Thursday, December 10, 2009
Affirmative?
I want to know if we think that the government was truly aiming to aid minorities when they began Affirmative Action. If we look at the facts presented before us, we know that in our nation there are a lot of underprivileged communities. These underprivileged communities have schools with far inferior funding to a lot of institutions in our Nation. These conditions are a large contributor to the disadvantages faced by minorities. If the government really wanted to solve these problems, wouldn't a better solution be to put money toward these schools that are struggling? Each year schools take tests to rank the proficiency of their students. Schools must meet certain criteria in order to gain their allotted funding. To me this seems to be the opposite of what should happen. If a school or area is struggling, they should receive more funding in order to increase the chances the students have at a better education. It seems to me that it could be argued that the government started affirmative action because it was the easiest solution: It is cheap, it looks like devotion to aiding minorities, but it doesn't help as many people as any number of programs could.
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I completely agree with you that Affirmative action was not the right course of action taken by the government to help minorities. By using Affirmative action the government is discriminating against whites from poor neighborhoods who score well on tests and have good grades. It is unfair to help one race out and then leave another one in the dark. Many of the whites that are being discriminated against come from poor neighborhoods and are forced to go to a lesser school though they have better scores. I believe whatever race someone is it does not matter and those with the best grades should be the ones who get the job or acceptance letter.
ReplyDeleteI agree that affirmative action was not the right thing to do. We need to do something to help the minority races, but this was not the best move. Too many times we see people taking advantage of this program set up by the government. As long as you "check the box" you are already at an advantage over most whites. It should be decided solely on qualifications and have nothing to do with your race.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mike. I feel like that is a point that is brought up a lot when Affirmative Action is discussed. Affirmative Action was supposed to help minorities,but by putting them at an advantage, it angered people even more. Anything should be decided on how qualified a person is, not just because they are of a certain race.
ReplyDeleteI agree that affirmative action may not be the best way to properly address the issues at hand. Affirmative action is a response to a problem, whereas politicians should focus on the problem itself, rather than creating a program to compensate. If struggling schools received money, the quality of education would surely increase and lead to higher test scores. However, the free rider debate comes into play. Say a school receives funding but does not improve their test scores. Do you continue to sink money into this school? Or would you rather reward a school with proficient test scores? The issue is not so black and white in my view.
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