Distressed that their teen-aged children's grades were lagging behind those of their white counterparts, despite having similar socioeconomic advantages in the racially mixed school district, the black parents organized their own investigation. They invited anthropology Prof. John U. Ogbu, a well-known figure in the field of student achievement for the past 30 years, all the way from the University of California at Berkeley to examine the district's 5,000 students and figure out why the black-white performance gap persists.
Six years later, Ogbu has published his findings in a book, Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates publishers). Not all of the parents are pleased with his conclusions. That's because he found part of the problem to be the parents. ***
The fact is that African-American children like mine who are from stable family backgrounds and attend competitive schools are doing well. Any legislative attempt to address the problem of offering African-American students more opportunity must also take into account equipping them to take advantage of those opportunities. We need to move past the political rhetoric and address the real needs of these students.
I am tired of the liberal assumption that the only way to help African-American students is to lower the bar. I am equally weary of my black colleagues who cry "racism" every time the bar is not lowered for them. Ultimately, with our state placing 50th in SAT scores for the nation, we need better SAT preparation for all college-bound students. This doesn't mean only special test-taking courses, but rigorous programs that will teach the vocabulary and math skills that the SAT assesses. Instea