The peoples, populations, and areas that are most forgotten in the US have
the highest rates of death, abortion, early death, infectious disease,
poverty, ignorance, health care costs, insurance costs, welfare costs,
prisons, and inefficiency.

There is no better example than Washington DC which leads in most of these
categories. DC also has the highest percentage at the extremes of wealth,
health, power, and income. That 5 - 15% of the population chooses to leave
DC each decade gives a sense of what happens when people ignore people.

We can be divided by any of these statistics or we can be united by
emphasis on basic inequities involving education, health, economics, and
other factors.

A focus on making people aware is a better focus, such as a efforts to
expose the bogus focus on standards at all levels of the Bush
administration, but this is also a focus of the top 30% in income level as
well. Standards keep the top 30% of children in the best colleges and gain
them entry to law school, medical school, government, and more.

At age 5 - 7 the early testing fixes a place for children in the pecking
order. Those who were born to professionals and higher income types have
significant advantages. They use this to stay on top with little relative
effort, always competitive but not focused on being the best. All the way
through school and college they use this advantage, and then medical school
hits them. Their performance on the MCAT reflects their potential, since
they have had every advantage of income and education and family influence.
The MCAT is a poor measure of those who are different, because they are
different and because they have been disadvantaged at every level by
income, education, and testing. In fact, those who manage to overcome the
barriers of income and education are likely to be much more, since they
could never rest from their quest to be the best. They have been catching
up since age 5. They are entering medical school at age 26 and 27 when most
students are graduating from medical school, but they are very different.
Those who are older are wiser and experienced and enter medical school
knowing what they want to do. Those who are younger are still not sure
about what a career in medicine is about, even after 4 years in medical
school. Those who are older have had a lifetime of catching up that has
shaped them, but they have yet to demonstrate their full potential. Their
trajectory catches them up with the younger types and they often pass them
by long before the end of training. They also continue to learn far into
practice and are the most satisfied with their work involving people.

But only those few who manage admission to the first level playing field
that they ever had.

Those who were youngest and highest scoring took the elite careers, and
also have the poorest satisfaction levels, a problem for them and the
nation.

This reveals the truth about testing and about the education failures that
we have.

The efforts of No Child Left Behind are a sham, as are all focus on testing
when what is needed is investment in children and families. Standards and
testing only work to prevent middle and lower income types, the ones who do
return and serve where needed, from becoming the serving professionals that
we most need.

Same with advancement tests, SAT, MCAT, LSAT, and other 4 letter words.
Same with the new recommendations attempting to rate 10,000 colleges with
testing.

However this too is a distraction.

A focus on early child development, human rights, dignity, equity, and
developing the full human potential will resolve the hopelessness that
destroys, before, during, and after birth.

What is also important to understand is that those with the most have the
most to gain by supporting basic systems and people advancement. It is
actually the only way that those who accumulate wealth will be able to hold
on to wealth. Those who rise from lower and middle income groups provide
the foundation for all systems of education, health, public safety, and
economics - teachers, nurses and family physicians, fire, police, small
businesses. Ignoring development of people only mean inefficiencies and
losses and costs, for businesses, for cities, and for nations.

Concentrating populations who have lost for generations only fuels
hopelessness and abortion and poor health and dependency and abuse and
violence and terrorism.

Helping those who are not aware is a matter of focus, not distractions.

Robert C. Bowman, M.D.
[log in to unmask]

Recent tax cuts extended to the wealthy and reaffirmed and expanded even in
the past week will also make it very difficult for basic systems to survive
unless the state and local leaders care more than Congress.

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