London, GB | Formerly of New York, Buenos Aires, Fife, and the Western Cape. | Saoránach d’Éirinn.

Public Elitism

The Manhattan Institute‘s splendid City Journal of Spring 1999 carried an article worth a read entitled ‘How Gotham’s Elite High Schools Escaped the Leveller’s Ax’ on the few quality public schools left in the City of New York and how they managed to stem the tide of egalitarian senselessness.

Egalitarianism is one of the most morally repugnant of all ‘Englightenment’ ideas. To look upon success, label it “unfair” or “racist”, and then demand that, as a sacrifice to the false-goddess Equality, all must fail. It is the typical socialist formula that it is better that all wallow in poverty rather than only some (or even many but not all) succeed.

So a number of these high schools have survived. It is perhaps even more of a shame that none of the colleges did. City College was once known as “the poor man’s Columbia”. The quality of education at both City College and Columbia fell as a result of the cultural revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s. Columbia, for the most part free from the fetters of state intervention, never hit rock bottom and in many ways remains a quality institution, despite the highly politicized and racialized nature of many of its students and faculty. City College, however, went into freefall. Admission was thrust open to anyone who had graduated from a New York public high school, which coincided with the lowering of graduation requirements by these high schools. Thus you had students who could barely read and almost certainly could not write attending an institution which prided itself on its many Nobel laureates.

It is testament to the levelling zeal of the angry left that not even one college, not even one, within the entire City University of New York was allowed to maintain high standards of academic achievement. They will tear down with savage avarice the highest ideals of civilization to quench their destructive thirst. And these are colleges which for decades had been the ticket to freedom and success for hundreds and thousands of economically-disadvantaged New Yorkers. (Imagine if they had gotten their hands on the independent places of learning!). No wonder there are so many stupid people in New York these days.

But at least the high schools are still there, and calls for their emasculation are now few and far between. True, they are not ideal, but can we realistically expect a government-tethered school to be as such? Of course not. We should be glad that there remain at least a handful of public academies of high standards in New York available to all – rich, poor, and anywhere in between – based purely on merit.

Published at 1:36 pm on Thursday 4 August 2005. Categories: Journal New York Tags: .
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