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Behind D.C. schools' math gains, an obstacle: Wider Racial Gap in Achievement
Washington Post ^ | December 13, 2009 | Bill Turque

Posted on 12/14/2009 6:32:09 PM PST by reaganaut1

Last week's federal report card on math achievement was a welcome piece of good news for D.C. public schools. Although the District still lags far behind the country's top-performing systems, the report card showed fourth- and eighth-graders making strides at a faster pace over the past two years than cities including Atlanta, Chicago and New York.

But what remains embedded in the latest numbers from the National Assessment of Educational Progress is the persistent achievement gap between African American and white students both locally and nationally. The average scores of white D.C. fourth-graders over the past two years grew from 262 to 270 (on a scale of 500), but their African American peers' rose just three points, from 209 to 212. The achievement gap actually grew between 2007 and 2009, from 53 to 58 points.

African American progress in the eighth grade remained essentially flat, dipping a statistically insignificant one point, from 245 to 244. Average white scores were not included in the test results because the sample size wasn't large enough.

The picture across a six-year stretch isn't more encouraging. The gap separating white and black fourth-graders in 2003, when the first NAEP in the District was given, was 60 scale points (262 to 202). Although the scores achieved by children in both groups have increased during this period, the difference has barely narrowed to 58.

Some education advocates in the District expressed concern last week that the gains celebrated by Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) were propelled largely by white students who are already high achievers.

"It would suggest that we've raised the aggregate by treating those at the higher end of the scale, which is problematic and troublesome," said Jeff Smith, executive director of D.C. Voice

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: achievementgap; bellcurve; education; rhee
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The Bell Curve strikes again. More money should be spent educating the more educable.
1 posted on 12/14/2009 6:32:11 PM PST by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1
Well, obviously the tests discriminate against Afro-Americans. Isn't that obvious?

Lamh Foistenach Abu!
2 posted on 12/14/2009 6:34:45 PM PST by ConorMacNessa (HM/2 USN, 3/5 Marines, RVN 1969. St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle!)
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To: reaganaut1

I wonder what will happen when robots can do the work of most students getting Cs or worse.

It isn’t going to be long.


3 posted on 12/14/2009 6:35:06 PM PST by BenLurkin
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To: reaganaut1

They dare not say the truth:

Black culture eschews education. It is called “acting White.”

Hispanic culture eschews education. It is called “belittling your Papa (by surpassing him).”

For the most part, the cultural norms of Whites and Asians want kids to learn and do better than their parents.

This is just fact. It is like falling on the ground and then blaming gravity for picking on you.


4 posted on 12/14/2009 6:36:34 PM PST by freedumb2003 (Communism comes to America: 1/20/2009. Keep your powder dry, folks. Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: BenLurkin

>>I wonder what will happen when robots can do the work of most students getting Cs or worse.<<

It is happening now. They are called “Indian and Chinese Application Developers (programmers).”


5 posted on 12/14/2009 6:38:50 PM PST by freedumb2003 (Communism comes to America: 1/20/2009. Keep your powder dry, folks. Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: ConorMacNessa

Mathematics are rigid, doctrinate and dogmatic; there are only correct answers, and incorrect answers, and that is insensitive. It is unfair that solving mathematical problems requires knowledge, and that acquiring knowledge requires self-discipline. This is RACIST!


6 posted on 12/14/2009 6:41:09 PM PST by Clioman (wHAT)
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To: ConorMacNessa

Either the tests discriminate or the 2 plus 2 result is different for the various races.


7 posted on 12/14/2009 6:42:29 PM PST by Tripoli
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To: freedumb2003

Its always the same: We can’t explain the gap in achievement. What do we do now? Their answer: Throw more money at the problem. HEY, Morons...That obviously doesn’t work. The Bell Curve book explains the problem (as does the disturbed families of some, the cultural norm against achievement and so forth). Wake up, people. You don’t need more studies or more money.


8 posted on 12/14/2009 6:43:10 PM PST by hal ogen
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To: Tripoli
Yes - the 2 plus 2 result! Do you want the mean, the median or the average answer?

Lamh Foistenach Abu!
9 posted on 12/14/2009 6:46:13 PM PST by ConorMacNessa (HM/2 USN, 3/5 Marines, RVN 1969. St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle!)
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To: reaganaut1

Blacks have been told, by so-called black leaders and politicians, that they are victims and helpless and thats the way they act. Yet they continue to listen to and vote the same “plantation owners” all the time. It is hard to have sympathy.


10 posted on 12/14/2009 6:47:00 PM PST by LeonardFMason
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To: reaganaut1
It's not the color, it's the CULTURE.

No amount of money/time/incentives will help when someone does not want to get an education.

