In the wake of the Sputnik wake-up call in 1957, two of America’s most distinguished technical managers, Admiral Hyman Rickover of the nuclear submarine navy and chemist James Conant, President of Harvard, debated how to improve schooling. Rickover advocated that America imitate the European system of separate schools for academic and vocational students based on ability testing. Conant countered by suggesting that rather than have separate schools, we should have large comprehensive schools with intensive tracking by ability within them. Conant won the debate (although one must wonder how much the advantage of large schools at winning football games played in the outcome). See historian Raymond Wolters‘ book Race and Education, 1954-2007 for details.

By the late 1960s, however, Conant’s solution of tracking was coming under attack as concern shifted away from maximizing the individual potential of students and toward equalizing outcomes of racial groups.

The New York Times reports on one of the last vestiges of old-fashioned honest tracking:

Connecticut School District that Clung to Tracking Is Letting Go
STAMFORD, Conn. — Sixth graders at Cloonan Middle School here are assigned numbers based on their previous year’s standardized test scores — zeros indicate the highest performers, ones the middle, twos the lowest — that determine their academic classes for the next three years.

But this longstanding system for tracking children by academic ability for more effective teaching evolved into an uncomfortable caste system in which students were largely segregated by race and socioeconomic background, both inside and outside classrooms. Black and Hispanic students, for example, make up 46 percent of this year’s sixth grade, but are 78 percent of the twos and 7 percent of the zeros.

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One of the odder phenomenon is that as political correctness grows, so does that most politically incorrect of businesses, standardized testing. You might think that standardized testing would be a stagnant industry, what with the fact that it would appear to be the classic mature industry–there haven’t been fundamental innovations in testing since the middle of the last century–and that the results it comes up with are viewed with deep suspicion by the courts and the media.

And yet, it’s booming.

For example, when researching the Ricci case, I stumbled upon nine different firms that make up firefighters tests. And they are constantly being paid large amounts of money to make up customized new tests–reportedly, New Haven paid $100,000 for the test that Frank Ricci took–even though a national test would work fine.

Similarly, the passage of the Kennedy-Bush No Child Left Behind act led to the development of a huge number of new school achievement tests by each state. It was important to have new tests because the NCLB’s mandate that federal aid to states would depend upon annual progress toward making every single student in the state above average by 2014 on the state’s test could only be accomplished by massive fraud.
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Peter Brimelow will be a guest today on The Don Kroah Show at 4:15 p.m. ET and on The Tom Roten Show tomorrow morning at 7:35 a.m. to discuss his article, Holocaust Museum Hullaballoo Reveals ‘Hate Crimes” Hypocrisy.‘

The Don Kroah Show airs in the Washington DC area and can be streamed live here.

The Tom Roten program airs in Huntington, West Virginia and can be streamed live here.

I knew when I saw this “SUV” story on Ann Althouse’s site

Monday, June 08, 2009

“We see the people stacked like wood frequently.”

“If they had had the right number of people in there and they all had their seat belts on, they would have lived.” 10 passengers died in one SUV.

that when I clicked through, it would be an “illegal immigrant” story:

10 people killed in SUV rollover near Tucson

Jun 7, 2009

SONOITA, Ariz. (AP) — Ten illegal immigrants “stacked like wood” in the back of a sports utility vehicle crammed with at least 27 people were killed when the driver lost control and rolled over on a remote southern Arizona highway, authorities said Sunday.

The Ford Excursion had no rear seat and most of the men and women were ejected when the SUV crashed just before midnight Saturday near Sonoita, about 40 miles southeast of Tucson. Authorities said all the victims are believed to be illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Equador and perhaps Mexico.

Arizona Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Joy Craig told The Associated Press that the remote area where the crash happened is a route commonly used by those smuggling illegal immigrants into the U.S.

“We see the people stacked like wood frequently,” she said. “If they had had the right number of people in there and they all had their seat belts on, they would have lived.”

A dozen people injured in the crash were treated at area hospitals and authorities were looking for possibly more.

