Den artonårige studenten Justin Hudson chockade föräldrar, lärare och utbildningsvärlden genom att i sitt avgångstal kritisera elitskolan Hudson College i New York som han lämnade. Efter ett försiktigt tackande och hyllande talar han om skuld (länk till NY times):

However, ladies and gentlemen, more than happiness, relief, fear or sadness, I feel a very strong emotion that I cannot ignore today. More than anything else, today I feel guilty.

I feel guilty because I don’t deserve any of this. And neither do any of you. We received an outstanding education at no charge based solely on our performance on a test we took when we were eleven year olds, or four year olds. We received superior teachers and additional resources based on our status as “gifted”, while kids who naturally needed those resources much more than us wallowed in the mire of a broken system. And now, we stand on the precipice of our lives, in control of our lives, based purely and simply on luck and circumstance.

If you truly believe that the demographics of Hunter represent the distribution of intelligence in this city, then you must believe that the Upper West Side, Bayside and Flushing are intrinsically more intelligent than the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Washington Heights, and I refuse to accept that. It is certainly not Hunter’s fault that socioeconomic factors inhibit the educational opportunities of some children from birth, and in some ways I forgive colleges and universities that are forced to review eighteen year-olds, the end results of a broken system. But, we are talking about eleven year-olds. Four year-olds. We are deciding children’s fates before they even had a chance. We are playing God, and we are losing. Kids are losing the opportunity to go to college or obtain a career, because no one taught them long division or colors. Hunter is perpetuating a system in which children, who contain unbridled and untapped intellect and creativity, are discarded like refuse. And we have the audacity to say they deserved it, because we’re smarter than them.

Talet mottogs med blandade känslor av lärarlag och styrelse. Det ser ut som om rektorn Ms Copolla tvingats avgå:

Reading from a statement, Dr. Coppola, who was the principal for two years, said Ms. Raab told her in late May that she seemed to resent the senior staff at the college. She was told to consider whether the job was a good fit.

Vi behöver prata om tester och sortering i skolvärlden. Starka krafter arbetar för att upprätthålla bilden av att det är ett rättvist och effektivt sätt att organisera utbildning.