If you want to see “diversity” run amok, look no further than San Francisco, and this enlightening article in the New York Times (even though the author, Jesse McKinley, a San Francisco parent, thinks that a school assignment policy that has resulted many schools where “more than 60 percent of the student body is of a single race” amounts to more “segregation”).
Here’s a sample of how San Francisco assigns students.
Let’s say a 5-year-old … wants to go to kindergarten. His parents fill out an application and list seven schools they prefer.
The more desirable schools get more applications than they have seats; in some cases that ratio is 20 to 1. That’s where the Diversity Index comes in. Known as “the lottery,” the index uses five factors to determine a child’s profile: poverty level, socio-economic status, English-language proficiency, academic achievement and, for upper grades, the quality of the student’s previous school.
Perhaps someone from San Francisco (or possibly Mars, which is closer) can explain to me the difference between “poverty level” and “socio-economic status,” as well as how an aspiring kindergartner would go about demonstrating his or her “academic achievement.” Perhaps class standing in nursery school?
But that “diversity profile” is only the beginning.
Once that profile is built, the child is placed in one of his selected schools, in a class of students whose collective profile is as different from his own profile as possible. As each child is added, the class profile is adjusted, and more “most different” children are placed. Students living near their selected schools are considered first. The district also gives preference to children who have siblings at the same school and apply on time.
Anyone remember Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster singing “One of These Things (Is Not Like The Others)”?
One of These Things (Is Not Like The Others)
Words and Music by Joe Raposo and Jon Stone
One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn’t belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?
Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
Did you guess which thing just doesn’t belong?
If you guessed this one is not like the others,
Then you’re absolutely…right!
Another version:
Three of these things belong together
Three of these things are kind of the same
Can you guess which one of these doesn’t belong here?
Now it’s time to play our game (time to play our game).
Bonus Version
Three of these kids belong together
Three of these kids are kind of the same
But one of these kids is doing his (her) own thing
Now it’s time to play our game
It’s time to play our game.
In San Francisco, the Cookie Monster has morphed into the Diversity Monster. Now any school where three kids “are kind of the same” and only one is “different” is suffering from “segregation,” and the “diversity” police, under the authority of the “Diversity Index,” must round up more kids who are the “most different” and import them, from across town if necessary.
Alas, the raw material of the school system, i.e., the students, unfortunately don’t conform to the design engineered by the city’s social engineers.
For example, school officials say that part of the problem with the assignment system is that parental interest and resources can be inherently unequal. White and Asian parents tend to be very involved in the early stages of the process, while black and Latino ones are less so. The result is that more white and Asian children end up in preferred schools.
‘The applicant pools are not diverse,” said Orla O’Keeffe, the district official charged with redesigning the system.
According to San Francisco school officials, the solution to this seemingly intractable problem is simple: if the students don’t fit the schools, redesign the students.
