When Will the Middle Class Opt-Out of Education (and Public Life)?

Hippies made a film in 1970 called Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came, a naïve but interesting idea, nevertheless. But what if people had a way … of opting out of all sorts of things they find awful? What if you never had to leave your house, almost? That was the subplot of 1995's The Net with Sandra Bullock and Dennis Miller. But in real life Middle Class (White) Americans are now poised to do just that, with Education and almost everything else.


The Orange County Register reports that Hispanics still lag far behind White students in K-12 education.

The U.S. Department of Education report, released June 23, shows the achievement gap between white and Hispanic students has not closed at all since the early 1990s, with the overall difference between the groups remaining above 20 points, or roughly two grade levels, on a scale of 0 to 500.

"With everything that the state of California is trying to do, it's frustrating that the achievement gap really hasn't moved," said Alicia Berhow, administrator for the Latino Educational Attainment Initiative, an outreach project of the Orange County Business Council.
…
The report shows a 21-point gap in math between fourth-grade Hispanic and white students in 2009. At grade eight, the gap rises to 26 points.

The gap is similarly wide in reading – 25 points in fourth grade and 24 in eighth.
California fares even worse than the U.S. average, trailing the nation by 4 to 7 points in fourth- and eight-grade reading and math.

The full report is here. Boiled down to its essentials, despite twenty years of sustained federal and state efforts, Hispanic (that means mostly Mexican) kids are about two grade levels behind White kids. This makes public schools a sink-hole for public resources, as well as being hell for any White kids unlucky enough to be lumped with significant amounts of Hispanic and Black kids. Despite all efforts, considerable sums of money, and the best educational minds spending 20 years on the matter, learning has not caught up to White kids. It remains, fairly abysmal.

This has significant impact on public culture, taxing, spending, and voting.

Education, in K-12, simply does not work for Hispanic and Black kids, save as a fairly obvious patronage operation. The dismal performance of DC public schools led voters to … toss out Mayor Adrian Fenty and Superintendent Michelle Rhee, in favor of the old-style, Marion Barry patronage. Black voters in DC don't expect their kids to learn (and the elite like the Obamas and Clintons before them certainly don't send their kids there). They expect the school district to provide jobs. Same as the Atlanta Public Schools, with Steve Sailer repeating the Atlanta Journal-Constitution story, about cheating parties, erased test forms, and the like done by Assistant Superintendents, to Principals, to teachers, on down the line, all Black which is not surprising given the patronage demands in the majority Black school district. The Black staff that ran the schools knew well, their kids could not meet aggregate test score goals in No Child Left Behind mandates. Nor earlier, Georgia State goals, mandated by the Legislature. So they cheated. Hispanic kids just fail at a lower rate.

No one has been able to make either group, Black or Hispanic, consistently match Whites. For whatever reason, it cannot be done. Meanwhile, as Sailer reports a new federal study shows unsurprisingly, Blacks and Hispanics get disproportionate amounts of disciplinary referrals and suspensions and expulsions, compared to Whites (and Asians). This is not shocking. Nor is the obvious conclusion that when Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he will team up with Attorney General Eric ("My People") Holder to "go after" school districts with a pattern of racial disparities in disciplinary action, what he means is more zero tolerance to expel some hapless White kid who brought a paring knife to school to eat an apple along with a Black kid who beat another kid's head in, during a fight.

Zero Tolerance is just a way to expel White kids to make the numbers look good, race-wise. For the feds, for various grievance groups like the ACLU, NAACP, LULAC, etc.

With all that, why send your kid to public school? Why aren't there busing fights? With parents "stuck" in houses they cannot sell, and job markets frozen? Because either they already sent them to private school, or they are looking at things like the the Khan Academy. Nope, its not the training ground for Captain Kirk's arch-enemy, it is an online, free site providing lots of lessons on almost anything a high schooler could want.

