Ohio: Black kids still struggle

The Cincinnati Enquirer ^ | Wednesday, December 10, 2003 | Dan Horn

[yankeedame]

"We've got a lot of work to do when it comes to African-American children,"...

Ah, music to a burocrat's ears

[.cnI redruM]

Let's see. After 30 years of Affirmative Action, they still struggle. It sounds like we should be learning something from this.

[midwestmidnight]

Maybe if the PARENTS spent more time helping their own children!

[AppyPappy]

Nearly 30 percent of black students passed Ohio's Ninth Grade Proficiency Test last year

Hold it, hold it, hold it. 70% of these students FAILED 9th grade. Gee, I wonder if we have a problem?

[quack]

and have fewer economic opportunities and lower academic achievement than other children.

Couldn't be that lower academic achievement results in fewer economic opportunities,could it?

[AppyPappy]

It has less to do with AA and more to do with expectations. The racist school boards don't expect black kids to succeed. They just try to push them along until they graduate. If a while kid fails, they work with the kid. If a black kid fails, they blame the test.

The default for black/poor/troubled kids is to push them along. Unless the parents raise cain, that is what will happen.

[Bluntpoint]

It takes a village of Demorats to raise a child!

[.cnI redruM]

Oh, I see. These are rich, white liberals who feel like these black kids just can't help themselves. So we have to 'understand' their poor performance, rather than remedying it, or actually expending the effort necessary to teach them how to read.

[sphinx]

I wonder if CDF connected the dots to a 70%-plus illegitimacy rate. Unless we're prepared to assign a live-in caretaker/surrogate parent to each family, more federal money can't do much about fatherless children and overwhelmed single mothers.

[Valin]

and have fewer economic opportunities and lower academic achievement than other children.


Gee you think there MIGHT be a connection?

[AppyPappy]

Fixing the problem causes political trouble. Better to just let them graduate with the least amount of hassles. That's the "compassionate tolerant" way.

[AppyPappy]

My experience is that 50% of the white children in poverty are raised in single-parent homes. It's just as bad with them. They expect the school to "raise" their child. If there is a problem, they rarely know or care until it is too late.

[Gothmog]

"The problems are more severe in the cities because poverty and [Democrat] populations are more concentrated in urban areas."

[TontoKowalski]

Twenty-one percent of all births to black women involved teen mothers last year, compared to 26 percent 10 years ago. The teen birth rate for all other women is 9.6 percent. In Cincinnati, the numbers are 25 percent for African-Americans and 9 percent for all other women.

The root of the problem. Of the births involving teen mothers, I'd love to know how many were to married women. Very few I'd imagine.

I also didn't see a stat about children living in single-parent households, which I also bet would be telling.

These issues are too hard to face, so we should just throw more money at the problem.

[sphinx]

I agree. When it comes to the illegitimacy/single parenthood/poverty trap, the only difference between black and white folks is that those of the melanin deprived persuasion don't have the excuse of race to fall back on.

[m1-lightning]

Jack Ryan, A Republican candidate running for US Senate in Illinois, quit his millionare job to become a teacher in an all black, private school. Every single one of his students went on to college. Do you think there might be a difference in the quality of teaching between unionized liberal labor teachers of public schools and individual conservatives in private schools who actually care about their students?

[xzins]

AP, I'm from Ohio and my wife's a teacher. That's not exactly how it works.

The 9th grade proficiency test is the current highest level test that must be passed to graduate from High School. It is NOT connected to ones grade level. Without having passed that test by the end of one's Senior Year, then there is no diploma granted. They can take it at the end of the 8th grade and also have 2 opportunities a year to pass it through the 12th grade. By that time, the pass rate in most schools is in the 90's.

Those in the 11th and 12th grades who've not passed it are generally of very limited "ability/IQ" and would NEVER pass it. Nonetheless, those grades are held against a school.

Next year the Ohio Proficiency Test is thrown out and the new Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) is put in place. In the test market of the OGT last year it proved to be an infinitely more difficult test. Statewide only about 30% passed it at the 70% standard. I understand they will raise the level of passes to 60-70% by lowering the score needed to pass down to the neighborhood of 40%. (An "F" in any school I know of.)

The fear is always that they're emphasizing stuff that the teachers aren't teaching.

[mhking]

Nearly 30 percent of black students passed Ohio's Ninth Grade Proficiency Test last year, compared to 15 percent 10 years ago.

No, let's get this statement right. 2/3 of all the black students in the state failed the 9th Grade Test (I'm willing to bet that most of the teachers passed the kids "socially" as opposed to forcing them to actually LEARN the material). The other side of that statement is that the 2/3 figure is up from 85% of black students failed a year ago.

The fault lies with the teachers and parents. They allow the students to fail by not teaching them the material necessary to pass the examination - i.e., teaching the material on the ninth grade curriculum.

Don't let the flowery language dress this up. If all you expect is mediocre performance, that's all you are going to get - both from students and teachers.

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[T Minus Four]

I don't see how this is possible, because here in Utah I bought spray cleaner from a door-to-door salesperson who assured me that I was solving the problems of young African-
Americans in the Chicago area.

[the invisib1e hand]

News Flash: Most everyone struggles, regardless of race. End of Message.