The identity of the driver, passengers and the vehicle’s owner are being withheld pending their identification and notification of relatives. Many victims did not have ID, Craig said.

If the driver survives, Craig said he would likely be charged.

“Basically, this is like a 10-time homicide scene,” she said.

Initially, Craig said there were 22 victims, but several left the crash scene and sought help from businesses in the Sonoita area.

U.S. Border Patrol has eight men who were treated at local hospitals in custody, Border Patrol spokesman Omar Candelaria said.

On June 13th, 2009, speaking to an Arab-American group, former president Bill Clinton celebrated the rapid demographic transformation taking place in our country.

As reported in an article by Christine Simmons,“Bill Clinton: United States Growing More Diverse” :

Former President Bill Clinton said Saturday that Americans should be mindful of the nation’s changing demographics, which led to the election of Barack Obama as president. He told an Arab-American audience of 1,000 people that the U.S. is no longer just a black-white country, nor a country that is dominated by Christians and a powerful Jewish minority, given the growing numbers of Muslims, Hindus and other religious groups here.

Clinton looks forward to the day when America’s historical majority is no longer the majority:

Clinton said by 2050 the U.S. will no longer have a majority of people with European heritage and that in an interdependent world “this is a very positive thing.”

” A positive thing?” Sez who?

Did we ever get to vote on this drastic demographic transformation?

Why is it OK for it to be celebrated but not questioned?

Does the country’s (still) white majority have the right to decide its own destiny?

Despite Clinton’s assurance , the non-European majority is not a foregone conclusion. There is still time (though not much time) for a bold politician to make it a political issue. If a Republican doesn’t have the courage (and it currently looks as though none do) is it time to look elsewhere?

It happens all the time — illegal alien teens complain at length that state-sponsored colleges and universities in America are not cheap enough for them, and the press is happy to assist by supplying sob stories. (For an example, see For an illegal immigrant, getting into UCLA was the easy part.)

The illegal students squawk that they want cheaper in-state tuition (unavailable to citizens of other states) and often get it, even though the foreigners cannot work legally upon graduation.

But Mexico (the top sender of illegal aliens) has advanced far beyond stone tools, and it has perfectly fine universities that its citizens abroad could attend. Many of these students want to speak Spanish (because they cannot speak English) as well as celebrate Hispanic culture — what could be more wonderful than returning to their home society where they can immerse themselves totally in Raza-ness. Win win.

There is excellent higher education available in Mexico, as indicated by the National Autonomous University (pictured) recently being recognized for its excellence [Mexican university wins Spanish award, Google AP, June 10, 2009].

MADRID (AP) — A nearly 100-year-old Mexican university was awarded Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities on Wednesday in recognition of its role in providing Latin America with outstanding intellectuals and scientists.

The National Autonomous University of Mexico, which has nearly 300,000 students and more than 34,000 professors and researchers, had received more than 1,500 letters of support for the award, including ones from world famous authors Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the award foundation said.

The university, founded in 1910, “has become a point of reference, combining quality and an extensive academic and research offering with its firm commitment to disseminate culture, humanism and new technologies,” the foundation said.

It also praised the school for the role it played as “a reception center for intellectuals and professors exiled (from Spain) after the (1936-39) Spanish Civil War.”

The award includes a euro50,000 ($70,000) cash stipend and a sculpture by artist Joan Miro.

Last year’s Communication and Humanities award went to the Google Internet search engine.

The university is one of the most important public centers for higher education in Mexico and Latin America, with alumni including three Nobel Prize winners — the late Octavio Paz for literature (1990), chemistry scientist Mario Molina (1995), and the late diplomat Alfonso Garcia Robles for the Peace Prize in 1982, the foundation said.

In 2007, the university’s main campus in Mexico City, the University City, was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO, which praised it as a monumental example of the modernism of the 20th century.

Incidentally, California is projected to have spent spend $11,935 per pupil in 2007-08 for K-12 education, so foreign children have already gotten plenty from state taxpayers.