Extreme Equality

"If the educational system in America, and Racine Unified School District being no exception, spent the same amount of money per student on urban schools as they do in suburban schools, there could be significant improvement in academic achievement of youngsters attending urban schools. There are differences in financial support from their parents to augment what the district spends per student in the district. There will continue to be disparities in the academic achievement gap of some students until equal spending per child is fixed.This general degradation of urban schools and now segregation not inherent racial inequality remains one of the major obstacles of the American educational system." These are the words of Beverly Hicks, president of the Racine chapter of the NAACP, and they highlight the dangers of extreme egalitarianism.

Many people would not consider the quest for equality to carry with it any particular danger. But please note that Hick's is concerned that some parents will augment their child's public education with some of their own spending. And this is bad, in her view, and a degradation of urban schools, because it would increase the achievement gap between urban (read black) and suburban (read white) students. One can safely conclude that Hicks believes that if white parents did not augment their childrens education, things would be more equal, not a degradation, and therefore better. However, I suspect that student achievement among blacks will not improve if suddenly all white parents agreed to discontinue the augmenting. Thus equality is more important for Hicks than actual student achievement. And this mindset is particularly harmful to blacks, of course, because they are provided an excuse for failure by their supposed advocate. Instead of decrying the fact that some parents will make financial sacrifices in order to help their children become more successful, Hick's could better serve her black constituents by suggesting that they emulate the parents who are helping their own children.

I will try to highlight the dangers of extreme egalitarianism with a personal example. I have one son, whom I love dearly. I try my best to teach him the values that I think are important and I spend a lot of time with him. While I am certainly not a perfect parent, I can safely say that I am doing a better job than, say, an absentee father. Thus, if I am able to improve my fathering, I will of course widen the parenting gap between myself and the absentee father. And of course, my son will be increasingly better off than the child of the absentee father. Thus I will be contributing to a widening parenting gap, which would be unfair to the orphaned child. I could only decrease the parenting gap, and achieve greater equality, by becoming a worse father.

So starting today, I will begin to beat and neglect my child. I will do so in the name of equality.