Quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/naacp-continues-war-against-tests-and-education/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=naacp-continues-war-against-tests-and-education&utm_source=co2hog 

Most people don't want to touch a posting like this.
I'm not most people.
I don't see how a standardized test can be racist. After all, WHITE kids have to pass it too, don't they?
It's actually the most UNracist way to handle it.
You have to pass the test reguardless of race, or what your grades were in school.
And as i think most people know, school grading does not actually mean the person that got the grade is "smart".

For example, i have a relative that graduated high school and couldn't read.
You think he could pass the test?

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The NAACP has become a joke.

I have seen this kind of thing for years.

Chicago Public Schools did so bad on the standardized test that instead of trying to help the children score better, they did away with the test. They made their own (easier) test so the children would feel good about themselves. After a few years of using their test they school system and community leaders noticed that the scores were trending down. So instead of getting in there and actually teaching the kids the material they dummied down their easier version of the test.

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I tend to agree if you can make sure that some sort of "Ceteris paribus" be enforced/promoted among schools and teaching. what I mean here is even though I came from a town of 250K there were some striking differences in teachers, schools (quality facilities etc.) and offerings between our "ghetto" neighborhood and the rich kids on the hillside community (I was part of the "red neck" school for what its worth).

I dont believe we should dumb down tests so kids feel better as well as I dont believe in everyone getting a participation award. We should be showing kids how to overcome problems rather than penalize and patronize them. I dont think any official paperwork should have race/ethnic background on it but in the same way I dont believe schools from good neighborhoods should benefit solely on there parents pocket books with endless fundraisers.

we need to make sure that everyone has an equal and unbiased shot and then judge the hell of them on performance 😃

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Except Asians.

I'm pretty young, so I've always been under the impression that it is a joke. Was there a time when it was respectable?

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No, but I don't feel comfortable passing judgement on the organization before I was around and aware enough to observe what they said and did.

I am old enough. Yes, the NAACP has been, for most of its existence, been a good, useful, and noble organization.

Liberal, yes. But liberal hasn't always been a synonym for moron. Not even the modern "statist" sort of liberal. It's only in the last twenty-five years or so that they've degenerated into their current state.

People like Jack Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Gene McCarthy -- they were neither idiots like Pelosi and Biden or cynical manipulators like Reid and Obama. Heck, even Lyndon Johnson, the ultimate in traditional bare-knuckle dealmaking politician of the era, had a kind of liberal oomph that today's liberals lack. Many of their ideas were in hindsight pretty bad ones (IMO) , but these were thoughtful, reasonable men who simply did not have enough empirical evidence of the failure of welfare statism to realize that their ideas of social democracy were bad ones. They were still in an era where the Beveridge recommendations could be seen as the height of innovation for the common good. And they would have been appalled at the people now holding the liberal torch.

I'm not a liberal, not even of the Kennedy/Humphrey/McCarthy sort. I only voted lib in one fed election. (My first, when I voted for Gene McCarthy as a 3rd party candidate after almost killing him on Minnesota highways after picking him up at the Rochester airport.)

I blame Ted Kennedy, Tip O'Neill, Christopher Dodd, and Jesse Jackson for dumbing down liberal thinking. And partly I blame Reagan, because he reduced principled conservatism to "oh shucks" and "there you go again" and did it so successfully that both parties went with superficial populism and know-nothingism. Without them, idiots such as Pelosi and lightweights like Obama, and bad thinkers like Bernanke would never have made it to the national stage.

And of course the Ted Kennedys and Tip O'Neills and Chris Dodds would not have had that influence had the evil ideas of John Dewey and Andrew Carnegie about mass education taken control of the primary/secondary ed system.

But yes, gbguy20, the NAACP was once a respectable organization.

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I blame a lot of their failings and poor reputation on Jesse Jack and others of his stature. he was more about grandstanding and personal glory than helping people.

I did admire Benjamin Hooks. He was the director from the late 70's until the early 90's.

I had forgotten that he said this but I remember if after finding it this morning.

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