OK, so in an effort to increase access to vocational schools, the education department has declared that vocational schools do not have to consider grades, attendance, disciplinary history or guidance counselor reccommendations for determining entry into a vocational school. Instead, they are supposed to develop what the state calls “data-informed admissions policies.”
This is because, unsurprisingly, the woke police assert that “those four criteria tend to favor students already destined to go to college, while harming students of color, English language learners, and those with disabilities, depriving them of the opportunity to learn technical skills necessary in a rapidly evolving economy.” Well, if the student is already “destined” to go to college, then they aren’t going to be applying to a vocational school anyway. So this certainly seems like a phony BS justification.
The change is also “aimed at making the student populations of vocational schools more closely reflect the demographics of their local school districts.” Put another way, if those demographics are that 50% of the district population is black, then by golly there’s been discrimination if the demographics at the local vocational school isn’t 50% black.
OK. So if they don’t have to consider grades, or consider attendance, or consider disciplinary history, or consider guidance counselor recommendations, what exactly is left to consider? How about aptitude? Oops. If that requires a test of some sort, then that’s certainly a non-starter since all tests are racially biased. And if it requires some sort of subjective assessment, then that’s racist too since there aren’t any standards.
Well, the demographic statement above, we think, is the complete answer to what is there to consider, though no one will admit it. There will be no “standards” other than maniacally sorting out applicants into black, white, ESL learners, disabled, hispanic, asian, etc., groups, and then making sure that successful applicants reflect the “demographics.”
So, for instance, you end up with 50 slots for blacks, 50 for whites, 50 for ESL, etc. And then the only question is which 50 blacks get accepted if more than 50 apply, and so forth. Sounds like legally forbidden quotas to us, but we’re white so obviously that’s just our white privilege speaking.