What’s Wrong With Elitism?
Undoubtedly many of you have recently read the Time cover story asking if America is failing its geniuses. And that’s about as provocative as the article gets. The author goes to great lengths to avoid portraying genius students (those who are 3 deviations above the norm or have an IQ of about 145) as oddities, but by doing so they are portrayed as oddities. He does note that students who are 3 deviations below the norm are about the same percentage of the general population as those who are above. However, there is absolutely no indication that these students who fall below the norm are abnormal. Is there something wrong with this concept? I have argued all along that the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) bill rammed through by Bush Jr. has done one of the biggest disservices to American education in decades. There are two fallacies in this thinking that have rankled ever since the bill was ill-constructed. First, it is assumed that all students can perform at the same level and all we have
