Mr. Roush
10 English H
18 November 2013
Argumentative Response on Don’t lower the bar on education standards The general argument made by Leonard Pitts Jr., in his work, Don’t lower the bar on education standards, is that states are trying to fix education by lowering their expectations per certain group of students. More specifically, he argues that they’re creating separate and unequal performance standards for their black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and disabled children. He writes, “Florida set a goal of having 86 percent of white kids at or above grade level by 2018. For black kids, the goal is 74 percent.” In this passage, he is suggesting that schools are wrongly establishing lower education standards and are even varying the standards between races. In conclusion, Pitts’ belief is that this “reverse racism” gives kids of minorities the mistaken idea that they carry some inherent deficiency that renders them unable to compete with other kids on an equal playing field. Pitts is right, because it is wrong to lower standards to make students appear smarter. More specifically, setting different standards for different ethnic groups is also infuriating. For example, an analogy Pitts’ used was that athletic directors have noticed a decline in white kids going out for basketball. They feel like they can’t compete with the black kids. What if we addressed that by lowering the rim for white kids? This analogy displays a situation similar to that of the education standards. Overall, no one wants to know that they are inferior at something just because of their race. Therefore, in conclusion, Pitts makes a wonderful argument on why lowering these standards is wrong. Ultimately, they can’t fix education by lowering the bar. They must do it by lifting the students.
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