The Failure of Social Engineering

“Social Engineering Drag on Upward Mobility” is the title of a “letter to the editor” on 5/27/05 in the WSJ in answer to a WSJ Editorial on 5/13/05, titled “Moving Up; Challenges to the American Dream” that speculated on a variety of reasons to explain the widening of the rich-poor gap and the stalling of upward mobility in the U.S. But the “elephant in the room” was ignored. Since the 1960’s, trillions of dollars have been funneled into the “war on poverty,” a major change in the U.S. sociological landscape. The missteps along the way are too numerous to recount here.”

The letter talks about a “slavish dedication to” achievement of equal outcome. In most of our schools we have social promotion, grade inflation (read the book, Freakonomics)”, dumbing down education and allowing “in your face students” to remain in the same classrooms as achievers. The first generation of mishandled children has now reached adulthood with disastrous results for our future. (Read Myron Magnet"s book “The Dream and the Nightmare”). One in every 32 adults in the U.S. was being bars or on probation of parole at the end of 2001, with a record of 6.6 million people in the nations correctional system. (If someone has the figures thru 2003 or 2004 please add these figures to the bottom of this blog).

Another article dated 5/27/05, says” Despite the spread of affirmative action, the expansion of community colleges and other social change designed to give people of all classes a shot at success, Americans are no more likely to rise above or fall below, their parents” economic class than they were 35 years ago. To the contrary, low wage individuals have less of an incentive to work if the link between wages and merit is diluted”.

Another good book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins says what happens to under- achievers when they reach the marketplace. He writes “the only way to deliver to the people, who are achieving, is NOT to burden them with people who are not achieving. Create an environment where hard working people will thrive and lazy people will leave or get removed”. (I understand that you can’t remove lazy kids from public schools but I will guarantee you they will be removed from the private industry workforce. So will the disruptive ones. Not so sure about all the public workforces where the unions are stronger and feel they must represent both good and bad workers).

I recently was invited to participate in a program for public school planning to achieve greater success with both students and their families. I told those present that schools had to be run like a successful business model. There seemed to be general agreement. When I was elected to the County Board in 2000, I said the same thing. Most board members agreed and our businesslike approach is paying off.

Public school administrators must stop running schools like welfare and social agencies. Community leaders seem to be finally realizing that the systems created by “social engineers”, are not working and have not worked for many years. Too many public schools are not turning out a product that is or will be accepted by the private sector in the U.S. Look for more immigrants, legal or illegal, in our workforces and more and more outsourcing to countries but where the people are poor but have learned a responsible work ethic. They are not used to being bailed out by welfare programs such as we have in the U.S. However; as these 3rd world countries develop, their industry will need America less and less.

And yes, Bill Cosby and Ward Connerly are mostly correct; Mr. Connerly has long understood what is going on with the abuse of affirmative action and Mr. Cosby is just a little late in coming forward.

Wake up Americans!! I have long seen a steady slide to socialism in our country and this slide appears to be escalating.

And please don’t tell me that we need safety nets for the unfortunate; of course we do. We just need to widen the spaces between the webbing of these safety nets. This country does not owe the poor who can learn and work, these “poor” owe this country for the fact they were born in a country that offers more opportunity than any country in the world.