and writing? Kids that can't handle basic algebra or geometry? Or how about kids that identify even the most basic of our foundational documents like the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence?

But they do understand the mechanics of mother government: confiscation of personal property so that it can be redistributed as the powers see fit. They understand the importance of cultural relevancy. They know all about Kwanzaa, but have no clue about the origins of Christmas or Hanukkah. They know more about the history of tribal Africa than they do about the history of their own state or nation.

They know that competition is bad. They know that "they are all winners."

They come out of the system completely ill-equipped to deal with the real world where there is competition, complete with winners and losers. They are unable to cope with our political system, which is vastly more complex than the tribal utopias they studied in school. They are unable to fathom that obtaining something requires more than asking an authority figure for it. At no point have they ever had to concepts of personal responsibility or the value of hard work reinforced.

It really ticks me off when the schools and educrats turn and blame the parents for failing to "teach these important concepts" as they build a system that undermines those very concepts. I try to teach my kids the importance of reading and studying so that they truly know the material only to have the school undermine my efforts by making it entirely possible to not only pass, but to thrive, by simply doing homework. There is no need to expend the effort to read or to learn when you can simply fill in the blanks on a homework sheet, claim testing problems, and get out of the class with an "A". Where's the need for personal responsibility for learning when learning isn't even being required for an education any more?

So what are we getting for our $10,000+ per year? Kids without classrooms (my kids each shared their "pods" or room with four other classes)? Education without learning? Kids that can't read, write, or doing basic arithmetic, but that buy into the concept of moral and cultural relevancy? Kids that are afraid to make basic judgments about right and wrong for fear of offending?

$10,000+ per year and we're getting kids that have to be reeducated if they are to succeed in becoming anything other than functional wards of the state. When are we as parents and taxpayers going to stand up and demand some sort of accountability on the part of the educrats? They are failing us and failing our kids while hiding behind the "for the children" mantra, all while promoting a new social agenda based around a statist approach to society.

Our schools are there to educate our children, not to indoctrinate them. Our schools need to spend more time teaching the basics needed for success rather than the virtues of relevetism.

Ten thousand a year for what we get now is a rip-off.

They Are Student Athletes

This morning I was reading along through Sports Illustrated.com and came across an editorial by Mike Fish: Graduation rates still a problem. And as I look through at the list of worst schools for graduating athletes, I find my alma mater, the University of Central Florida, on the list at #6.

Now I can sit here and explain why that number for UCF is probably a bit deceptive. Bit that would ignore the more important point:

These are the numbers for the student-athletes.

Most of these kids are attending school on our (the Public's) dime via an athletic scholarship. We are not (in theory) paying them to play football or baseball or track or softball or soccer or whatever. We are giving them an opportunity to gain an education. If they happen to be able to turn their opportunity into a professional contract, great.

But while they're in school, they should be studying. Earning that degree that we're paying for has got to be their top goal. A scholarship is not an opportunity to go play - it is an opportunity to go and learn, to gain that education that is going to put you ahead in the world if, like over 90% of all student-athletes, you don't get that multi-million dollar pro contract.

Yes, football brings in huge amounts of money. Yes, fans and alumni want to see the best athletes on the field, not necessarily the best student-athletes. Yes, you can lose huge amounts of bowl money by sitting out your star for a week or two.

But at some point the question arises: what is the goal of the university? Is it to produce educated students or is it to produce professional athletes?

The goal of the university is to educate. Sometimes the goals of the university’s purpose and the athletic department will be in opposition. Sometimes a special athlete comes along who is academically challenged. At what point does education trump athletics?

Most universities do a good job of providing tutors for those athletes that aren't having an easy time in class. And I have absolutely no problem with the athletic department using its funding to provide these tutors as it works towards the overall purpose of the university. And for those athletes that just can't make the grade, the NCAA does have a standards requirement which will force the athletic department to remove from the program an individual who is not living up to the student-athlete name.

But what about a department that isn't graduating its students? Should there be sanctions against a school that manages to graduate less than half of its student-athletes in six years?

I think that there should, but that the statistic should be modified somewhat to take into account the players that have gone on to the professional leagues. The percentage needs to be figured based on the number of athletes whose future earnings will be based on their educational exploits, not their athletic ones.

Bottom line, however, is that a school that is now graduating less than 45% of their students won't make the grade even taking out the kids that went on to the pros. And with the ultimate goal of the university experience being to educate, an athletic department that is failing in that primary job needs to be penalized.

College athletics may be a big business for the university, for the conferences, and for the NCAA, but in the end they should not be allowed to trump the purpose of the school. They should not be allowed to take precedence over education.

My Daily Learning Lesson

I like learning. One of my truly bad habits is to go off on a link tangent when reading one story and usually end up reading something totally unrelated, but interesting. Most often I end up doing this while attempting to learn a little something new each and every day.

