Rick Santorum uncovers another liberal conspiracy.

[porker]

He may be on to something.  There was a time when tests had a correct answer.  Now we're all touchy-feely and politically correct.  You can bet your ass that Koreans don't get hung up on political correctness.  That's why they outperform us whitekids on just about every test.

They used to ask, "If John wants to run 200 yards of fence, and he wants a fencepost every 10 yards, how many fence posts does he need?'  And the choices might be, like, A. 200  B.  20  C.  21  D.  210

Now, they they ask, "If Sanjay Upanishashad wants to run 200 meters of fence, and he or she wants a fencepost every 10 meters, how many fence posts does he or she need?"  Already it is unnecessarily wordy, what with the gratuitious subordinate clause "or she."  Then, they add insult to injury by giving "E.  19" as a choice, recognizing that Sanjay may have worked on a farm back in Uttar Pradesh and he (or she!) will know that a "Fence post" is not the same as a "corner post" and therefore, we should accept 19 as well as 21 as the correct answer.

I'm not a big fan of Rick Santorum, but in this case I think he might be exactly right:  political correctness is ameliorating our grading system.  In newspeak, and for you under-21 crowd, it is "dumbing down" our curriculum.

Conservatives criticize "political correctness" because they can't get away with overt racism or sexism anymore. If you really believe political correctness is "dumbing down" our curriculum, try giving a better example than "adding 'or she' is gratuitous." Without evidence you're just regurgitating the same conservative, anti-progress talking points adjusted for a mainstream audience.

[porker]

Yeah, that's me.  I hate ns, chinks, gooks, wetbacks.  Pretty much everybody.

I admit it.  I'm a complete bigot and don't like anyone who isn't a white anglo saxon protestant, and since I'm not a white anglo saxon protestant I hate mself as well, and anytime I say anything negative about the government's policy, it's because I'm a full of self-loathing which I project on all humanity.  Moreover, since I'm a knuckle-dragging neanderthal and I"m not smart enough to recognize I need psychiatric help, I just go on hating and bashing the government for its policies which favor everyone else but me.

Thanks for pointing that out.  I'm so glad everyone isn't a Republican, because surely the world would be such a mess if everyone were as stupid and narrow-minded and uninformed as myself and my fellow Republicans.

Yeah, that's me.  I hate ns, chinks, gooks, wetbacks.  Pretty much everybody.

I admit it.  I'm a complete bigot and don't like anyone who isn't a white anglo saxon protestant, and since I'm not a white anglo saxon protestant I hate mself as well, and anytime I say anything negative about the government's policy, it's because I'm a full of self-loathing which I project on all humanity.  Moreover, since I'm a knuckle-dragging neanderthal and I"m not smart enough to recognize I need psychiatric help, I just go on hating and bashing the government for its policies which favor everyone else but me.

Thanks for pointing that out.  I'm so glad everyone isn't a Republican, because surely the world would be such a mess if everyone were as stupid and narrow-minded and uninformed as myself and my fellow Republicans.

Your sarcasm is noted.

Most republicans aren't bigots - or at least don't think of themselves as bigots. But help me reconcile this: Conservatives, time and time again, support policies that marginalize immigrants, gays, muslims, blacks, Native Americans, the poor, and the disabled. Rick Santorum, a Christian ex-senator and presidential candidate, compared homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality yet *insists* he is not a bigot. You can pretend America is a magical place where everyone loves each other. Or you can take a look at the people running for PRESIDENT to realize we're far, far away from a truly free society. And I think that in itself warrants a hard look at our public school curriculum. If you think removing sexist undertones in the English language is primarily responsible for the "dumbing down" of our students, you should probably get your head checked...

[porker]

Well, I'd say a scrapoer for sanity.  A rascal for reason.  Coo-coo for Coco-puffs, even.

We have a link to a 52-second excerpt from a Santorum speech presented in a thread with a leering, tabloid title, put there by an extremely inflammatory and sensationalistic poster.  (Ever try to get a job at Fox News, px?  You're reporting style is right up their alley.) 

Now, Rick Santorum couched his analysis in language that I would not have chosen.  Then again, I am not running for political office in the USA, so I don't have to boil away shades of grey in a little crucible in order to be left with black and white soundbites, digestible to paranoid, overweight, underemployed American audiences.  So I can get away with rambling, thoughful analyses.

Nevertheless, what he said is true.  We suck at history.  You've probably seen the data that shows how many US high school grads point to Russia as the enemy in WWII.  And we suck at geography.  You've also no doubt seen the polls that show how few Americans could point to Iraq on a globe even as 52% of us supported the invasion.  And if you like to place blame--as opposed to, say, correcting the fundamental, underlying problems--then there's plenty to go around.  Bush's "No Child Left Behind" legislation certainly placed such a high priority on mathematics and reading, setting specific goals and offering material rewards for demonstration of proficiency in those areas, that geography, history, science, art, music, foreign language, and all the other subjects suffered from lack of funding and lack of focus. 

But the truth is that don't know our history.  And elevating historical figures based solely on superficial attributes that have placed them in underrepresented classes does no one any good, least of all those members of underrepresented classes.  Bush did few things right, but his recognition of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" was evidence that he wanted to at least try to rectify the huge education gap between these underrepresented groups and the mainstream.  But his insistence on pushing math and reading at the expense of other subjects--subjects like history and geography in which we Americans were already weak--was not the best approach.

It seems to me that Santorum was mostly trying to speak to a friendly audience and get them worked up.  You can't blame him for that.  Politicians of all stripes do that.  But if I look at that 52-second excerpt, and ask myself the question, "Is anything he said false?" then I'd have to answer, "No.  Poorly-worded, maybe, and overly simplified, but not false."  There is a view in primary and secondary education circles that we should take a new approach to learning, and that this approach should emphasize "inclusiveness" at the expense of proven, traditional methods.  In the long run, that approach may pay off, but it's an expensive and risky experiment.  There is a such thing as true inclusiveness, but enforcing equality on a cohort that is inherently unequal merely excludes all equally.  The chinese understand this.  Students there are tracked and segregated early on.  The Germans understand this as well.  And the French and the Koreans and the Argentinians.  We, too, understood it at one time.  There was a time, no so long ago, when "tracking" wasn't a dirty word.

One sure way to make all trees equal in height is to cut them all down. 

Angus, perhaps we agree more than we disagree. I'm a 19 year-old "punk" with a tendency to be combative and use inflammatory language to prove a point. With that said, I greatly respect opinions coming from experts in their field, so I'll defer to your experience in higher education.

I think you misunderstood my argument. I wasn't discounting Santorum’s comments about history because he’s a bigot – I was merely pointing out that because bigotry is, in my estimation, so prolific in American culture that perhaps a bit more “political correctness” is appropriate. And what appears too PC to you has probably been influenced by your values and experiences (which may themselves be rooted in bigotry!) Just as you dislike how liberals discredit Santorum’s points about education because of his comments about homosexuality, I dislike how conservatives automatically discount progressive viewpoints that stand up for the rights of groups that have repeatedly been denied the right to stand up for themselves just because they are deemed “too PC.”

I agree with the grunt of your post. We don’t focus enough on geography, history, science, art, music, foreign language, etc. That’s fine. I’m just curious why you blame this all on political correctness. Like I mentioned before, I think we should be critical of sexist undertones that exist in the English language. If that means writing “he or she” then I don’t see what the big deal is. If using foreign names in addition to traditional English names creates an atmosphere of tolerance, then so be it. I’m not an expert, but if you have better examples of how *political correctness* in particular is destroying our education system, I’m all ears.