"Lets Pretend We're All The Same" Is A Terrible Educational Strategy
Chester E. Fink writes in the WSJ of an assault by "progressives" on high schools with selective admissions.

I think it ultimately works out (as he points out) as an assault on the very kids they profess to be motivated to help, when kids who might've made it in ordinary high schools fail out of really tough schools they're brought into to "even out" the racial mix.

Fink:

The ruckus began in New York, where admission to nine of the city's hundreds of high schools is governed by the eighth-grader' scores on a specialized admission test. Topping the list are Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, and there's no denying that they're full of Asian and white kids, many from low-income and middle-class families. This has raised hackles for decades, but Mayor Bill de Blasio and his schools chancellor have recently pushed to make the admissions process more "equitable." They want to reserve places for black and Latino children, abolish the entry exam, and instead admit top students from every middle school in the city.

But is every middle school churning out eighth-graders with the requisite skills and knowledge to succeed at Bronx Science? Are all children who make good grades eager, motivated learners ready to make the most of what these high-powered schools have to offer?

Instead of repairing the elementary and middle schools attended by poor and minority kids so that more of them will be prepared for places like Stuyvesant, and creating more such schools for bright children from every background to get a top-notch education, New York's equity seekers are pressing to reallocate an extremely scarce resource. Mr. de Blasio and colleagues overlook the educational tragedies that the city's schools routinely inflict on so many of the girls and boys they claim to be looking after.

Fink winds up with this:

It is the job of schools to create opportunities for all young people, regardless of background, to make the most of themselves. Teachers can encourage the kid with a gleam in her eye to take harder classes. They can spot the shy 8-year-old from a troubled home who loves to read and hustle him into a program for gifted students. They can't overcome every innate difference or compensate for every disadvantage at home. But the best of today's charter schools, such as New York's Success Academy, show that a lot can be overcome.

The progressive assault on education in the name of equity ends up denying smart kids from every background the kind of education that will assist them to make the most of their abilities. That denies America human capital for a robust economy, while keeping a fraught society from producing the opportunities that allow true equity to flourish.

The desire to pretend we're all the same, and that some people aren't just smarter or more talented than others in certain areas, ultimately hurts both the overpromoted and the underfostered, both of whom would be victims of this approach.