Eventually private school at home will be even more affordable, just have an internet connection, a computer, and watch videos of lectures, do downloaded problem sets/practice, and use online tools for help, tutoring, corrections, and test-taking to measure progress. Drilling for AP tests has never been easier, let alone SAT/ACT. Princeton Review, Kaplan, the Great Courses, are all likely to expand into this space with the money of course being in reduced expenses (no bricks/mortar spaces with heavy staff costs) and piecework test correction, assistance, tutoring, etc. Go at your own pace, avoid ugly peer interaction, learn anything, from Latin to Greek to French, regardless of what the school down the street offers. Avoid Black/Hispanic acting out and learning-lagging, let alone racial harassment, for White and Asian kids.

Indeed, the whole "rating" thing allows kids and parents to pick tutors with high ratings/results, like the Amazon rating system in the Marketplace, or Ebay's rating system, or Yelp!. Wouldn't you like to pick your kids French tutor than just "go along" with whatever is out there at the public school? Yes of course younger kids have to be watched, but work at home schedules can accomplish this. It is more pleasant than sending them off to school every day. Itself quite expensive in public schools if any Extra-curricular activities are included:

Budget shortfalls have prompted Medina Senior High to impose fees on students who enroll in many academic classes and extracurricular activities. The Dombis had to pay to register their children for basic courses such as Spanish I and Earth Sciences, to get them into graded electives such as band, and to allow them to run cross-country and track. The family's total tab for a year of public education: $4,446.50.

"I'm wondering, am I going to be paying for my parking spot at the school? Because you're making me pay for just about everything else," says Ms. Dombi, a parent in this middle-class community in northern Ohio.

With that sort of charges, kids can participate in athletics, music, and other things on a per-sport basis just as easily, in private clubs, the way kids in Europe often do. A plus, as Steve Sailer notes, it keeps daughters healthy, active, and away from bad boys like Levi Johnson, no Bristol Palin pregnant at 16 risks, by filtering out by income levels those kids with single moms, but a bad boy attitude with athletic ability picked up by victory hungry coaches/athletic departments (did I mention, no Levi Johnsons?) That sort of thing keeps boys from getting into fights too much, or becoming overly aggressive or too fearful, or picking up bad habits (smoking weed, not studying) found among say, greatly gifted but poor students on the Football, or Track, or Basketball teams.

It is not just limited to K-12 either. Michael Barone thinks higher ed will burst as a bubble as well. California's UC system is "broke" but is doubling down on diversity, hiring more diversity bureaucrats during the budget crisis. Meanwhile as noted, Jerry Brown signed into law mandating K-12 educators teach "This Day in Gay" about Gay culture and contributions to history. Not only is the law stupid, it takes up valuable and limited time for gay propagandizing at the expense of math and science.

The Great Opt Out has begun. Sooner or later (and it might come sooner due to cash-strapped parents looking to save money on education), various private groups will offer a complete package, and exam-certified results. Your kid can study at home, at his own time, on his own pace, knowing exactly where he stands, in passing various exams to get his diploma, and certification/college credit for Advanced Placement, as well as pushing up his SAT/ACT scores by drilling without enduring acting-out, or simply time constraints of being one of 45 kids in a class.

The internet allows easy delivery, at far lower cost, of the best lecturers on a subject. The internet allows easy, interactive, and very low cost (compared to the public or private bricks and mortar school) delivery of tutoring, exam-correction, drilling, and the like. Mavis Beacon can teach you to type by computer a lot easier than say, a bored Mrs. Diffle struggling to control thirty sugar zonked 12 year olds. Boring drills with the computer can be spiced up a bit by game play, or what have you, motivating kids who struggle. Unlike a teacher with a class full of kids, the computer can slow down or speed up to give a student just the right amount of drill, in Latin, biology, or Calculus he or she needs.

