As long as new programs based upon the compensatory model are advocated, and demands are made that the participants change to fit the programs, members of minority cultures will suffer. Suitable alternates to existing school admissions criteria would stop defining students in terms of deficiencies, instead focusing upon the positive aspects of each student's experiences and integrating them into the curriculum. Further, admissions standards would be free of any taint of middle-class superiority. They would genuinely accept cultural diversity, building upon positive elements in the community involved. They would respect the community's unique aspirations, priorities, and values and would make the resources of the university available to minority individuals and communities, assisting them to develop positive solutions to their particular problems. They would contain no "a priori" assumptions about what skills are necessary to meet the needs of those minority communities. The author states that compensatory education is wrong, both morally and practically--morally, because it destroys children and cultures for no justifiable reason, and practically, because it wastes the potential productivity of talented people who are alienated by an inadequate educational system. (Author/JM)