True enough in the specific. But in the general, it's not where you want to place your bet. The vast majority of test takers who score low do so because they lack aptitude or effective study skills--or both.
Look, anyone can script anecdotal, fictional candidates who score 350 on the SAT but are budding Colin Powells who heroically and successfully raised their six siblings in extreme poverty next door to a meth house because mom was dead and dad was in prison for killing her. It's hard to say there isn't a place in the officer ranks for someone who demonstrates extraordinary self-discipline and a sense of duty and personal responsibility. But is that really what we're talking about here? Or are we talking about kids who score low on standardized tests because they lack aptitude or effective study skills--or both--whose heroism really amounts to their growing up in poverty, which inspires feelings of shame and guilt in those who did not? If we pretend they are just as qualified as the candidates who score 700, who have worked diligently at their studies, do we not do them--and America--a disservice?
Notice that I made no mention of race. But race is the constant subtext here. I would be willing to bet that most persons reading the paragraph above were envisioning a black candidate when I described the low performing candidate. But let the low achieving, impoverished candidate be Scots-Irish red-haired ruddy-faced freckled kid from Appalachia, and do you think Admirals Mullen and Roughead would give even a half-second of sympathetic consideration? Would you? I highly doubt it. But let the candidate be black or Hispanic, and suddenly we're moving him to the head of the line. I think that's the point of the article that headed this thread.
That, my friends, is racism. And it is unacceptable.