It has not happened yet, because people still think of education as something that happens because of "Miracle Teachers" who look like Mr. Hand, or Edward James Olmos, or Robin Williams. Interspersed with "magical" things like football games, or Quidditch, homecoming, and all the rest. In a word, nostalgia. From the High School settings of the start of "Smallville" and "Buffy" to Harry Potter, that model of delivering education has a lot of power and romance. But …

A wise band once said, "Give me convenience or give me death." The Dead Kennedys were right, too. Vinyl, film pictures, the cassette tape and Walkman, all had their charm, defenders (the film "High Fidelity" with the tiresome John Cusack) and some technical advantages (for vinyl/tape, a more accurate if hissy capturing of the analog sound waves). But like everything else in life, convenience won out. It was cheaper and easier to take digital pictures and store them on your computer. Cheaper and easier to buy first CDs, then MP3 downloads, and put them on your Ipod. It is cheaper and easier to use Netflix than Blockbuster. It is cheaper and easier to use e-books than trot out to Borders and buy a physical book. And it is cheaper and easier, and also more effective, to have your kid educated at home by "the best" online company offering a comprehensive catalog of the "best lectures" by the best teachers, all rated and reviewed. Than hauling them off to be babysat every day by bored and under-trained and often patronage-chosen-only teachers.

This means, of course, that a White middle or even working class taxpayer base is not going to spring for heavy school taxes. White guilt save a few SWPL yuppies is played out. The White Middle Class is not staging a revolution, they already walked out on life. They walked out on Borders, and the shopping malls. Too many hassles, of living among non-White majorities with basically little enforcement of laws regarding harassment or worse, among those favored with the "correct" ethnicity/race. Whites opted out of the book offerings, opting for e-books that have little PC barriers, one way or another. It could be women's porn, the romance novels, easily read without shame on a Kindle. Or something else, a ripping tale of adventure offered cheap. White middle and working class men opted out of television, save televised sports, long ago. There's been nothing but opting out.

The great untold story is the simple writing off of most post-War American institutions by White Middle/Working class people. Marriage, the nuclear family, monogamy, Party Identification, mass media consumption, century old technologies, television, all of it written off largely by a population opting out, and using the internet to move around old ways of doing things. Some of this is pretty awful -- Ashley Madison, the various other "cheating" sites and raising kids in what amounts to a parade of guys through Mom's bedroom. Some of this is sad, the death of network TV, newspapers, film photography, vinyl, cassette tapes, the VCR. And some of this is revolutionary -- the process of abandoning public schools for private online education. [Including, inevitably, a cry for credential by examination instead of by purchasing a degree in Chicano Studies from Yale.] Glenn Reynolds noted that poor bar pass rates by Blacks and Hispanics will create a huge amount of pressure to make sure they pass by lowering the exam standards.

But on the reverse, the mass of White middle and working class kids educated online will want a true meritocracy, grading by tough standards that makes their exam pass rates the equal or better of a degree in Chicano Studies from Yale. If you have a degree, say online from Texas Tech in Petroleum Engineering (one of the top ten schools) and pass the federal certification, with top honors, it ought to make you (and everyone doing that will want this) the equal of a guy from Yale who barely passed. This is more the Chinese model, except that the twist is delivery online of studying and lectures. Indeed the delivery could be global, with results and reputations built hour-by-hour the way Amazon rankings, or Ebay rankings, or Yelp reviews do for various merchants or professionals.

Needless to say, the White middle and working class will do their very best to kill alternatives, like Public Education and particularly K-12, and University education, since their kids won't go there. And desire to take down tony private schools, from Philips Exeter to Yale, by taking federal money away from the latter and larding on taxes on brick and mortar schools. Call it the reverse Amazon tax.

In a sense, public education is already dead, it just doesn't know it yet. It has become a dumping ground for Black and Hispanic permanent underachievers, mostly. [Yes it is true there will be a few exceptionally talented Black and Hispanic kids. In terms of numbers however, their impact will be akin to the Sturmgewehr 44 and the Me 262 Jet for the Germans on either front -- too little and too late. Or one can compare it to the total failure of US White basketball players to compete much in the NBA, despite their numerical advantage.]

A K-12 system that produces only patronage for non-Whites, and poor results, and pushes White middle and working class families towards internet opt-out, will get no votes for taxes. Yes the Hispanic voting juggernaut will come, real soon now. Or not. In the meantime, voting is done by those who show up. People whose kids don't and won't ever go to the local public schools don't tax themselves to school their demographic replacements.

