There seems to be a lot of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in today’s news. First, this article from the Chicago Tribune. Can somebody please explain to me how this isn’t racist on the basis of disparate impact:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants Chicago public high school students to show they have a plan for what’s next before they can get a diploma.
Emanuel’s proposal would add one more big item to the graduation checklist for high school seniors: proof they’ve been accepted into college or the military, or a trade or a “gap-year” program. The requirement would also be satisfied if the student has a job or a job offer.
The point, the mayor said, is to get Chicago Public Schools students in all parts of the city to stop seeing high school graduation as an ending and get them to consider what’s next.
“Just like you do with your children, college, post-high school, that is what’s expected,” Emanuel said at a Wednesday morning news conference. “If you change expectations, it’s not hard for kids to adapt.”
This is as fine an example of cargo cult thinking as I’ve ever seen.
Presently, I frequently have reason to spend time at a company in which nearly everybody in the organization below the age of 50 has a masters degree or above. 40 years ago there would have been two differences:
- Nearly all of those jobs would have been held by people with no more than a high school diploma.
- The country of origin of the people holding the jobs.
The jobs haven’t changed that much. The prerequisites have. If you think that strong-arming Chicago students to pursue higher education or some sort of certification will brighten their futures, think again. It won’t do them a bit of good.
Yeah, Millennials overwhelmingly, with or without degrees, understand they have been cheated and lied to. Don’t blame em they got played by colleges and have no hope whatsoever, even bankruptcy is shut off from them.