There Are No Losers Here

The public high school in Evanston, Illinois was faced with a gut-wrenching problem.

Minority children were under-represented in the freshman Honors English course. What was the school board to do to correct this situation?

Perhaps someone would commission a study to see why so many black and Hispanic teens were already behind the white kids when they came into the school. Was there something lacking in the primary grades? Was there something in the average minority home that set them back before they even got started?

Yes, well, studies cost money and there sure isn't enough of that to go around these days. The teachers aren't entirely confident that they'll be getting their pensions when they retire, so dire is the financial picture.

Still, this glaring discrepancy had to be addressed.

White students were achieving and continuing to achieve, far surpassing their non-white colleagues. Everyone knows that such success in high school translates into further success in the future. It's the kids in the Honors classes who end up gaining admittance to the more prestigious universities, while the rest have to settle for less desirable options. Or they might not even make it into college at all.

The white kids are winning and the others are losing out. The township had to react, and react quickly.

So now there will be no Honors English class for the freshman.

Everyone will be treated as equal. Equally dumb. Equally smart. There are no losers in the achievement game.

Everyone gets a trophy and a pat on the head, job well done, good on you for trying so hard.

The question remains, of course. Why do the minority students come in behind?

That's a question for another time. The answers could be downright unpleasant.

The school district cannot mandate that non-English speaking Hispanic parents master the language before their children are born so that they can read to them like the white kids' parents do. Laws cannot be passed that force non-white parents to push their offspring like the parents of the children who excel.

The school system cannot correct alcoholism or drug abuse or physical abuse or anything else that the minority students have to deal with at home, when their white counterparts are busy studying and getting tutored and quizzed by mom after dinner.

Instead, all will be treated as equal. And the white parents will pay for private instruction so that their kids maintain the same high level as was once offered for free by the school.

The grade school will not be made to stop settling for adequate rather than risk tweaking someone's self esteem.

In the end, nothing will really change. The minority kids won't trickle into advanced classes as upperclassmen because dumbing down the curriculum won't solve the problem.