And by the same token, Yale and Harvard are riding for a fall. Yes they are old, established brands, with lots of rich alumni. But they have powerful enemies, who wish to see them broken upon the wheel. Federal funding is probably going to be yanked at some point. And all sorts of penalties for credentials based on school rep, instead of standardized, merit-based tests cooked up. Its easy populism, and while the Ivies may run Wall Street and Hollywood, no one actually likes them. Voting is a popularity contest. They'll still be around, so is the University of Milan. Or the University of Paris. Even Oxford and Cambridge and Humboldt Universities are around. But while they still have cachet, they are not what they once were. Universities are more than just a place for rich kids to hang out before they work at Greenpeace in Paris for a year, and then settle on a fake "respectable" career playing at work. Much of that will move online too, because its cheaper, free-er, and easier.

Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death indeed.
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Zero Tolerance and Disparate Impact

Two blog posts illustrate how a lack of intellectual honesty and the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement (and various Supreme Court decisions) have led to a national education system responding to incentives: to avoid being sued for "Disparate Impact" by creating "Zero Tolerance" policies that allow for random punishment of White students to balance that of Black and Hispanic students. Hotair reports that a 17 year old girl, an honor student and athlete, has been charged with weapons possession and suspended for a year. Because she had a paring knife in her lunchbox for an apple. Does this make sense? Certainly if you are a school district, and must show punishment of White students at a rate approaching that of Black and Hispanic ones.


Steve Sailer reports that Black students are suspended at rates three times that of Whites. Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, pledges "stronger efforts to ensure racial equality in schooling." Reality, as the legacy (inevitable) of the Civil Rights Act and various Supreme Court decisions regarding Disparate Impact, means that school districts will get sued if they cannot impose discipline without resorting to suspensions and other administrative acts. This means, as Steve Sailer notes, that schools choose (rationally) teachers who can maintain order in the classroom, without resort to administrative functions, which get districts sued (since Black kids act out more than Whites, and far more than North East Asian kids). Thus as Sailer notes, a preference for the Offensive Line coach who doubles as a Social Studies teacher.

The other method is to construct "zero tolerance" policies designed to entrap and punish, randomly, White kids to maintain racial balance. This is entirely a rational response by school boards and school officials, who do not like being sued by the NAACP, the US Justice Department, the Urban League, National Council for La Raza, and more. Far easier to simply suspend and expel as many White kids as can be constructed, and demonstrate racial or near-racial parity. Voila! No lawsuits! Sailer notes in his post, the data for Chatsworth HS, where tellingly, White and Black suspensions seem to mirror each other, year by year. Even though Blacks are 9.3% student population, for the last year available, as opposed to Whites at 22% or so.

Naturally, this preference for avoiding lawsuits and investigations over racial disparity, among all other things, means instruction suffers. Schools rationally prefer guys who can maintain order, over passion for learning and instruction. Schools also rationally seek to suspend/expel as many White kids as possible, to balance out those that must be suspended, almost all of the latter being Black and Hispanic. This was the natural and inevitable legacy of the Civil Rights movement, which sought, not color blind treatment of all, but rectifying past discrimination by permanent discrimination against others (Whites). Codified by decisions including Grutter vs. Bollinger, that concluded:

the United States Constitution "does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."

It is pretty clear that outright quotas are illegal, but everything else to promote "diversity" and avoid Disparate Impact of protected class (Latinos and Blacks are protected classes) people are indeed, not only legal but endorsed by the majority decision of the Supreme Court. Thus, carefully tailored policies designed not to create quotas for suspensions but serve the incentives created by Civil Rights laws and more than half a century of jurisprudence around them. Which holds not color blind neutrality, and equality under the law, but a clear preference system and protected classes.

What is the likely outcome of all this?

