On social promotion:

The NYT has an article on ending social promotion in NY schools. I'm not a big fan of social promotions, but one sentiment in the article struck me as false.

"Ending social promotion makes a statement that mediocrity is no longer acceptable," [chief of Chicago schools Arne Duncan] said. "I think that's a critically important statement for urban school districts."

Why should mediocrity not be acceptable? The fact is, that every kid that graduates from Chicago Public Schools isn't necessarily going to go to Harvard or go to college at all. Honestly, if striving for mediocrity means that every graduate of a public high school can read at least a tenth grade level, and can do basic algebra and geometry, is that really such a bad thing?

I'm not advocating that schools end programs for gifted students or AP classes or anything like that. But ending social promotion doesn't claim that mediocrity isn't acceptable; it claims that failure will not be tolerated. And that's fine, and a good goal and all that. But that's all it means.

And I sort of feel like, by definition, mediocrity will exist. It's the state of most people. We can raise the bar, but the higher bar will still just be mediocre. Most people aren't going to be that far from the average, and that's fine and normal and the definition of average.

Anyway, I really need to go study for an exam right now, because for all my talk about mediocrity being OK, I'd rather not get a C in this class. Ah, hypocrisy...