common core / affirmative action, 2/23/2013 note

Is "common core" the socioeconomic factor designed to make Affirmative Action unnecessary?  

       I recently made an appeal for diversity as a state to maintain in a nation... a diversity of histories, beliefs, and including educational curriculum and methods, and such. It occurs to me there is a slight problem with that. That inevitably there are confrontations with what some will define as discrimination or even "evil". Two cases in point would be neo-nazism within a presumed democratic society and then the horrendous mistreatment of women in some cultures where it has been the norm. Can we in fact live peacefully with these facts. Could it be that certain cultural developments exist to more to deny diversity or opportunity and therefore must be forcibly dealt with in order to preserve the continuity of diversity and opportunity for all. But wait, what does opportunity have do with diversity?

Indeed if beliefs and conditions were the same for everyone perhaps we might find it difficult to define or even recognize opportunity... or worse opportunity would only seem like the dissolution of stability. Therein I believe is the crux of the problem for extremist groups such as racists and misogynists. Diversity and opportunity threaten their already weakened sense of stability from outside their point of view, but threaten to deny them their self-preserving absolutist beliefs from inside their point of view.

The test it would seem then is to ask just how much dialogue will it take to persuade these groups that their own belief is their only true undoing, before the rest of the "free" world feels obliged to, as I said, intervene. Do we jeopardize our claim to democracy when we intervene in other nations to fight such extremisms and inhumane events, or is this proof a provision is required? How many of "us" will it require to justify such "police actions"? What is the critical mass for such exceptions to our general rule of equal freedom? 55%, 75%, 99% ? How do we compare fruit with the tree?

And speaking of allowing for diversity, and not merely as a side note, this very problem is exposed in the Supreme Court's 2002 (no. 02-241) oral argument Grutter v. Bollinger, wherein the problem of maintaining a proper diversity of students butts up against the individual rights of given excluded students through a "cloud[y]" (Justice Scalia) definition of what is a proper ratio for accepting applicants without it becoming a quota and therefore racial discrimination.

So I guess the question I beg here is just how much commoness do we aspire to in any endeavor and when does it become coercive, unjust and contrary to the individual pursuits of our children and the unique talents of our teachers. Or perhaps I am asking isn't "common core" just a disguise for simply trying to increase the numbers of graduates without any real concern for what the students are gaining from their education. Does common core promote at all a diversity of critical thinking methods and resultant ideas?

Standards promote token numbers, not real excellence or innovation. As Justice Scalia puts it, we're "into quota land!" (The above "cloud" reference BTW was from the more recent Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin wherein Justice Scalia off-handedly (?) suggests the use of "cloud" to supplant the use of "critical mass"; and "quotaland" is from Grutter...)

...so, are we merely stigmatizing, marginalizing individual excellence for the sake of the appearance that all is well and fair for the previously marginalized in American education. Does flattening the curve by reducing the depth of education help anybody excel, or merely feel at one with the rest of mediocrity? Is common core the socioeconomic factor designed to make Affirmative Action unnecessary? If so it does all a disservice.

But more importantly, shackling primary school teachers to standardization will not at all guarantee advance opportunities after enrollment in college later on. So in the mean time, until we do address shallow primary education, the aspirations for and definitions of "diversity" and opportunity will continue to pose an ethical, much less a constitutional problem.