First, White parents will gradually but inevitably discover the truth. Zero Tolerance is just a "speed trap" designed to suspend and expel White kids to maintain racial parity in disciplinary action. The internet, and the ability to end-run the media blockade in discussing this reality, will help. But most will see it inevitably for themselves, as their kids or kids friends fall victim to seemingly idiotic enforcement of rules designed to produce White disciplinary action and avoid lawsuits over disparate impact.

This in turn will lead, to home schooling, or private schooling. This will have a side-benefit, increasing the value of beta males (whose extra income and ability to help with home schooling or paying for private school make the difference between success and failure for the children of White women). It is not just the random nature of White kids having their lives ruined (the young woman in the Hotair link will likely face arrest, and little if any college interest and certainly no scholarships). No, it is the miserable state of educational instruction, where teachers are selected for the ability to maintain discipline, not teach the subject.

While it is true teachers have generally, only a marginally good or bad effect on student learning (sad to say), and student aptitude, attitude, habits, discipline, and family support accounting for most of learning outcomes, teaching can make a marginal difference. And when parents aim for college scholarships as the cost of attending a "good" school increases radically, and quality of school (say, Northwestern vs. University of Idaho, Sarah Palin's Alma Mater) determines life success, well every bit matters. Matters as much as proper extra-curricular activity (athletics, band, student government) and avoiding "bad" activities (Junior ROTC, 4H).

Incentives matter. School administrators respond to the real, powerful incentives in front of them. So too, will parents. And the net result will be more White Flight. From any school district that is not almost 100% White. Since the cost of moving to a district like that is pretty high (not much real estate lending, home prices are depressed), the growth in private schools and home schooling is likely the most likely outcome. Which will in turn make, gradually, public K-12 education "not for Whites" and for "Black and Hispanics only." Asians, of course, are protected classes so they face little action by school administrators to "get" them via Zero Tolerance.

This in turn is going to reduce White voters desire to support K-12 with tax dollars. White voters and parents respond to incentives, that create a demand for "punishing" White students and degrading teacher effectiveness, as much as any one else. No, this will not be some giant avalanche of action. And no, White parents don't want a return of segregation or separate but equal. [Though aspects of punishing White kids to maintain rough racial parity with Black kids disciplinary action smacks of separate but equal. As does the notion of protected classes, only the other way around.] But generally speaking, it is a bad bet to figure on an eternal White self-flagellating, cringing apology for past (and very real, let us say) racism against Blacks. How much guilt do the current generations of White folks hold for past segregation and slavery? Almost none, I'd say. And even less when it comes to punishing their kids for George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse doorway.

The very predictable White response is to flee the public school system, and desire to pay nothing at all for something that is hostile and punishment-prone to their own kids. Along with that, will come an end to support for "diversity."

Young, SWPL folks love the idea of diversity. Even, the sometime reality of gentrification. Until they have kids. The most ardent, left-wing woman can be transformed into an enemy of diversity when she sees her kid is being punished, in effect, for being White. And measures the true cost of diversity (lots of extra transaction costs and ceding of opportunities to different groups to obtain social peace). Diversity does not, in practice, resemble a Target ad, or the Colors of Benetton, rather it means the constant, grinding, costly bargaining and conflict over a constantly shrinking set of opportunities, distrust, ancillary costs, and the goal being not growing wealth for everyone, but making sure everybody gets the cut that society has determined, by race or religion. In the current arrangement, unlikely to changed absent a widespread, hyper-violent civil war, Whites are at the bottom of the totem pole, "cuts" of opportunities, and face as in Grutter vs. Bollinger, discrimination in favor of diversity (i.e. promotion of non-Whites over Whites).

Hard times of course will lead to delayed family formation for Whites (probably not for Hispanics and Blacks, according to various preliminary census data and media reports). But eventually (and now, for parents of White kids already born and in school), this process will continue. White flight from K-12 education, and opposition (led by White parents) to "diversity." Its all very well and good to enjoy diversity in commercials and movies and TV. It is another thing when there is a risk of ruining your kid's life, and marginal degradation of teaching, when the struggle to get into the "right" school seems to start at kindergarten.
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