Years ago, I wrote a column denouncing the decision of the University of California system to drop standardized testing in the cause of greater racial diversity. Now, hundreds of UC mathematics faculty have called for a return to such testing after reports showing a thirtyfold increase in students with math skills below high school level.
As written earlier, the University of California system was an early supporter of this disastrous move. It was heralded as a way to preserve diversity after voters in California repeatedly rejected race-based admissions and the Supreme Court appeared ready to bar such practices (commonly proven with reference to standardized test differentials among applicants).
Now, many professors in the California system have come to the same conclusion as some of us who denounced the move years ago. They have witnessed the drop in academic skills and abilities among incoming students.
These tests not only have the most significant predictive value for performance but also play an important role in the advancement of minority students. Former University of California President Janet Napolitano, however, overrode those conclusions.
Napolitano responded to such criticism with a Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019. Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing. The task force did find that 59 percent of high school graduates were Latino, African-American or Native American but only 37 percent were admitted as UC freshman students. The Task Force did not find standardized testing to be unreliable or call for its abandonment, however.
Instead, its final report concluded that “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.”
Not only that, it found: “Further, the amount of variance in student outcomes explained by test scores has increased since 2007 … Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.” In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college.
That clearly was not the result Napolitano or some others wanted. So, she simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions. The system would go to a “test-blind” system until it developed its own test.
Ending standardized testing had an obvious secondary purpose: to frustrate new legal challenges to the use of race in college admissions. Last November, Californians rejected a resolution to restore affirmative action in college admissions.
We have also seen the dismal decline in standards at elite universities like Harvard, where faculty have been compelled to teach high school-level math classes to students.
Various schools have now reversed this ridiculous move pushed by faculty and administrators in the cause of racial diversity. The proponents of the change, such as Napolitano, have said little after they decimated the academic integrity and standing of their schools.
The UC faculty cited the UC San Diego Senate–Administration Workgroup on Admissions report, which found that 70 percent of these students are performing below a middle-school level.
Like Harvard, faculty are now teaching high-school-level math.
The declining performance reflects the failure of our public schools, which have also lowered graduation standards. The top-spending public school districts are also some of the worst-performing districts.
The reason they dropped standardized testing wasn’t to “diversify” the student body and avoid instituting “race-based” admissions, it was to deny Foundational Black Americans (Freedmen) the access to free post-secondary education as we should have been given as reparations for 400 years of slavery, political-economic segregation, and social marginalization. However, doing so would have angered the white peasants of the USA because they feel they are the only people who should benefit from government policies and handouts. Claiming that standardized testing should be abolished because it’s “racist” exemplifies the policy of benign neglect and the practice of “racism of low expectations” exhibited by so-called liberal benefactors towards Foundational Black Americans. No Black American thinks that by abolishing standardized tests, they will get equitable admissions considerations. The charge of cultural bias in standardized testing did not include the math and sciences. Why then jettison the entire assessment tool? How about improving the high school preparatory classes? Thankfully, your article did point that out. How about stopping the attack on the working class, so that students aren’t distracted by the exigencies of daily life and can focus on achievement standards? The liberal and conservative wings of the white-controlled political system always do the same thing. It provides an inadequate solution to solve a problem it created, then waits 10-20 years until the other political wing leads an “insurgency” to oppose what the other side did. They then go to white polity to garner support using the argument that it racist to help Black people at all. The white voting populace falls for it every time (i.e. Trump). Meanwhile Black people, who never benefitted from the original policy, become the scapegoats for the primary beneficiaries of said policy, namely liberal white women and their immigrant and intersectional supporters.
I am dumber for having read this response. JFC
No, you were already dumb beforehand.
I wasn’t aware there are any former slaves (freedmen) still alive. 161 years old is a ripe old age.
The descendants of them are still alive. Sounds like you one of those people who benefitted from dropping standardized testing.
I didnt understand that either. But soon blacks can stop complaining about society as the rest of the people join them in AI and gadget induced ignrance and intellectual laziness. n
The proper skill to employ when one doesn’t understand is to ask questions. Seems like you are another beneficiary of lowered standards.
When something fails to meet your expectations, the easiest solution is to lower your expectations. This should be the motto of our “education” system.
Whether a physical or economic handicap, make no allowances for it. No wheel chair ramps, no braille marking on signs, no allowing trained support dogs. We need to stop coddling people and eliminate emergency rooms. They can fix themselves. Billy G 2026.
The solution that most embrace is upon seeing a situation that needs improvement and working on that improvement. Lowering admission standards is fine as long as graduation standards remain in place. If the first year has remedial courses for those who cannot travel back in time and repeat all their years of schooling then that’s recognizing a situation that needs improvement.
But I’m sure Billy G is content to dump people out of wheel chairs, snag white tipped canes, and kick support dogs because it’s unfair he doesn’t have any of those accommodations or the money and time spent for them applied to him. Nor would Billy G accept the swap into the condition of the students he wishes to deprive.
What we’ve got here is failure to educate. Some students you just can’t teach.
Some teachers just can’t teach too.
Some teachers refuse to learn. Well you know what they say, if you can’t learn, teach.
Anti-Zionist ‘Democrat’ Loses Primary By 20 Points
Democratic voters in a Texas runoff election on Tuesday nominated a sheriff’s office spokesperson for a key House seat and rejected a left-wing activist who espoused castrating and imprisoning “American Zionists.”
Johnny Garcia defeated Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist with little political experience. Garcia led Galindo by about 20 percentage points when the race was called by the Associated Press.
Democratic leaders had denounced Galindo, saying she would have embarrassed the party nationally and probably would have had a tougher time winning in a general election in a district drawn to give Republicans an edge.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/05/27/texas-democrats-reject-house-candidate-who-called-imprisoning-zionists/
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Turley went out of his way to portray Galindo as a ‘typical antisemitic Democrat’. However Galindo was actually supported by Republican dark money. But don’t expect Turley to report her defeat.
Yes Talarico is a normal democrat
Sure a vegan that eats turkey legs and thinks Jesus Christ was a trans individual. Totally normal. LOL
Anon. You should learn to read.
-left-wing activist who espoused castrating and imprisoning “American Zionists.”-
That isn’t what she said. She wanted to imprison zionists and paedos and castrate the paedos. She speculated that there might be a large overlap between paedos and zionists.
She lost because she is dopey. If she was a Republican plant she was a very poor one. Democrats have tried the same technique.
You really think she needed any Republican support to say stupid and crazy things to lose?
Nope. She did that all by herself.
The Republican support was to get that message out rather than ranting to no audience on a street corner like any MAGA or MAHA supporter does.