SEATTLE, WA - The dumbing down of America continues in Seattle, Washington, where a gifted students program, the Highly Capable Cohort, is being mothballed because city progressives complain the program is “too white,” according to KTTH-770’s Jason Rantz.
Rantz wrote that the program, which separates academically gifted students from others via different classrooms or schools, was put on the chopping block in 2020 when city school board members caught a terminal case of white guilt and terminated the HCC, despite objections of parents.
As Rantz notes, instead of elevating all students to the level of more gifted students, they would instead drag down high achievers. Rantz explains:
“These self-proclaimed saviors boast on social media about tackling inequities, oblivious to the harm they inflict,” Rantz wrote. “Indeed, the program to replace the HCC and implement it in every classroom ensures that gifted students will be unchallenged, struggling students will escape the attention they deserve, and teachers will be overwhelmed. In other words, everyone will be equitably armed.”
In 2020, critics of the HCC program argued that it didn’t reflect the diversity of the community, prompted in no small part by the Black Lives Matter activism of that year after George Floyd’s overdose death.
In 2015, the Seattle Public Schools hired an “equity specialist” whose charge was to address (in other words, find) so-called racial inequities. Three years later, the HCC served 13% multiracial students, 11.8% Asian, 3.7% Hispanic, and 1.6% black. In 2021, those numbers had increased to 20% multiracial, 16% Asian, 8.2% Hispanic, and 3.4% black. In other words, most cohorts virtually doubled their participation, while Asian participation saw a 25% increase. However, that wasn’t good enough for critics who complained the program was “racist” and had to go.
That decision met with protests from parents across the spectrum, including black, Asian, and Hispanic, who argued against shutting down the HCC, arguing that the school system should work harder to identify minority students who are eligible for the program rather than mothballing the program altogether.
In one case, a father slammed the Seattle School Board, accusing them of doing a “disservice…to the minorities that are already in the HCC program.” He argued that the HCC “does more for Black children, particularly Black boys than it does for their peers.”
That mattered little to the radicals on the Seattle School Board, with then-director Chandra Hampson accusing black parents who supported the program of being “tokenized” by white Seattle parents. Talk about racist; there you have it…the old “Uncle Tom” argument.
In the 2024-25 school year, a “whole classroom” model will replace the HCC. Rantz argues that it is “unworkable.”
He explained that students of all learning abilities would be included in the classroom, with each teacher responsible for between 20-30 students of differing learning abilities, with no additional resources and limited new training. Rantz argues it will make it impossible for teachers to create individualized programs for students with such disparate needs.
“It’s not likely that a teacher can help a student who can barely read while simultaneously challenging a classmate who is reading two advanced books a week,” Rantz wrote.
According to a recent Seattle Times feature, it examined a “typical” day in the whole classroom model, which Rantz called “hardly impressive.”
On a recent day in a first-grade classroom, seven advanced learners sat on the floor reading silently on their iPads. Several others wrote independently at their desks. A special education student wrote with a paraprofessional at their side. The rest of the class sat in a front corner of the classroom while the teacher read a book out loud.
In other words, Rantz said, advanced learners were sent back to the scourge of COVID-19 learning, “relegated to impersonal iPads,” while other students are writing, alone at their desks, somehow avoiding the distraction of the teacher loudly reading a book out loud.”
The move to dumb down the gifted kids to the level of their less advanced peers is “another lazy move,” Rantz argues. Instead of trying to lift the underachievers up, they dumb everyone else down. Is it any wonder that test scores are in the basement?
Instead of working to find any so-called impediments to “diversity,” the Seattle school board is taking the easy way out. “Progressives,” Rantz wrote, “keep trying to have it both ways” where student performance is concerned.
“Systemic racism,” they complain, fails minority students by “giving them substandard education as compared to white students.” Except for Asians, whom progressives fail to mention because, as Rantz writes, “it doesn’t adhere to their ideological dogma.”
Progressives argue that participation in the HCC should match the demographics of the school districts. If there are 15% black students in the Seattle Public Schools, HCC should likewise have 15% black students in the gifted program, academics be damned.
The Seattle Public Schools should investigate why black students do not achieve at the same level as white students or Asian students. Is it because they do not statistically come from two-parent families? Who knows? But the school system isn’t even trying to find out. And in failing to do so, they are failing their minority students.
Rantz said that moves such as eliminating the HCC program do “measurable damage” to students, and that is precisely why many parents are pulling their children out of the Seattle Public Schools. He argues that parents with the financial means are pulling their children out of the public schools “and enrolling them in private education so they’ll get the academic challenges to meet their needs.”
Pulling students out of the school system also has the unintended consequences of impacting funding to the Seattle Public Schools, which is already facing a $105 million budget deficit. Rantz argues that it creates more inequity when parents with means can pull their kids out of school for a better opportunity.
By mothballing a program that lifted kids up and was working for the lowest common denominator, the progressives on the Seattle school board are failing not only their high-achieving students but the very students whose “equity” they are trying to achieve.
