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Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

The war on admissions testing is one of the worst education trends. I couldn’t believe it when it was first proposed, but I was even more shocked when the trend started to spread.

It does appear to be reversing a little bit in some places as schools realize they were fooled by people pushing ideology over data and results, but it’s going to take a while.

For those who aren’t in the loop: There’s an ideological push to eliminate testing, aptitude tests, and even to eliminate different educational tracks (accelerated learning programs, AP classes, advanced math tracts) in the name of pursuing equality for everyone. The idea of testing people for aptitude or allowing some students to go into more advanced classes than others is not allowed by some ideologically-driven people who think all students must be given strictly equal education at every grade level.

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It goes deeper. The problem lies at the source.

> people pushing ideology

University Education programs and as a result teaching bodies have been taken over by ideology.

I believe it is in part because all the teaching low hanging fruit has been established for centuries. So the only 'novel' things the programs can do is talk about discrimination, disparate outcomes and hand-wavey ideas about improving education. The departments have some of the lowest bars for academic professorship and as a result, the quality of research is similarly bad -> terrible.

The war on phonics is the canonical example.

The fault doesn't lie with 'people'. The above mentioned institutions are squarely at fault for making education ideological, and they should explicitly be blamed for the deterioration in student performance.

The sad thing is that I saw that standardized tests were being blamed based on a certain ideology, when the proponents of the ideology should've realized that their own goals are better served by using standardized tests.

It shouldn't be controversial, and in some sense it isn't (in another sense it is, because people confuse themselves), that everyone should be given the opportunity to develop and perform at their full potential. I could name multiple different ideologies that oppose this in some way, though.

I wonder if college administrators are using discrimination as an excuse to decrease standards to increase number of students, which then increases their pay and job security. It is well known that not only did number of young people peak, but also that outside of the top 20 or so, college is nowhere near worth the tuition prices.

The only other option is for college administrators to be disturbingly stupid.

> increase number of students, which then increases their pay and job security ...

Someone who knows how the world works! Qui bene --

https://ucsdguardian.org/2025/09/29/uc-regents-greenlight-uc...

> The expansion anticipates 13,600 new students in the next 15 years

Kurt Vonnegut saw this trend emerging back in 1961:

https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...

There's a charming TV movie adaptation of this story.

Imagine still will be all the advanced tracks but will be only reserved for those with the resources to afford it and seemingly further the divide.

I don’t think it is about resources. Growing up in 3rd world country I have zero resources. It is the drive of student and higher standards from parents and teachers that matters. Everybody is just getting soft.

> I don’t think it is about resources. Growing up in 3rd world country I have zero resources.

In America many parents do have resources, though, and they will spend those on private schools, tutoring, or home schooling.

> It is the drive of student and higher standards from parents and teachers that matters.

These proposals restrict the teachers and disallow teaching advanced subjects to students with drive to learn them.

You can’t say it’s up to the students and teachers while also holding back the students and restricting the teachers.

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