Posted on 07/14/2009 8:25:41 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Historically, the achievement gap between America’s black and white students was widest in Southern states, where the legacies of slavery and segregation were reflected in extremely low math and reading scores among poor African-American children.
But black students have made important gains in several Southern states over two decades, while in some Northern states, black achievement has improved more slowly than white achievement, or has even declined, according to a study of the black-white achievement gap released by the Department of Education this morning.
As a result, the nation’s most dramatic black-white gaps are no longer seen in Southern states like Alabama or Mississippi, but rather in Northern and Midwestern states like Wisconsin, Nebraska, Connecticut and Illinois, according to the federal data.
The study plotted the evolution of average scores of black and white students on the series of federal tests, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, that were administered every two to four years in both math and reading from 1992 through 2007.
Nationwide, the average math score in 1992 for fourth grade white students on a 500-point scale was 227, compared to an average score of 192 for black students that year. Those scores resulted in a black-white gap of 35 points.
By 2007, the most recent year included in the new study, average fourth grade white math scores had risen to 248, but average black scores had risen faster, to 222, thus narrowing the black-white gap to 26 points, about the equivalent of two and a half years of schooling.
By 2007, the widest black-white gap in the nation on the fourth-grade math test, (not counting the District of Columbia, which is not a state) showed up not in the deep South but in Wisconsin.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I don't think closing racial gaps should be a focus of educational policy. Charles Murray could explain why. It is more important to improve performance across the board (or to spend less tax money to get the current level of performance).
What are the chances of anyone writing for the NYT knowing squat about the South? The ignorance about the genteel South abounds in the rest of the country.
Nothing was said about blacks becoming more educated in the south... only that the GAP had decreased.
Simple explanation... Now no one in the south black or white is learning anything!
To be fair, the white kids are getting dumber.
Thank you, NEA and No Child Left Behind.
It gags them to write something positive about the South.
But they sure know how to play nintendo!
Well, at least they’ll have more “equal” outcomes.
That’s what’s important.
/libthink
You got that right! They think we are a bunch of redneck, racist rubes--we find that out every time we travel. I once had a western black man ask me how I was when taught to fear black men.Idiot!
vaudine
To be fair, I have to tell you there is no doubt that you are correct.
exactly ! you have to look at this article through liberal lenses.
Liberals are only interested in equal outcomes.
It is impossible for everyone to be highly educated, the same as it is impossible for everyone to be rich, so the liberal solution is for everyone to be equally poor and stupid.
There is a bit of a caveate to this analysis.
Every single lib out there believes that he is an “elite”.
His children are entitled to a better education, he is entitled to use more resources, etc, than the masses.
If you want to see completely through “liberal lenses”, think feudalism, with the libs as the neo-nobility.
Thru the 12 years that followed, I wondered why that even tho we sat in the same classes, turned in the same work etc, I was told their education was inferior to mine?
ANY and ALL education gap that exists between blacks and whites starts with the NUCLEAR FAMILY GAP that exists between the two cultures.
Slavery and segregation don’t even have “little” to do with it, they have NOTHING to do with it.
And you're right--those Neanderthals at the Times regularly forget (or maybe they never knew--or maybe they lack the wit to understand) that the "Northern and Midwestern states" also have a legacy of slavery and segregation--that at the time of the Declaration of Independence and Ratification of the Constitution slavery was legal in every one of the 13 colonies/states (nothing to be proud of but one cannot improve on the truth)--that a horrifying slave cemetery in Manhattan is currently undergoing excavation--and that slavery was not outlawed in New York State until ca. 1828, roughly 3 decades before the Civil War.
Of course slavery is one of the most hideous evils ever devised by mankind, and regrettably it still exists in the world today (support the American Antislavery Group if this horrifies you). All decent people condemn it.
Sloppy, mendacious, distorted, and ignorant news reporting is also to be condemned. Not only is it inherently reprehensible, but, inasmuch as it misleads the electorate and the people in general, it is also dangerous.
Well said. Speaking as a working class southern white male, (Bubba) I am always amazed at how I am portrayed in the media. The funny thing is no one has ever asked me. I guess it’s just easier to make us into some sort of cartoon, so they can feel more enlightened and superior. The truth is, there are many “Souths”, and unless you live here or spend some time here, you probably don’t have a clue.-—JM
Black achievement has improved more slowly than white achievement, or has even declined in some Northern states where the legacies of slavery and segregation were reflected in extremely low math and reading scores among poor, inner city African-American children.
The possibility is that white kids scores are declining.
Closing the gap does not man every one rises, it means the scores get closer. Maybe the scores of whites are falling.
I live in a small town in NC, the schools here are abysmal. A few weeks ago the paper published a letter to the editor written by a 1st grade teacher, who is also the president of the county’s education association. The one paragraph letter was filled with incomplete sentences, spelling, capitalization, punctuation and other grammar errors.
One has to wonder how many other teachers, who are just as poorly skilled, are in the system.
I have a friend who teaches 8th grade English, she says they pass on students that she and other teachers beg to have held back. At some point they “age out” or they drop out.
Yep,, The white kids are just as stupid as the blacks now. Now that’s my kind of equality.
vaudine
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