Racial gap in education

Boston Globe

[strider44]

I cringe when the kids at Charlestown High School (Boston) get out of class and walk by my house. The laguage, horrible behavior, and overall ignorance is breath-taking. I tried to get a teaching job there, but the only openings where in special ed. Now I'm glad I'm not there although I feel I could have made a difference.

[Ken522]

The answer to this glaring example white oppression is very simple - more money is needed to study the issue!

[lodwick]

Our failure to provide first-class education for black and Hispanic students is both an educational catastrophe and the central civil rights issue of our time.. . .

I had to stop here.

It is the parents! not the kids, nor the schools.

These days, just as in those gone by, PARENTS are the ones accountable for their children's learning.

Most children learn in spite of the schools, not because of them.

Cheers.

[strider44]

Like it or not, it's a huge issue. I know more money isn't the solution, but this continued pattern of uneducated minorities set along the path of poverty does nothing but harm all of us. Build more jails?

[strider44]

I agree. But these kids obviously have irresponsible uneducated parents if they have parents at all. Trust me, I'm no liberal, but I see the results of this problem everyday (I live in Boston). Again, what do you do for the kid who's stuck with horrible parents? Give up on him? Again, build more jails?

[truth_seeker]

"This is not a story about lower IQs.

According to "The Bell Curve" it IS a case of lower IQs.

[Fenris6]

Public Bathrooms. Public Transportation. Public Education.

We won't see any improvement until we axe the Teacher's Unions.

Its too bad that blue-collar workers in thier 20s can't divert their useless Social Security deductions into some kind of Private School Fund, before they have kids.

[strider44]

Or is it a symptom of even middle class blacks thinking it isn't cool to "act white" i.e. achieve in school. I don't buy the IQ arguement. I think it's pure environmental factors.

[rogue yam]

This article goes to great lengths to encourage the reader to be "angry" over the "failure" of the schools. But where is the evidence that the schools have failed? Blacks achieve less academically in comparison to others. This in and of itself is implied to be proof that the schools have failed. Why? What if all of the following are true:

1) Blacks are, generally speaking, less intelligent than others.

2) Blacks, generally speaking, do not try as hard to succeed in academics.

3) Blacks, generally speaking, are more disruptive in the classroom.

4) Blacks, again generally speaking, learn less at home and elsewhere outside of the classroom.

If all or really any of these things are true, this would quite readily explain Blacks' academic underperformance. In this case no amount of additional resources or improved teaching skills will close the performance gap unless these same improvements were simultaneously witheld from the non-Blacks. The last three factors could be affected by changes outside of the classroom and within Black society. But who is even suggesting that this be done?

The assumptions and attitude embedded in this article could well be a prescription for unending conflict, resentment, and waste.

[shrinkermd]

"This gap is an American tragedy and a national emergency for which there are no good excuses. It is the main source of ongoing racial inequality, and racial inequality is America's great unfinished business, the wound that remains unhealed. Our failure to provide first-class education for black and Hispanic students is both an educational catastrophe and the central civil rights issue of our time..."

The problem here is a problem of differences in populatins. Wish it were not so, but the average I.Q. for African Americans is 85. This is quite remarkable since about 20% (on the average) of African-Americans genetic makeup is white.

An average I.Q. of 85 means about half of all African Americans cannot compete in an academic high school environment. It also means that just 5% have I.Q.'s 110 or more --110 is the usual minimum for professional degrees. If you are white, don't feel too smug --Asians have an average I.Q. of 108 and Russian Jews have an average I.Q. of 115. This means that while 20% of whites have an IQ of 110 or above, a full 60% of Russian Jews do.

Usually, when you post this information you are flamed or your post is expurgated. Most of the data given above can be found in Herrnstein's and Murray's The Bell Curve. The noteworthy aspect of this book is that it is banned in many public and academic libraries as racist even though some 300 eminent psychologists wrote a defense of it in the Wall Street Journal.

The biggest scandal in racial relations is the failure to account for genuine, small differences that result in big social differences because of human nature. It would be nice if Head Start, better schools or whatever would change biology and inheritance, but they won't. Such is the problem of our age and the basic lie of our age.

[RightWhale]

There is no excuse for being 16th among industrialized countries. Not one pupil emerges from high school trained in how to think.

[singsong]

Again, what do you do for the kid who's stuck with horrible parents?

I would help us much as I could. Then I woul allow prayer in school, ban rap and movies, teach blacks to look up to whites not hate them. I would not cry to the government to rob the good parents and then waste the money on stupid, atheistic, safe-sex super-duper idiocy.

[Guillermo]

Black parents have low expectations for thier kids, and black culture views education as being a "white thing."

No wonder the numbers are they way they are.

It has nothing to do with racism, or lack of money.

[SouthCarolinaKit]

Why does noone mention the fact that this problem was not one we had forty years ago. Things were ever so much better before we had a Department of Education. All we've done is promote their social programs to the detriment of students. I'd love to see the results analyzed by race before we started all this political correctness. Did itegration improve ANYTHING? We now have a huge problem wherein black depend on affirmative action rather than working to succeed. . . they expect the world 'owes' them success so don't work, and their parents, who also grew up this way, support the philosophy. Until that changes, the racial gap will grow worse and worse.

[RightWhale]

black culture views education as being a "white thing."

Blacks are also viewed as 'the white man.' There is no difference, all American, all paleface.

[strider44]

Good points all. Are you suggesting that no solution to the problem exists, or that a solution shouldn't even be pursued? If the black population stays at roughly the same proportion for the next couple od decades, then the problem won't get solved it will merely remain contained I guess. It's still frustrating though. As a Captain in the Army I dealt with hundreds of blacks. Some good, some bad, most just average. But I was always dissapointed that almost none had schooling beyond high school, let alone holding an advanced degree. Sorry for the rambling...

[abclily]

It's the parents? The parents who are working to pay for these failing schools? No, it's not the parents. It's the teachers' unions who have ruined the schools.

[Guillermo]

Blacks are viewed as the white man by whom?

[Guillermo]

Do you think for a second that the parents of these failing kids take an interest in their education?

Why don't you talk to some teachers, who will tell you of the apathy that rules most of their students' parents.