Posted on 09/24/2016 7:18:16 AM PDT by Kaslin
“You’re getting your inheritance early.” Those were my father’s words to me as he explained that he was taking money that he might have left me in his will and spending it on my private school tuition. My father’s reasoning was that I would be able to create more wealth for his grandchildren if he invested in my education. Thanks to his wisdom, I would go on to graduate from Williams, one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the nation and to obtain my MBA from Harvard.
Besides my parents’ willingness to sacrifice for my education—a decision my wife and I also made with our own two daughters—there was another key facet of my upbringing that a growing body of research has demonstrated to be extremely helpful to academic achievement. I was born to married parents, and they stayed married. This has turned out to be more important to long term success than both household income and race.
A recent study of Florida schools revealed a paradox: highly ranked schools were producing only modest student achievement. But a deeper look turned up a likely explanation. The Institute for Family Studies found that, “the share of married-parent families in a county is one of the strongest predictors of high-school graduation rates for Florida counties; indeed, it's a more powerful predictor than family income, race or ethnicity.”
It is not hard to imagine why children growing up in households headed by married couples generally have better educational outcomes. Married couples are typically able to provide more emotionally and financially stable environments for children, offering them more attention, supervision and opportunities than most single parents are able to provide. Naturally, the fact that far more black families are headed by single parents has implications for black educational achievement.
In short, to close the education gap, we need to work on closing the marriage gap, something which is widely misunderstood. For several years, conventional wisdom has maintained that traditional marriage is a thing of the past. Although marriage is indeed declining among Americans of all races and income levels, it is declining far more quickly in certain demographic groups. Writing in FiveThirtyEight, Ben Casselman explained, “Affluent, college-educated Americans are increasingly delaying marriage until their 30s. But they aren’t abandoning marriage altogether; in fact, they appear likely to get married at close to the same rate as past generations. They rarely have children outside of marriage, and they are relatively unlikely to get divorced.” Meanwhile, lower income, less educated Americans are not just delaying marriage; many are forgoing it altogether. When they do get married, they are also much more likely to get divorced.
The loosening of sexual morality—which cuts across class and income—has had a disproportionately destructive effect on the poor and less educated. Out of wedlock childbearing leads to children being raised in less stable environments and increases the likelihood that those children will not graduate from high school. The answer that is most often put forward for this is greater access to condoms to mitigate the consequences of sexually promiscuous behavior. Yet a recent study conducted by the University of Notre Dame entitled The Incidental Fertility Effects of School Condom Distribution Programs, found that access to condoms in schools led to a 10 percent increase in teen births, rather than a decrease.
Unfortunately, if these trends aren’t addressed effectively, the alarming inequality in our society will only get worse. The best curriculum and the most dedicated teachers can never fully compensate for dysfunctional or unstable families. So what can we do to strengthen families? It stands to reason that if married parents have such a positive effect on student performance, we should at the very least eliminate policies that punish couples for marrying. The government may be limited in its ability to help families, but it certainly shouldn’t undermine them.
Beyond public policy, I believe communities of faith are uniquely suited to strengthen marriages and to encourage and facilitate parents’ involvement in their children’s education. Churches, synagogues and temples can and must fearlessly preach the value of marriage. They should actively encourage young people to enter into healthy marriages and offer both living examples of successful marriages as well as learning opportunities for skills such as communication, home management and the care and discipline of children.
Faith communities can also support the education of children of single parents. In addition to supervised study time and tutoring, they can provide mentorship for the aspects of achievement that are not directly related to academics. These include things like helping parents interact with teachers and school administrators and assistance with the college selection and application process.
Any plan to heal the racial divide must address the education gap. And no plan to close that gap will succeed unless it works to strengthen families.
The current governments of western civilization have been infiltrated by those who oppose family life and defer raising children to the state.
It will take as many generations of tenacity to reverse this as have been invested in implementing it.
The sooner we get started, the sooner we will see healing.
