Michigan State University Extension
Diversity and Pluralism - 11120161
12/95/
ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED047060 AUTHOR: Davis, Richard H.
TITLE: Compensatory Education - A Calculated Cop-Out.
YEAR PUBLISHED: 1970
NOTE: 5 p.; Speech given before the Annual Convention of
the Wisconsin Association of Collegiate Registrars and
Admissions Officers, October 16, 1970
ABSTRACT: As long as new programs based upon the
compensatory model are advocated, and demands are made that
the participants change to fit the programs, members of
minority cultures will suffer. Suitable alternates to
existing school admissions criteria would stop defining
students in terms of deficiencies, instead focusing upon
the positive aspects of each student's experiences and
integrating them into the curriculum. Further, admissions
standards would be free of any taint of middle-class
superiority. They would genuinely accept cultural
diversity, building upon positive elements in the community
involved.
They would respect the community's unique aspirations,
priorities, and values and would make the resources of the
university available to minority individuals and
communities, assisting them to develop positive solutions
to their particular problems. They would contain no "a
priori" assumptions about what skills are necessary to meet
the needs of those minority communities. The author states
that compensatory education is wrong, both morally and
practically--morally, because it destroys children and
cultures for no justifiable reason, and practically,
because it wastes the potential productivity of talented
people who are alienated by an inadequate educational
system.
(Author/JM)
KEY DESCRIPTORS: Black-Students; College-Curriculum;
Cultural-Pluralism; Higher-Education; Middle-Class-Culture;
Middle-Class-Standards; Minority-Groups; Program
Development; Spanish-Speaking
KEY DESCRIPTORS: *Admission-Criteria; *College-Admission;
*Compensatory-Education; *Relevance-Education; *School
Community-Relationship
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