The Language Police: The New Meaning of Bias

We shall continue our reading of The Language Police by Diane Ravitch. We shall further explore why the board recommended such bizarre standards, continuing on from our prior discussion.

As Veylon has pointed out, the primary motivations seem to boil down to career advancement & the common mentality that one must fix whatever is not broken, or else one is useless. However, as Ravitch observes, there are other forces at play here as well. She was absolutely perturbed that “the bias and sensitivity reviewers saw insult in words and ideas that most people would find unexceptional.” (Ravitch, pg 19) So what else was going on?

A big one was a concern over “bias”.

This was not in reference to bigotry or willful denial of reality in favor of cultural lenses or personal passions, as “bias” often means when most people use it. Bias apparently is meant to mean “the presence of something in a test item that would result in different performance ‘for two individuals” of the same ability but from different subgroups’.” (Ravitch, pg 20). This is why the blind mountain climber story was recommended to be removed, because he was on a mountainside, a biome that a lot of American children are not familiar with on a personal level, & therefore it was perceived to be far too difficult a question for a child to tackle.

This definition of “bias” seems to play a heavy hand in the gradual dumbing down of American education, to make tests as universally easy as possible. However, speaking as somebody who has had some personal experience with some such tests, I actually found them all the more difficult, because the material was so boring & bland that it was difficult to memorize. Unfamiliar things often stood out to me because they were unusual, therefore, I didn’t forget them. This is the kind of thing that makes it critically important to use education to expand upon a child or adolescent’s perception of the world, rather than condense it into something else.

Another problem was topics that were banned for supposedly being likely to upset children. These topics included:

“Someone being fired or losing their job

Rats, mice, roaches, snakes, lice

Cancer or other serious illnesses

Death

Catastrophes such as earthquakes and fires (natural events like tornados or hurricanes may be okay if the context is not too frightening)

Unncessary violence (reference to guns or knives is forbidden except in a historical context)

Gratuituous gore, like animals eating other animals

Serious social problems, like poverity, alcoholism, divorce, or addiction of any kind

Slavery or racial prejudice” (Ravitch, pgs 22-23)

The “logic” of fairness leads us into other difficult places as well. “One is by ‘representational fairness’, another is by reviewing ‘language usage’, an a third is by removing ‘stereotypes’.” Of these, only the last of them makes sense, & yet sadly as we shall soon see, the ‘stereotypes’ is not merely to avoid ‘Little Black Sambo” territory.

A major source of educational cirruculi is Riverside Publishing, which has set up guidelines for such publications. Their definition of representational fairness is to mean “that no group will be overrepresented or underrepresented” (Ravitch, pg 24). Literally everything they published for years following the 1990s had equal numbers of males & females, & there is nothing on their tests relating to potential regional bias, like there is no snow on tests for students in the Southeastern USA, as apparently they believe that it never snows there, so they avoid showing snow in cirriculi they are to be tested on, so that they can pass tests easily.

Having once lived in Virginia, I can tell you that it can indeed snow there & this standard is utterly ludicrous.

Language usage “refers to the specific words in a test passage or test question” (Ravitch, pg 25), & this is especially difficult, as according to the bias guidelines of Riverside Publishing, you can’t say “man in the street” or “salesman”, you can only say “the average citizen” or “sales representative”. You can’t say “the blind”, you have to say “people who are blind”. You can’t say “wheelchair bound”, you can only say “person who uses a wheelchair”. You even can’t have “a victim of polio” in Riverside cirriculi, you can only have “a person who had polio.”

As for stereotypes, this issue transcends avoiding demeaning depictions of minorities. The stereotypes being avoided are:

Emotional stereotypes: it is now forbidden in Riverside cirriculi to have “men are portrayed as strong and brave, while women are portrayed as weepy and emotional.” (Ravitch, pg 26) Instead, you must do the reverse.

Occupational stereotyping: if you are contributing to Riverside cirriculi, you must not be found guilty of “showing people in roles that are commonly experienced in reality, because opponents of stereotyping hope to change perceptions in convention by not permitting them to be portrayed.” (Ravitch, pg 26) That means no Irish policemen, no Asian laundromats, & no black maids.

Activities stereotyping: “It is activities stereotyping to show men playing sports or working with tools.” (Ravitch, pg 27) This one speaks largely for itself.

Role stereotyping: “Asian Americans should not be shown as acedemics; African Americans should not be portrayed as athleetes; Caucasians should not be portrayed as businesspeople; men should not be portrayed as breadwinners; women should not be portrayed as wives and mothers” (Ravitch, pg 27) Again, this one largely speaks for itself.

…& many, many more…

Fortunately, not everybody follows these strict guidelines, but many of them do. In fact, “Riverside cites guidelines issued by other test publishers.” (Ravitch, pg 30). This has contributed to a severe narrowing of topics from which children can learn.