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To: Arthurio
Aside from casting blame on the teachers, there is also the persistent "achievement gap" that exists all over the country. It is a story repeated annually with a simple change of date on the document. It never changes. No matter how much money you throw at the problem, the "gap" remains. In this instance, the unfixable "gap" is being abused to cast blame on the teachers. The silk purse/sow's ear meme applies.
44 posted on 02/09/2014 9:50:32 AM PST by Myrddin
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To: Myrddin
Aside from casting blame on the teachers, there is also the persistent "achievement gap" that exists all over the country. It is a story repeated annually with a simple change of date on the document. It never changes. No matter how much money you throw at the problem, the "gap" remains. In this instance, the unfixable "gap" is being abused to cast blame on the teachers. The silk purse/sow's ear meme applies.

From the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education:

But there is a major flaw in the thesis that income differences explain the racial gap. Consider these three observable facts from The College Board's 2005 data on the SAT:

• Whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000 had a mean SAT score of 993. This is 129 points higher than the national mean for all blacks.

• Whites from families with incomes below $10,000 had a mean SAT test score that was 61 points higher than blacks whose families had incomes of between $80,000 and $100,000.

• Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000.

The last paragraph above is key. Black students from middle class families, who presumably spent their lives having decent nutrition, lived away from the stresses of the inner city, and went to school in suburban schools with a mostly-white student body, STILL didn't do as well as low-income white kids who had none of their advantages.
50 posted on 02/09/2014 10:09:21 AM PST by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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