Fraudulent diplomas

Wish I'd said that!

[Reprinted from Issues & Views December 10, 2001]

"Cal State Expels 2,009 Students for Lack of Skills," reads the January 24 Los Angeles Times headline. Kenneth R. Weiss, Times staff writer, reported that the California State University system kicked out 2,009 students, 6 percent of last year's freshman class, for failing to master basic math and English skills in their first year of classes.

Seventy-three percent of black freshmen and 37 percent of white freshmen require remedial math. Sixty-six percent of black freshmen and 28 percent of white freshmen require remedial English. On California State University campuses with large black student enrollment, such as the Dominguez Hills campus, 80 percent of freshmen require remedial math and English. At times, close to 90 percent of freshmen required remedial classes.

Black students who attend California State University campuses are more than likely not high-school troublemakers and they probably received good grades. The fact that high proportions of them require remedial classes in English and math, and many are failing to master remedial material, ought to tell us something. That something is: both the high-school grades they received and high-school diplomas conferred were fraudulent, and grossly so. The tragedy is compounded by the fact there is no way that four years of college can make up for 12 years of shoddy education.

The education establishment has many excuses for black low academic achievement: apathetic and irresponsible parents, violent and disruptive students, and students who are alien and hostile to the education process. The education establishment is correct when it says that these anti-learning factors are beyond their control; however, it has total control over grades assigned and diplomas conferred. When a diploma is conferred, it certifies that the recipient has mastered high-school level material. A student so certified who cannot perform at the eighth- and ninth-grade levels has a fraudulent diploma. It's like meat sold as fresh and, when you get it home, you find it maggot-laden.

History won't be very kind to today's black mayors, state legislators and congressmen when it examines how black youngsters have had their futures compromised by a callous, corrupt education system, while black politicians not only fiddled but organized resistance to any measure that might introduce accountability.

-- Walter Williams, syndicated columnist and Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA (Creators Syndicate).

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