Stardate 20020827.0046

(On Screen): Certain states instituted programs to award merit scholarships to high school students in their states. The idea was to award the scholarships based on merit (which is why they're referred to as merit scholarships). Researchers from Harvard have now spent some time studying who the scholarships went to.

Merit-based state scholarships tend to benefit college students who are least likely to need them, and in some cases are widening enrollment gaps between white and minority students, according to a study of programs in four states.

The analysis of programs in Georgia, Florida, New Mexico and Michigan suggests states should weigh whether such programs meet their intended goals, said Gary Orfield, co-director of Harvard University's Civil Rights Project, which published the study.

The programs are intended to encourage in state college enrollment among top students across economic and social lines and to reward students who excel academically.

"The whole thing sounds so good, and nobody's going beneath the surface and looking at the aggregate effects of putting billions of dollars of aid into students who don't need it," Orfield said.

Harvard's researchers are cheating. They're using the patina of a scientific study to deliver political commentary. What Harvard's researchers discovered was that the administrators responsible for these programs were administering them honestly, and awarding the scholarships without regard to race or financial means, based on academic performance and test scores. That's what the Legislators said they wanted when the programs were set up, and that's apparently what the administrators have actually been doing.

Harvard says this is broken, but it sounds to me as if it's working as designed. And that's the point: it's not that these programs are broken, but rather that Harvard's researchers disagree with the goals of the programs.

They did their studies of recipients and discovered that since the poor and blacks did worse in school, they also got disproportionately fewer of the scholarships. Harvard's researchers think these programs should not be merit based, but rather be means-tested, and deliberately should seek out non-whites and the poor irrespective of their academic merit.

But that's a political opinion, not a scientific observation. They think that these programs should be changed, but their study doesn't do anything to prove that, because that's not susceptible to proof. Rather, this study is just an attempt to embarrass the leaders of the states with uncomfortable statistics:

Florida's lottery-funded Bright Futures program, which started in 1997, gives aid based on grade point average and standardized test scores.

According to the study, Florida's program also rewarded whites disproportionately. Whites made up 61 percent of students in 1998 but were 77 percent of aid recipients, while blacks made up almost 28 percent of students and got about 8 percent of aid.

In other words, they discovered that on average, Florida's blacks do worse in High School than Florida's whites. Yes, that's true. But this program isn't responsible for causing that, and changing this program won't alter that.

They've mischaracterized this: "also rewarded whites disproportionately". The program was actually color blind. It was giving the money to the kids with the highest scores. As it happens, because of the situation in Florida regarding how various kids do in school, it turned out that a disproportionately large number of the kids qualifying for these grants were white. But they weren't being rewarded for being white, they were being rewarded for doing well in school. They weren't being rewarded for being part of a group. They were being rewarded (if this is even a "reward", which is debatable) because they each, as individuals, studied hard and did well.

The Harvard researchers betray their attitude in this characterization:

Michigan's two-year-old Merit Award Scholarship Program, funded with money from the federal tobacco settlement, gives one-time grants of $2,500 to students who stay in-state, and $1,000 to students who go out of state or to private colleges.

Researchers found that Michigan's awards are not going to students who would most benefit: minorities who have been historically underrepresented in higher education. Blacks, who make up about 14 percent of the state's student population, received about 3.5 percent of the money awarded in 1999.

"most benefit". That's where their feigned scientific detachment cracks and their agenda shows through. Harvard's researchers think that kids with dark skin would most benefit. The states of Michigan, Florida and Georgia think smart kids would most benefit.

Yes, I know what the Harvard researchers think they mean: rich kids don't need scholarships because their parents can afford to send them to college without the help, but the poor are less able to go on their own without financial aid. Yes, I know. When they use the word "benefit", they mean financially.

But who says that's the only meaning of "benefit" which is relevant? These programs were indeed intended to give money to kids who would most benefit, but they meant benefit academically. If there is are a limited number of college positions to fill every year, are we as a nation better off sending someone who got straight-A's in high school to college, or someone who flunked out of high school? Which will actually absorb more knowledge from the experience? Which one's productivity and ability to contribute to the nation would be more greatly enhanced because of it?

The states of Michigan and Florida and Georgia all decided that it was a good thing to try to encourage the straight-A student to attend college, and because of that they decided that they didn't care what color his skin was, or how much money his parents made. They established these programs to be totally merit based, because it meant that they were treating the students as individuals..

The researchers disagree, and make the following proposals:

The study recommends expanding definitions of merit, putting income caps on the aid, and allowing students to receive both merit- and need-based aid.

Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, was not surprised by the report's findings.

What in hell does "expand the definition of merit" mean? Merit means doing well in school. What else could it include?

I'm quite certain I know. Here in California a few years ago (before I moved here) the citizens of the state passed an initiative forbidding the University of California from taking race into account when making admission decisions for the various campuses it administers. So now the University of California considers students on the basis of "merit", but for some students, one way of proving "merit" is by "surmounting life challenges". Guess what that turns out to mean? Hint: whites, as members of the privileged class, don't face any life challenges. (I'm expecting a major backlash from the voters on this, and the next time the initiative will say that admission shall be based solely on academic achievement and that no other criteria whatever shall be taken into account. Though I myself was not here to vote on that ballot initiative, I deeply resent the fact that those running UCal are deliberately and blatantly ignoring the clear intention expressed by the voters of this state.)

"We've taken the groups that are already succeeding, and saying we're going to divert our financial help to those folks," he said.

Aha! "groups!" That looks familiar. It's all about groups. They're concerned about groups. The idea is to seek out some groups to help.

I'm not a member of a group. I'm just a person. I'm myself, all alone here; I don't benefit when someone who lives on the other side of the continent gets a scholarship just because his skin is the same color as mine. There isn't any "secret fellowship of whites" with official membership cards (or if there is, no one has told me about it). We don't all get a cut from what everyone else receives. (Or if we do, someone needs to tell Bill Gates that I haven't gotten my share yet.)

My dad was an Electrical Engineer, who spent 20 years working for the Corps of Engineers in Portland, OR, helping to design the powerhouses for the all the dams in the Northwest. We were definitely well into the middle class; we were not suffering by any means. We had a nice house in the suburbs, which my dad built himself (and I mean swinging the hammer) and which he also designed himself (and I mean he drew the plans). We lived in a trailer house for two years while we worked on the place, and friends and my grandparents and my older brother helped (and I did, too, as much as a third or fourth grader can). My dad did all the electrical wiring on the place himself, rather than spend the money on electricians. He and my grandfather did the plumbing. We did all the carpentry.

We hired a mason to do the fireplace, and hired a bulldozer to dig the basement, and paid cement mixers to pour the foundations (into forms we built ourselves), but we did everything else. We had the walls of the house built and had put the roof on it, and then, on October 12, 1962, Portland got hit by the thousand year storm. It was a typhoon named Frieda, and it put 140 mile per hour winds through that area. And the winds picked up the roof, like a great big wing, and carried it about 200 feet and dropped it on the ground. After which my parents decided it was too dangerous to stay in the trailer, and we walked next door in the raging wind and asked them if we could stay the night. (Of course, they said yes. And we were far from the only people staying with them that night.)

So we tore it apart, and salvaged as much of the lumber in it as we could, and bought replacements for the rest, and four months later started putting the walls up again. And we did, and we finished it, and got a huge house for a really quite small amount of money by working damned hard for a long time and overcoming major adversities. That's the American dream: working hard, and getting rewards for it, and not giving up when things go really badly, and not expecting anyone else to bail you out. If you are really in major trouble, you ask for help, but if you can solve a problem yourself, you do. I learned a lot from watching my dad design and build that house. I learned a lot from that typhoon.

My dad died of cancer after a long illness (and two weeks in a coma) three weeks before I entered college, and the sum total of financial help I got from anyone while I was in college was $140 per month from the government. $35 of that was because my dad was a veteran, $105 of it was from his pension as a government employee. My mom didn't give me any help because she had none to give, nor did I expect her to. It was my education, and I was responsible for it, and responsible for paying for it. (I think she'd have helped if she could.) It would have been a lot easier if my dad had still been alive, but that's the kind of thing that happens in life. You have to keep going.

So I went to a state school (Oregon State University) instead of somewhere more glamorous, because it was the cheapest way I could get an education with the limited amount of money I'd saved working in a warehouse for year between high school and college, and even with that and with working part time jobs while in school and working summers, I ultimately dropped out of college when I finally ran out of money. That's why I have no degree, although I did get through 3.5 years and learned enough to start working as an engineer anyway. I'd sure have been able to use one of those $2500 scholarships; it would have permitted me to finish. But I got close, and was able to fill in the rest on my own while working, and I became a good engineer.

And I kept on learning, and kept on trying to improve myself, and kept on in the face of adversity (and I've had more than my share). That's what life is like. I don't expect any favors from anyone; it's my life and my responsibility. (And I have no intention of telling you about the adversity because I don't want any pity from anyone.)