This morning, I had to go online to do medical research (my leg infection appears to possibly be flaring back up). As I'm going along trying to learn as much as I can about the particulars of what I had last time, I came across this interesting article from the National Institute of Health, which talks about how Group A Streptococcus can evade our natural immune system.

That was all well and interesting, but I've already learned about how some diseases will evolve into little superbugs that make life miserable for the infected.

What I did find interesting was the grossly simplified description of how the body actually fights these little viral terrorists:

During battle with most foreign microbes, PMNs successfully "eat" invading predators, a scientific process called phagocytosis. After microbes are engulfed, PMNs produce deadly oxygen radicals, such as hydrogen peroxide and hypoclorous acid (the active ingredient in household bleach), and release toxic granules to kill the enemy.

So the body essentially makes it's own hydrogen peroxide and bleach to kill off the little buggies.

Wierd little fact, but something that I just find to be kind of cool.

Should Education Be A Right?

Al Sharpton has decided that part of his Presidential platform will be to support a Constitutional Amendment to guarantee the right of a "public education of equally high quality." I appreciate his desire to see the level of educational quality in this country raised, but I think that he's going about it the wrong way.

Specifically, I disagree with his reasoning for wanting the Amendment. I also disagree with his concern about the "privatization" of education. I seriously disagree that education is or should be a federal problem. And finally, I think that there are some pretty worrisome measurement issues that would come up here.

Sharpton claims to want the Amendment to create an equal quality of education. That's a very noble goal, but is it really attainable (I'll come back to measurement in a few minutes.)? And is it really what Sharpton is after? Or is he only interested in this because he might be able to effectively play the race card later on?

The idea seems to stem in part from a Decatur, Ill., case in which the elder [Jesse] Jackson focused attention on the suspension of several African-American students expelled for fighting at a football game.

In 2000, U.S. District Judge Michael P. McCuskey dismissed the claim that the students were being denied equal protection under the Constitution.

That certainly puts Sharpton's interest in a different light. I'm fairly confident that there have been more than a few white kids suspended for fighting after football games. This has probably been happening as long as there has been high school football. Why is it only becoming an issue now? The kids screwed up and they were given a penalty to pay - a penalty that should have been laid out to them in their student code of conduct. They broke the rules - Equal Protection says that they should be required to pay the same price as everyone else.

Now Sharpton also claims that he is supporting the Amendment to counter the "privatization" of education. He says he wants everyone to have an equally high quality of education, yet his plan seems to be to dumb down the standard by eliminating the high quality opportunities that currently exist so that the inferior programs look attractive again. The only reason that vouchers, homeschooling and other measures are so popular is because the public school system as it currently exists is failing. Elimination of the vouchers and homeschooling is only going to make matters worse, education-wise, as the already overburdened system will be completely inundated with students they can't afford to educate. It would, however, be a boon for the people who are most likely to benefit from a massive increase in education spending - the teachers union - which just happens to be a core Democratic constituency.

Teachers will love this idea because it put education firmly in the purview of the federal government. That would create several significant benefits for them. On, the sheer amount of money flowing to the school systems, money that would ultimately be controlled by the NEA and its ilk, would increase exponentially. Second, it would be easier to ram through a new educational social engineering as they would only have to convince the federal government instead of fifty state governments. And third it would solidify their "position" as the sole group that knows enough to be able to dictate what our children need to learn and how they need to learn it.

In short, by making education a federal initiative, we would greatly increase the funding, while simultaneously removing any real oversight of the system.

Education has suffered, not because it is decentralized in the fifty states, but because the real power and authority has become centralized in the fifty statehouses. In Florida, we have 67 individual school districts. When the system was set up, if you wanted to effect a statewide change, you had to convince 67 separate school boards of the value of that change. As time has moved on the primary control of the educational system has moved from the county school boards to the state government. As a result, if some organization wants to launch an experiment of Florida's kids, they only have to convince the State Department of Education. And this process has happened in every state. Control has become centralized in one state department. This amendment would serve to further centralize control and would put our children even more at risk of being manipulated or misguided by a poorly designed idea.

But my biggest problem with Mr. Sharpton's idea is that it is immeasurable. What objective standard is going to be used to determine the success or failure of the "equally high quality?" There is really only one objective standard: standardized testing. But it has already been demogogued as being biased against minorities and is also subject to the dumbing down of results, as evidenced by the recentering of the SAT scores. Grades can't be used, as many school districts are already succumbing to grade inflation and if that were the standard, even more would do so. An annual review by an appointed panel would be both extremely cumbersome and extremely costly. With standardized testing being out of the question for racial political reasons, there really is no other way to measure success or failure against this Amendment and as such, there is no way to enforce it or to ensure compliance.

This really looks to be a grandstanding position for Mr. Sharpton. From everything I've ever seen of him, he is not a dumb man. I'm guessing that he knows that this Amendment is unworkable, but it's worth beaucoup political points and he can probably pin its demise on those evil and uncaring Republicans.

As a political play, it's pretty good. As policy, it would be a terrible, terrible mistake.