Philadelphia, PA Firefighter Joyce Craig
This past December 9th, Joyce Craig’s Unit responded to a cellar fire, where
FF Craig was separated from her Unit and lost. When they recovered her she was
suffering from severe smoke inhalation and burns.
During the initial investigation veteran
firefighters described it as "a perfect storm of things that went
wrong," including
an inexperienced ladder crew took 18 minutes to
respond.
Moreover, it appears that FF Craig was paired
with another female firefighter, described as, “an inexperienced young
firefighter who struggled through the Fire Academy.” That woman, sources said, “is
related to a highly placed member of Mayor Nutter's administration.”
Some
degree of human error is common in all highly stressful situations, like fires
and the more skilled, dedicated, experienced and fit a Unit is, the better
chance they have of overcoming some mistakes. Also, more experienced and
well-trained crews tend to make fewer mistakes.
The
view today that “anyone can be trained to be “skilled,” tempered by “experience,”
equally “dedicated” and “fit” is simply a lie.
It
is a beautiful lie...“that we’re ALL the
same, if we’re just left to be free to be you and me.”
Of
course NONE of that is true. Not only are their wide differences in aptitudes
and abilities between unrelated individuals, there are often wide disparities in aptitudes and
abilities between immediate family members!
Much
to the chagrin of standardized test bashers, the SATs have long been
established to correlate with the grades one can expect in College.
Interestingly enough, the SATs, far from under-predicting success in College
for African-American applicants, actually slightly OVER-predict for that group.
Yes,
basic standardized exams (NOT opinion surveys and subjective vehicles called “exams”)
turn out to test for precisely the traits they’re designed to test for.
For
the Fire Service, the better physical condition the applicant is at the start,
the better that person’s chances are to excel down the line. It is so difficult as to be
nearly impossible for a modestly fit applicant (one who meets the minimum
standards) to “catch up” to the applicant who starts off significantly more
physically fit. Generally fitness levels drop as we age.
Likewise,
ALL firefighting skills have to be learned, through countless drills, classroom
activities and constant and repetitive reading and re-reading Fire Department
materials. Traditionally, such jobs required a High School diploma for a very
specific reason – that standard (a 12th grade reading level) was
considered the bare minimum requirement for someone to come in, read, digest,
fully understand and integrate the copious amount of written information new
recruits must process to learn the job.
Today’s
“pass/fail” physicals with the “passing bar” set so low many 60 y/o’s could
walk through them and with written exams that were calibrated to grammar school
(7th & 8th grade) reading levels, having been successfully
sued, prompting many Municipalities to adopt virtual “opinion surveys,” or a
percentage of “subjective questions,” to circumvent the previously NON-rigorous
(grammar school reading level) written exams, have, in effect, eliminated
necessary basic standards on a fatally flawed presumption that people are
generally “all the same.”
The
idea that much of this has been done in the name of “championing
African-Americans,” SHOULD BE insulting to that group...and it is, to some. As
surely as I KNOW that there are often wide differences between individuals, I
am equally certain that there are very poor and high quality applicants from
every group. When viewed from that vantage, disparities between various ethnic
groups and genders are natural and expected.
I
see it in my own household. My wife (Dionne) was raised in grinding poverty in
Kingston, Jamaica, but through doing well on that nation’s rigorous standardized
testing procedures, she was able to attain a Charted Accountancy (the CPA in
the British system) and when she came to the USA, promptly attended Baruch
College, completed a degree in accounting and passed the rigorous 4-part CPA
exam, yet another standardized exam that has notoriously had a distinct “disparate
and negative impact” on African-American applicants.
Numbers
mean nothing in rating the effectiveness of such procedures. UNTIL proven
otherwise, I’m certain that the CPA is at least as accurate a predictor of
accounting aptitude as the SAT is of College academic aptitude. Likewise,
traditional, graded physical exams would almost certainly make it MUCH harder
for females to compete with males for certain physical occupations, but so long
as one, or more passed, the standards themselves ARE proven to be “attainable”
by an applicant from any given group.
With
the abandoning of traditional, basic standards, said to say, we can probably
expect the fate of FF Joyce Craig to a much more common thing in the years to
come.
