2012 Liberal Jackass Quotes of the Year - #10

Kathleen Shanahan (Florida State Board of Education Chairwoman)

"We have set a very high goal for all students to reach in Florida."

Fantastic!  All children should have the expectation of learning at the highest levels when it comes to core subjects - particularly reading and math.

"The board passed a revised strategic plan that says that by 2018, it wants 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of black students to be reading at or above grade level.  For math, the goals are 92 percent of Asian kids to be proficient, whites at 86 percent, Hispanics at 80 percent and blacks at 74 percent." - CBS Tampa

Talk about "the soft bigotry of low expectations." - George W. Bush

I don't know how anyone can say this plan isn't a way of proclaiming Asian children are smarter than white children, who are smarter than Hispanic children, who are smarter than black children...It's also a sad comment on the expectation of these children when they become adults, because if it's accepted to fail at such high levels when it comes to education, these groups must be expected to fail in adulthood at equal levels.

But revising the grading curves by defining education down is the ultimate form of affirmative action, so it must be good...It's also flat out racist, and does much more to hurt Hispanics and blacks - and whites, and Asians - than it does to help them.

And let's keep in mind this isn't a 'minority' thing, because Asians are by far more of a minority in the U.S. than blacks and Hispanics are.