11 posted on 12/14/2009 6:47:18 PM PST by MamaTexan (Government has become a criminal enterprise!)
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To: freedumb2003

This gap seems very small and I don’t think it’s fair to extrapolate anything from it. I am sure many will use this to demand more money when money is not the problem no matter what race the student is.

Parents are most responsible for scholastic achievement at these age levels.


12 posted on 12/14/2009 6:50:44 PM PST by volunbeer (Dear heaven.... we really need President Reagan again!)
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To: MamaTexan

Yes, it’s not color - it is culture. Culture is a much more stubborn, insidious problem, imho.


13 posted on 12/14/2009 6:52:05 PM PST by khnyny (The problem is Obama didn't grow up watching "Hogan's Heroes" (American exceptionalism)
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To: reaganaut1
Best way to guarantee high liberal voting numbers...create as many idiots as possible.

Hi Detroit!
Hi Chicago!
Hi New Orleans!
Hi Saint Lewis!

...how's that liberal bullsh*t working for you...?

14 posted on 12/14/2009 6:56:27 PM PST by RavenATB
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To: volunbeer
This gap seems very small and I don’t think it’s fair to extrapolate anything from it. I am sure many will use this to demand more money when money is not the problem no matter what race the student is.

I am summarizing from all the studies that have been published for probably the last 40 years or so.

Parents are most responsible for scholastic achievement at these age levels.

Somewhere between 40 and 50% of all blacks are born into a "family" with no father (some links: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/16/AR2006121600998.html, http://www.jbhe.com/vital/53_index.html.

The single parent (almost always the mother) is in no position to monitor the child's education. The street culture rules, and "acting white" (succeeding academically) is not tolerated.

Not sure where you live, but in the real USA, these are facts, not opinions.

15 posted on 12/14/2009 6:56:32 PM PST by freedumb2003 (Communism comes to America: 1/20/2009. Keep your powder dry, folks. Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: LeonardFMason

It’s impossible not to have sympathy for these young children who have all the potential but lack the environment and mentors to succeed.

I agree with you about the race hustlers who use race to divide and gain power.

I wish the media gave more attention to young people when it comes to race. They are far more ahead of the media curve no matter how much Jackson/Sharpton/Obama and their ilk want to keep it alive.


16 posted on 12/14/2009 6:57:30 PM PST by volunbeer (Dear heaven.... we really need President Reagan again!)
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To: freedumb2003

You hit the nail square on the head: it’s a cultural thing not a race/ethnicity thing.


17 posted on 12/14/2009 7:04:19 PM PST by DesertSapper (God, Family, Country . . . . . . . . . . and dead terrorists!!!)
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To: reaganaut1

Affirmative Action demands that 2 + 2 = 22.


18 posted on 12/14/2009 7:05:27 PM PST by Malesherbes (Sauve Qui Peut)
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To: hal ogen
I've got a little theory about that book. The actual people in the ivory towers know the truth. Blacks statistically will not compete with whites in these areas.

They used to claim it was racism, but now IQ testing is standardized and can be done accurately. What they've found is that blacks are, on average, slightly less intelligent than whites. This is the reason they now seek quotas for jobs and college admittance.

However, they can't admit this. The reason the book created such a controversy was NOT because the ivory tower types thought it was false. It was because they knew it to be true.

I remember CBS (Dan Rather was still there) doing a hit piece on the book and they had this kid on there saying he could be anything he wanted and the book didn't mean anything. This kid couldn't have spelled cat if you spotted him the C and the A and there's no way he'd read the book.

There's a lot of interesting information in the book on intelligence stratification and lower IQ types reproducing more than intelligent people. It's a scary book because a lot of the information sounds like what was coming out of the eugenics movement, but also because it's documented and they make some strong arguments.

19 posted on 12/14/2009 7:05:27 PM PST by Richard Kimball (We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)
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To: reaganaut1

When I was taking pre-engineering courses twenty years ago, my friends of Asian decent were victims of reverse discrimination when trying to get into certain engineering programs because statistically they did far better in math than students of other ethnic groups including Caucasians. There simply were too many of them getting into top engineering schools. Did it have anything to do with my friends coming from families where discipline and hard work were stressed as the best way to get ahead, or as a group were they genetically better at math?

The actual numbers never support the sacred leftist viewpoint that persons of every ethnic group have the same innate abilities and should achieve the same results in every scholastic endeavor. If they don’t discrimination gets the blame for any discrepancy in the numbers. Well guess what? Common sense says not that all ethnic groups are created the same. Recognizing this easily provable observation is blasphemy against the liberal leftist religion. You will be branded with a big red R on your forehead.


20 posted on 12/14/2009 7:05:34 PM PST by fireman15 (Check your facts before making ignorant statements.)
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