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Health & Fitness

A Most Disappointing Rebuttal

Mark Gardner, one of my most trusted colleagues at Mainstream Republicans of Washington, sent me a Wall Street Journal article from the May 13th that is a rebuttal of the U. S. News article that was the basis of my two earlier postings.  Written by Dr. Stephen Thernstrom & Dr. Abigail Thernstrom, both of whom have excellent credentials; it is entitled, “Brown at 60: An American Success Story”.  The Thernstroms start off by suggesting that liberals never see any good news about race.  That may well be true, as the liberal world relies upon convincing their supporters that things will not get better until the next wave of solutions is implemented.  If they don’t sell that approach, who’s going to be interested in the “next wave of solutions”, or the politicians who are selling them. 

 

The Thernstroms seem to be responding to the writings of one Gary Orfield about the topic of "resegregation of public schools" and the role that charter schools & testing regimes have in exacerbating that problem.  Now, Mr. Orfield is not quoted in any of my postings.   I shall have to go back an check if he was quoted in any of the many citations from the article I was using.  But, several things in the Thernstroms’ article jumped right out at me.

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One, the U. S. News article I was using was replete with citations that allowed the reader to go back and check facts.  The Thernstroms’ article had not one single citation, leaving the reader with the impression that they were supposed to take the Thernstroms’ word for the accuracy of their comments.  

 

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Two, without offering any preamble, the Thernstroms attack Gary Orfield as the “go-to-guy on race and education” for the liberal left; implying that he’s a shill.  Now, that might even be accurate, but to launch a supposedly scholarly article with an unsubstantiated attack does not instill confidence.

 

Third, the Thernstroms acknowledge that “74% of black and 80% of Hispanic students” are enrolled in schools where minorities are the majority.  Then later they say that “schools that are heavy black or Hispanic enrollment are not “segregated”.  For that to be true, we would have to ignore the concept of “de facto segregation”, which is at the heart of this issue. 

 

Lastly, the Thernstroms make the stunning and unsubstantiated claim that “Brown v. Board has been fulfilled” and “Nothing resembling the Jim Crow South has emerged and never will.”   In saying this, they are contradicting many sources that agree with Orfield.   And, how they can so confidently predict the future is difficult to grasp.

 

It may well be that some or all of what the Thernstroms have said has merit.  But they provide us with nothing to substantiate their claims.  For someone of their background, that is most disappointing rebuttal.  
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