THOMPSON: Sorting Our Words

Jay Mathews did not write the headline, "Sorting Children into ‘Cannots’ and ‘Cans’ Is Just Racism in Disguise," but he did write, "the people I admire in our schools want to be teachers. Sorting, they say, is a new form of racism but subtler." He argued that AP teachers who defend prerequisites for their courses are "educational gatekeepers" with "an excuse for not doing their job, which is to teach." They "measure themselves by how many top students they have in their classes, not how many struggling students they help become better."

Mathews had previously questioned the advocates of mandatory 8^th grade algebra. His compromise was to "goad" middle schools by rating (sorting?) them in a way that "will cause a lot of stress," because "in public schools these days, a lack of stress is not always a good thing." So, the sorting inherent in NCLB-type accountability, or ranking the best high schools, is good if it is aimed at "leisure-loving primates (who) tend to slack off" in public schools.

But according to Mathews sorting based on the professional judgments of educators is the same "notion" that was also "used by defenders of slavery before the Civil War and of Jim Crow defenders." I would prefer to be accused of alcoholism by Frederick Hess. - John Thompson