Not everyone is suited for higher education, and the degrees being earned are often not in demand in the private sector. Almost all of my nieces are getting environmental “science” degrees. They are literally devoting themselves to studying mostly global warming. What kind of a job does that get you? The first one to graduate is literally a genius and graduated from high school 2 years early. She was pushed ahead because of her great potential and earned a 4 year degree in 3 years. She is currently pushing grocery carts in from the parking lot at QFC. I have no doubt that she will eventually have a better job but it will most likely have nothing to do with her worthless degree. But don’t argue about global warming with her.
You can thank LBJ’s Great Society for initiating this malady.
Having a black male around the house resulted in loss of benefits from his War on Poverty. To keep welfare payments, the man had to go. The alternative was for taxpayers to fund poor families forever. It’s a lose-lose situation with no end in sight.
I would think that strengthening families and eroding the entitlement culture would be the best plan - do that and the rest will follow as it was starting to do in the mid 50s and moved right along into the 60s until Johnson went with the "Great Society" death sentence for them...
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You can thank LBJ’s Great Society for initiating this malady.
Having a black male around the house resulted in loss of benefits from his War on Poverty. To keep welfare payments, the man had to go. The alternative was for taxpayers to fund poor families forever. It’s a lose-lose situation with no end in sight.
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False dichotomy. The ‘win’ was keeping govt in its rightful place in the matter: OUT of the matter entirely.
There is not an ‘issue’, that I can recall, ‘solved’ by govt. I can give numerous examples of the reverse.
The problem(s) of our world rest at the feet of one entity: Govt.
In the matter of schooling, remove the DoEd, the oppressive property taxes ($$ in perpetuity) and return to a service oriented endeavor paid by the USERS thereof. Then watch the magic.
The author of this should read the book “The Bell Curve.” The IQ of blacks is one full standard deviation below that of whites, and the deficit is even greater compared to the IQ of Asians and Jews. It gets worse: 20% of blacks have an IQ in the 50-55 range, which is defined as mentally retarded even in this PC age. No amount of “programs” or “policy changes” can overcome these innate facts.
I am beyond pissed about the ‘education gap’ that supposedly exists between blacks & white in this country.
My father worked in the printing industry. His company printed the textbooks & answer books for USAFI—United States Armed Forces Institute, which offered correspondence courses. He often brought home samples for me to read when I was in high school. Great fun to work on those problems, and I was an honor student in high school.
My brother did the prep work & proofreading at his graphics company for thousands of textbooks for over 24 years. NO one was allowed a day off when that work was in the building. Often, pages were proof read by more than one person.
I have NEVER seen a different textbook for a white person from a black person-—Nor:
a desk or
a pencil
a pen
a 3 ring binder
filler paper for the binder
a compass
a ruler
or lights
or heat
or teacher
or building
Nothing was done in 2 different versions!!!
IF a black kid doesn’t want to go to school——they fail
IF they don’t want to do the homework-—they fail
IF they don’t take the tests-—they fail
IF they don’t learn to read-—they fail
If they don’t learn basic math-—they fail
IF they try to get a job when the school age is over—they WILL FAIL because THEY SET THEMSELVES UP FOR FAILURE!!!
I am tired of being blamed as a white person who did go to school-—did my homework (along with farm chores)—did take the tests—did pass the tests—didn’t trash the school grounds or facilities and didn’t cause trouble.
The blacks have done this to themselves. When the war starts, they will have caused it, IMO. My jar of sympathy is empty.....
Observation:.
Black slavery was created by the African Tribal Chieftains in the 6th century and its been part of their culture ever since. Hard reality. Whites had nothing to do w/its origin. Let me know the next time Sharpton affirms this.
As for education, the vast majority of Blacks would prefer to bounce and inflated sphere rather than learn how to compute its volume.
Those surprised please raise their hand!
If you grew up Methodist in the 50s, there were different hymnals for whites and blacks. Theirs had simpler English. Shocking, I know.
-—It gets worse: 20% of blacks have an IQ in the 50-55 range,-—
Wow...that seems like a very high percent...
That’s a USA # or as a whole...?
I understand my experience is limited in the number of blacks I know and work with...
Most if not all, seem to be reasonable intelligent...way above the 50 to 55 range...
Precisely. What the current black population of kids needs more than anything are fathers.
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