One, I think you're missing the point intentionally on the matter of testing. Why do critics say tests like the SAT are racist? Because the people who do well on them are not the smartest people, but the people who can afford to do the most prep for it. There is an entire industry of people who get paid to do nothing bu…
One, I think you're missing the point intentionally on the matter of testing. Why do critics say tests like the SAT are racist? Because the people who do well on them are not the smartest people, but the people who can afford to do the most prep for it. There is an entire industry of people who get paid to do nothing but prepare you for the SAT. I know, I was one of the kids who had to deal with it. But I did good on the SAT's. But if the test is not judging your smarts, but how much money you have, then it just acts as a way to keep poor people down. It's not weeding out the smart. It's weeding out the poor. Guess who are more likely to be poor in America? People of color! Where racial critiques come in is when they draw lines between this and things like poll testing of reading skills: if you grow up in a poor area with poor schools, you'll likely do poorer on the SATs. That's not an indictment of your smarts. But given conservatives really want to dismantle the public education system and replace it with private schools, so they can drain all the money from it, as they have in much of the South, it becomes a racial issue. In other words, if you oppose affirmative action because you think it's a way for people who don't deserve to get ahead to get ahead, then you should be against things like the SAT, which do the exact same thing for rich people.
As for Ukraine, the problem is twofold. One, that the major military power that handles EU security is not interested in fighting Russia over Ukraine, and two, that this is paired with the EU not being willing to have a standing army all its own to defend European interests, because we the US have enjoyed not having European competition since the end of WW2. It was nice to have them as secondary satellite states to our great power. But now, Europe is threatened and we're not interested.
And the core of all that is Germany, who is so traumatized by the past, and for good reason, that they don't want to remilitarize. In some ways, the US being more aggressive would be good, because once the EU militarizes we can't hold that over them anymore. But it's going to happen. Either that, or the EU will fracture and we'll go back to great power competition between the nations, which would be bad.
Couple of things.
One, I think you're missing the point intentionally on the matter of testing. Why do critics say tests like the SAT are racist? Because the people who do well on them are not the smartest people, but the people who can afford to do the most prep for it. There is an entire industry of people who get paid to do nothing but prepare you for the SAT. I know, I was one of the kids who had to deal with it. But I did good on the SAT's. But if the test is not judging your smarts, but how much money you have, then it just acts as a way to keep poor people down. It's not weeding out the smart. It's weeding out the poor. Guess who are more likely to be poor in America? People of color! Where racial critiques come in is when they draw lines between this and things like poll testing of reading skills: if you grow up in a poor area with poor schools, you'll likely do poorer on the SATs. That's not an indictment of your smarts. But given conservatives really want to dismantle the public education system and replace it with private schools, so they can drain all the money from it, as they have in much of the South, it becomes a racial issue. In other words, if you oppose affirmative action because you think it's a way for people who don't deserve to get ahead to get ahead, then you should be against things like the SAT, which do the exact same thing for rich people.
As for Ukraine, the problem is twofold. One, that the major military power that handles EU security is not interested in fighting Russia over Ukraine, and two, that this is paired with the EU not being willing to have a standing army all its own to defend European interests, because we the US have enjoyed not having European competition since the end of WW2. It was nice to have them as secondary satellite states to our great power. But now, Europe is threatened and we're not interested.
And the core of all that is Germany, who is so traumatized by the past, and for good reason, that they don't want to remilitarize. In some ways, the US being more aggressive would be good, because once the EU militarizes we can't hold that over them anymore. But it's going to happen. Either that, or the EU will fracture and we'll go back to great power competition between the nations, which would be bad.
Please...taking a SAT/AP prep course isn't going to magically make you get a 1500+ on the tests.