Posted on 11/09/2010 10:24:07 AM PST by lbryce
An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another.
But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known.
Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.
Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches.
The data was distilled from highly respected national math and reading tests, known as the National Assessment for Educational Progress, which are given to students in fourth and eighth grades, most recently in 2009. The report, “A Call for Change,” is to be released Tuesday by the Council of the Great City Schools, an advocacy group for urban public schools.
Although the outlines of the problem and many specifics have been previously reported, the group hopes that including so much of what it calls “jaw-dropping data” in one place will spark a new sense of national urgency.
“What this clearly shows is that black males who are not eligible for free and reduced-price lunch are doing no better than white males who are poor,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the council.
The report shows that black boys on average fall behind from their earliest years.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Used to. The largest group labeled as "Hispanic" has shown a major shift in self-identification.
Percentage of Mexican-Americans self-identifying as "White".
Decade - Percent
70s - 98.9
80s - 76.4
90s - 59.9
00s - 32.5
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OqiKkTj5eBg/TIe1zpxsx_I/AAAAAAAABEw/UgVW6JMuHU0/s1600/percent.bmp
Now some of this may be attributable to the fact that the earlier Mexican immigrants from Northern Mexico were of more Castilian admixture while the current immigrants are more mestizo.
But much of it probably has to do with the perverse incentives of affirmative action and a lowering of the prestige of being white as America becomes a more non-white country. People like to be on the side of a winner not a decliner.
I grew up in Atlanta in the early 1980s when Blacks were bussed up from south Atlanta to the ‘white schools’ on the north side. Most (90%+) of the black kids who were bussed up seemed to be nice well behaved kids who were there to take education seriously. I think this is because they had parent(s) who cared enough about them to send them to a better school than what was offered in south Atlanta at the time.
I thought us rednecks were the dumb ones.
My home schooled son attended the local public school for drivers education. It was an after school program that required about 3 weeks of classroom time followed by another 3 of driving practice. After he completed the classes I asked him if he had any second thoughts about home school. His emphatic answer was “NO, the classroom part was a waste of time. If the students had followed directions, sat down the first time they were asked, read their homework assignments and paid attention to what the instructor said so that he did not have to keep repeating it we could have finished in about 45 minutes a day instead of the 2 hours we were there.” He was disgusted with the behavior he observed.
“The last 25 years they have done everything they could to make all kids, whites too, as stupid as possible.”
And it’s working, too. All part of being dependent on government. Parents read to their kids? Parents being responsible for their kids’ education? Parents, as in plural, even being there for their kids at all?
Nope. Let the government raise the kids. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I asked this once of a guy I went to college with....he's smart, educated, and in the computer science field....parents long time married, etc.
He said it was true...and given he chose a 'white' lifestyle, married a white woman, and had a distinctly un-black name I can imagine the crap he took. Then again, maybe he didn't since he hung with other college students and spent his time studying and running track. Great guy.
You forgot the statement "I believe" in front of "you're wrong".
It is your belief and not a fact.
That's a fact.
You nailed it. Culture is a much bigger factor. And wasted early years not developing language and social skills, and even poor nutrition will cause anyone to fall short of their intelligence potential. Intelligence itself is a very small part financial success and happiness anyway. Most jobs and careers don’t require supreme intelligence or even broad knowledge. Upbringing, attitude and individual choices are the deciding factors. I’d place networking and a little luck ahead of smarts too.
What they don't grasp is that while they, with their above average IQs, didn't need a strict social moral structure to exhibit successful behavior, others below them on the IQ curve and impulse control continuum did.
So they've worked tirelessly to tear down the societal structures that were of no use to them but were of immeasurable benefit to others.
In other words, the sexual revolution is no danger to the uber-responsible Vassar student who always takes her birth control pills. It's a sentence of poverty to the irresponsible South Central LA girl. Take away the threat of shame and ostracism from the South Central LA girl and throw in some foodstamps and Section 8 housing you have a recipe for disaster
If we want better quality teachers we should demand the following:
1) All teachers should take and pass with a “B”, Calculus I for math, science, and engineering students. NO special classes for the education majors! They should sit in the **same** classes with the nerdy engineers.
2) Insist that all teachers take and pass the GED for high school drop outs every 3 years.
Yes, I know that most teachers do not need calculus for their subject,...but...it would mean that they don't bring math phobia and math incompetence into the classroom. And...It would assure that they had a high enough IQ to merit the pay they are receiving.
If you know a really smart government teacher, please remember that there is an equally dumb teacher out there in education-land, because on average government teachers are dumber than a box of rocks.
Isn’t this quite obvious, considering the current occupant of the White House?
Imam Obamah looks stoned in that picture.
Interesting perspective. I never though about it that way.
It could also be the lack of a father in the home. A father’s commitment determines the success of his family.
I know. I’m a mom with a good man. He’s my kids’ hero, even more now that they are older.
Actually, a big part of the solution is to fire everyone who belongs to a Teachers' Union.
ML/NJ
(We don't fix the problem, we fix the blame)
If you think the expectations of the "teachers" don't have anything to do with this you just don't know any teachers. Ever heard anyone use the word(?) uneducable? I have, more than once, and all who use it are "teachers."
Maybe a "dumb black kid" might not be able to read by the time he's in second grade, but do you really think he couldn't be taught to read by the time he's in fourth grade?
ML/NJ
It's a liberal trait to constantly say "All we need to do is a and b, and then presto chango x will happen".
It's conservative to accept the reality of human limitations and human nature and to work with in that frame work in a non-ideological manner.
The fact of the matter is the human brain is a chemical- mechanical instrument just as is the thigh muscle. The computing functioning ability of some people's brains are just not physically capable of processing past a certain amount of information.
IQ is the term of measurement of this computing ability in brains just as hertz is the unit of measurement for CPU performance.
Someone with an 85 IQ can no more do Advanced Algebra, than can an Intel 386 run Windows 7. Having a staff of Nobel Prize in Physics winners as teachers wouldn't change that.
Now if we can get down to the reality that John Marshall High is about as likely to graduate a future MIT theoretical mathematician as New Trier High School is going to graduate a 100 meter Olympic Gold Medalist, then maybe we can come up with reasonable policies both economically (protect manufacturing so low IQ people can have a job, stop undercutting them with immigration) and educationally (return of trade schools).
The problem was that it was denounced as racist which meant that any intelligent person would suspect that its premise was correct. Many, including myself, didn't examine these ideas closely. I am now convinced that the authors left out important data.
ML/NJ
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