Do you disagree that there is an achievement gap? Do you think if it were ignored it would go away?
Now, I think I kind of understand what you are saying...I was really angry when the state said our county schools did very well, compared to those in other small, poor counties - compared to large, rich counties our county didn't do well at all, but the state didn't expect it to, because it was small and poor.
I felt that the state should expect high standards of ALL counties (I guess that's the "soft bigotry of low expectations" they were putting on us?)
Claims that certain people need help send the message that they're incapable of helping themselves.
Are you speaking of people in lower socioeconomic groups in general, or of minorities in particular?
Part of the reason people in lower socioeconomic groups don't score as well -- and this is not just in the United States, but across cultures and across the world -- is because children in those groups tend to be talked to and read to less, so they have smaller vocabularies and don't have as much idea that written symbols stand for spoken words.
A number of studies show that some kinds of preschool programs, if well implemented, CAN help these children do better in school and increase their chances of graduating from school and improving their economic circumstances.
So far as the black community is concerned, some people are doing very well, and some aren't.
Of the ones who are not, some of their problems began with racism, and some are still a result of that, but I think that many of the current problems are a result of buying into the culture of victimization promoted by Jackson, Sharpton, et.al., and also of the "hip-hop" culture that doesn't seem to value education and hard work, and I think solutions for those problems will have to come from within the black community.
There is an achievement gap but why do we need to make it go away? Michael Jordan can play basketball much better than me. Should I be given the time and attention of the best coaches to try to close the achievement gap so I too can make millions playing basketball? Or is that a foolish waste of limited resources?
School and life in general should be equal opportunity, not equal outcome. I can score 100 points during a basketball game or successfully perform brain surgery if given 30 free do-overs for every step, but that's not how it works.
Maybe using a highly restrictive environment and computerized instruction to lower the cost of 30 do-overs everyone could get an equal education. But once they get a job in the real world they aren't going to get do-overs.
We should allocate resources so that the total achievement is at a maximum. Attempting to produce an even distribution of results should not be a goal. Making life equal for all is driven by envy which is hardly a saintly persuit.
If there are problems in environment or culture we should try to cost effectively address that, but equal outcome is never going to happen.