When Standards Are Ignored

Regardless where you stand on affirmative action, telling students they can compete in X environment when they have not learned enough to succeed in X environment is misleading at best, lying in the middle, and setting up too many for failure at the worst.

Data from The Chronical of Higher Education (subscription required) raises serious questions about admitting under-qualified students to particular universities. This article is reviewed by Anthony Paletta under the title: The Performance Gap, at Minding the Campus, Reforming our Universities. As Mr. Paletta states, the data in the study indicates why minority students get lower grades and drop out of college at a disproportionately high rate.

My personal experience has been that when standards are set and explicitly defined, students who cannot meet them or do not want to put in the effort to do well drop the course. One may say this is unfair but for those students who stay and meet my standards, regardless of outer wrapping, it is extremely rare that they complain. They learn and appreciate the demands made of them, often doing more than they thought they could do - by their own admission.

Universities that push diversity for the sake of diversity without explaining standards and expectation are doing a disservice to all students. This behavior breeds skepticism and cynicism for most parties and is grossly unfair to all involved.

Jeff Jacoby - test for MAS members

To All, I will be writing about various articles on the MAS website. You will be notified of a post via the MAS email. This is a test so I can make sure I am doing the notification correctly.

Thanks for you patience.

Janet