As it turns out, the only reason I was able to get a college education was because of Oregon's merit-based subsidy. Only in this case it wasn't direct aid to me. The only reason I could afford college was because most of the expense of my education at Oregon State was paid for by the state of Oregon, and the reason I refer to it as "merit based" is because the students who benefited from it were the ones accepted by the University, which at that time (1973) made that decision almost exclusively based on SAT scores. They didn't turn students away because they were white or rich or "privileged" (nor because they were black or poor), nor did they charge anyone higher tuition because of those kinds of things. Everyone was judged as individuals solely on their test scores; and everyone paid the same. (Not quite: in-state students paid less than those from elsewhere. Their education was still subsidized, just not as much.) What you get out of college was entirely up to you, and I got a hell of a lot out of it. Were it not for that merit-based help, I could never have become an engineer. I could never have attended college at all. My savings going into college wouldn't have lasted six months in a private college without such a subsidy. I can't imagine what direction my life would have taken.

Of course, a different way to look at it is that the State of Oregon made an investment in me as a citizen of the state and future taxpayer. Applying a small amount of its tax revenues, it helped turn me into a highly-paid white collar worker who more than paid it back in increased income taxes. Oregon made a profit off me, and I benefited too. Seems to me that it was a good deal all around.

Harvard's researchers don't think so: I'm not good enough, because my skin is white. I'm a member of the privileged group; I neither need nor deserve any help. If I need help, I just pull out my membership card in the white-man's club.

Harvard has decided that because I'm white and my dad was professionally employed, the "group" I belong to wouldn't "benefit" from that kind of thing. It would be money wasted. A college education will fall on us in my group like cherry blossoms in spring, without any effort, as will life success and great achievement. We're already privileged; each individual among us is privileged because we belong to a group which is privileged. We're on the inside track. Success is assured; failure is impossible. Life will be easy.

Yeah, right. Sez who?

Harvard's researchers think that the money which the state has for this should be given to others who don't look like me, because people who look like me, people in my group, wouldn't benefit.

Get it straight: there are no groups. There are individuals, each of which has his own wishes, his own desires, his own problems and needs, and most importantly of all his own responsibility for his own future.

Everyone is different. All categorization of people into groups, for purposes of deciding how to treat them, is bigotry. And it doesn't matter who's doing it, or why. It's wrong. It's always wrong.

If you want more black kids to be awarded merit scholarships, go out into the cities and start encouraging those black kids to study harder while they're in high school so that they learn more, get better grades, and higher test scores. Tell them that studying is for their own benefit, and that it isn't "being white". But talk to them as individuals, don't talk to them as a group. Grouping someone is the worst thing you can do to them, no matter what color they are. Part of why a lot of black kids don't study now is because they think they're part of a group and that those in that group aren't supposed to study. So destroy that grouping, and all other groupings, and tell the kids that each of them is a group of one. Don't teach them to be proud of being black, teach them to be proud of being themselves.

If you want kids to do better, teach them that they bear responsibility for their own fate, and tell them that they are not entitled to anything for being part of a disadvantaged group. Teach them to work, not to complain. Teach them to try to make themselves better, not to feel sorry for themselves. Teach every kid that. When you tell any kid he's part of a group which is "disadvantaged" and that he deserves special rewards because he's disadvantaged, you're also teaching him that he doesn't actually have to take responsibility for his own life because others owe him, and that habit will carry through. Teaching people to think of themselves as victims is like hooking someone on heroin. Once they get used to entitlements, they never stop looking for the next one.

What you want, instead, is to teach him that he has exactly the same opportunity as anyone else, and that success or failure is entirely dependent on how hard he pushes himself. People who learn that lesson tend to do quite well in life, amazingly enough.

And then work to give everyone equal opportunity. NOT equal results, equal opportunity. Tell every kid to look out for himself, and then give all of them the same chance to excel, and the same chance to fail, and the same responsibility to recover from failure, and the same reward if they succeed. Reward effort and talent, not skin color or membership in a disadvantaged class.

I'm a big fan of the work ethic. I'm a big fan of rewarding people for what they do, instead of for what they are. I'm a big fan of evaluating people on merit, and treasuring our differences without being paralyzed by them. I'm a big fan of people taking responsibility for themselves. I'm a big fan of trying hard even when facing major adversity. I'm a big fan of putting a huge wooden stake right through the cult of the victim.

These programs treat the high school students as individuals, and give them money based on what they do and not on what they are. They're rewarding achievement, not self pity. I think these programs are outstanding and should not be changed in the slightest.

I'm a huge fan of having Harvard's researchers butt out of how the States decide to spend their own money.