Comments
2024-04-05T22:08-0500 | Comment by: Catherene
Sure let's dumb down America to benefit the people who don't work the hardest. Way to go Joe.
2024-04-06T01:00-0500 | Comment by: Mortimer
Sounds "Socialist" to me......make everyone equal.....even in the IQ dept!! When it comes to liberals......NOTHING surprises me anymore!!
2024-04-06T19:36-0500 | Comment by: Andie
Black's brains develop faster than Whites but in their early teens, their brain development stops but Whites brain development continues. So basically. Blacks mental acuity ends in their early teens. Segregated classrooms would be ideal.
2024-04-06T19:37-0500 | Comment by: Andie
Black's brains develop faster than Whites but in their early teens, their brain development stops but Whites brain development continues. So basically. Blacks mental acuity ends in their early teens. Segregated classrooms would be ideal.
2024-04-06T19:58-0500 | Comment by: EDWARD
All students should be equally stupid. The notion of advanced education should be dropped in favor of basic compliance education. You only need to be smart enough to follow printed directions. This will equalize populations and guarantee similar results to all races. Finally we will have equality. And that so much better and fairer than successful, right? Everyone can achieve mediocrity!
2024-04-06T21:33-0500 | Comment by: Clifford
People in general are not all the same & learn at different levels/speeds. Unfortunately common sense has been thrown on the trash heap as our country spirals downward.
2024-04-06T21:53-0500 | Comment by: Jim
The whole West Coast is beyond redemption.
2024-04-06T22:04-0500 | Comment by: Donald
What a brilliant plan! Now, even the dumbest Third World country will have a collective IQ higher than the United States of Assinine!!!
2024-04-06T22:16-0500 | Comment by: Donald
What a brilliant plan! Now, even the dumbest Third World country will have a collective IQ higher than the United States of Assinine!!!
2024-04-06T22:20-0500 | Comment by: Donald
What a brilliant plan! Now, even the dumbest Third World country will have a collective IQ higher than the United States of Assinine!!!
2024-04-06T23:19-0500 | Comment by: Tim
As Wilfred Reilly, Professor of Political Science, Kentucky University, said: study after study shows people wanting radical social change are mostly young, white, college educated, leftist women. They are spoiled and can't compete unless they bring up their ovaries or race or both. and therefore don't want anyone else to. The dominance hierarchy is "unfair" and oppressive. I have the right to "have" because of my existence. This is wrong thinking. Regardless of the topic from sports to nuclear physics, horseback riding to ice skating, if you normalize achievement one has below average, average, and above average performance. Those who are above average or achievers in performance are bored and drug backwards by average students. Many achievers are considered "gifted" although MOST get there by passion and sacrifice. Yes, not watching TV or doing screen time like everyone else, and instead studying and doing homework to practice a subject IS SACRAFICE. If they achieve dominance within the hierarchy they are to be admired, and respected for their sacrifice and achievement. What is to be admired about average? Holding one back because they don't have the ability or willingness to sacrifice is not bad. It means in that subject or topic you are below the best. If one is below the achievers because of laziness or lack of sacrifice, then one should feel guilt and shame. If one is below the achievers and they applied themselves and did the best they could, then there is no guilt or shame in that. We need achievers in every topic or subject from law enforcement to silversmithing. Admire them. Don't allow others to bring achievers down so you can "feel" good about yourself.
2024-04-07T04:31-0500 | Comment by: Trixie
Sounds like what they are saying is “persons of color” are dumber than whites & can’t be taught. Sounds racist to me!
2024-04-07T13:39-0500 | Comment by: Russell
I squint at the sun because it's bright. I squint at some people because they are not. I'm squinting at this bunch of dimwits.
2024-04-07T17:25-0500 | Comment by: Don
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that, as of July 1, 2023, the white population in the U.S. made up 75.5% of the total population. What if the same "progressive" argument was used that 75.5% of the players on all major league and college sports teams be white. The outcry of unfairness to the more talented athletes from the "progressives" and minorities would be deafening. In fact, they would be scoffing at such a ridiculous notion. As it should be. But, why should the standards for academic achievement, employment, or any other opportunity be any different. Nothing could be more racist than the "progressives argument that the only way minorities can be equals is to lower the standards of excellence. The Asian population in the U.S. has proven that this position is a total farce.
2024-04-07T20:33-0500 | Comment by: elaine
you can give credit to George Bush Sr."s wife for this with her NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND rule that has been implimented in the schools. Hate to say it but most of the teachers are just as stupid as the kids. When a high school graduate tells you the first president was John Kennedy and China won WWII and a college student tells you the Gulf War was fought in the gulf of Mexico then you really know this country is in deep chit.
2024-04-09T14:33-0500 | Comment by: Laurence
Another example of the decline of US education. Just what is wrong with being White and intelligent? Why neglect the best and brightest students because the dull students can't make the grade? The parents of the bright students should choose good private schools so their children will not be neglected and frustrated.