Ergo Propter Hoc

The local NPR station reported yesterday that a recent study found most students are not ready for college course work. As a result these students have to take remedial classes. Since I work in the university environment this came as no real shock. What got me worked up was one of the assumptions the study made. There are less impoverished students in university remedial programs. In fact the study found that students from lower socio-economic groups seldom need as much remedial help as their wealthier counterparts. This, the study said, was proof that poorer secondary schools don't need more funding since these students are doing so well.

Ok kids, here is a good lesson in the type of faulty logic that perpetuates the myth that the poor are doing just fine and can raise themselves up by their own bootstraps. Consider the following:

1. Poor folk can't afford to go to college, so if they do make it to the university it is because they got there on a merit scholarship or because they know they can succeed. It isn't because their rich daddy is paying for their stupid ass to go to school.

2. There is a considerably smaller population of lower Socio-economic groups in the University setting so of course there would be a smaller number of them in remedial courses.