Rich, Black, Flunking (Education Study)

East Bay Express ^ | SUSAN GOLDSMITH

[7thson]

What I found interesting is whites described their relationship with blacks as okay and blacks described it as tension filled. I have read and come across these two different perceptions. Why is this?

[rattrap]

Yeah, I've seen that a lot as well. I'd like to see an explanation for this.

[Stand Watch Listen]

Related links

A couple of clues [re: why our education system is failing]
Source: TownHall.com; Published: May 1, 2003; Author: Thomas Sowell

Walter E. Williams: Inferior Education of Black Americans
Source:CNSNews.com; Published: February 05, 2003; Author: Walter E. Williams

Union Fraud Underscores Need for School Vouchers
Source: CNSNEWS.com; Published: February 05, 2003; Author: Linda Chavez

The intellectual rape of Oakland's schools
Source: TownHall.com; Published: January 17, 2003; Author: David Horowitz

Hip-hop hogwash in the schools (Michelle Malkin)
Source: TownHall.com; Published: January 15, 2003; Author: Michelle Malkin

Washington's education establishment
Source: TownHall.com; Published: January 8, 2003; Author:Walter Williams

White Teachers Fleeing Black Schools
Source: Newsmax; Published:January 1, 2003; Author: Chad Roedemeier

Fiddling whilst Rome burns

[rattrap]

someone who has an account at the DUmp should post this, i'd looooooove to see the commentary.

[Paradox]

Its the CULTURE, stupid!

This has trickled down into non-urban cultures as well. Its become a part of modern Americana.

I have read studies that show that while FIRST generation Asian immigrants do extremely well in American schools, the Second and succeeding generations do more poorly.. It ain't genetics folks, its CULTURE.

[CaptainK]

My son attends a Catholic high school. If you don't do your homework you are given 45 minutes after school detention.
Needless to say, students hand in their homework.
Just another reason to favor vouchers.

[LADY J]

"Involuntary immigrants don't think that way, he says. They have no separate homeland to compare things to, yet see the academic demands made of them as robbing them of their culture."

Seems like these black parents should take some of their money and take their kids back to their "roots" and "culture".

A few months vacation - back to Africa so that they can start relating to who they are and make a comparison about where they would all be today if the terrible white folks had not 'dragged' them to America!

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Why should the school be punishing the child for not completing homework? My son is punished at home, I don't need the school to punish him for me. In fact, I often discipline him at home for behavior in the classroom that the teacher overlooked. My standards are higher than the schools.

[TontoKowalski]

What an interesting article. I have anecdotal evidence which tends to support the professor's theories:

My old college roommate is a high school teacher with 15+ years in the classroom. He says that the single most important factor in determining a student's success is parental involvement.

According to him, it's more predictive than race, gender, income, geography. Children whose parents are involved in the child's education (attending conferences with teachers, emailing or phoning back and forth, serving as chaparones on field trips, tracking homework completion, and so forth) will do better in school than children whose parents are not involved.

He tries to involve parents. He sends the class schedule to parents, including what assignments are due and when, when exams are scheduled and what material will be covered, and invites them to phone/email him with any questions or concerns, schedules parent conferences at the parents' convenience, and so forth. He says the response rate is extremely low...and that's for all races.

I'm sure studies of white children would show the same results (weighted for parental involvement) as his study of black children.

[elephantlips]

"She believes school pressure to speak Standard English and "act white" is the very thing that makes black students fail."

America is a melting pot. All, I repeat, ALL people who have come here have established what we presently have as a culture, mores and a language. The essence of what this country is requires that in order to be successful you need to become part of the whole by contributing your culture to that whole. If you remain separate and apart for whatever reasons, then DO NOT COMPLAIN about the level of unacceptance and the lack of achievement for your children. YOU have chosen that path and its consequences. To remain isolated is to encourage divisiveness. (See Jessie Jackson, Farakhan(sp?), etc.) That divisiveness is hurting all parties. America suffers from the lack of your inclusion.

[lady lawyer]

When will these people learn that taking responsibility is the most empowering thing in the world?

[Thane_Banquo]

Doesn't surprise me. A guy who manages the investment porfolio for one of the largest private non-profit healthcare firms volunteered at a government school. He said students there bragged about getting straight F's.

He's pretty direct. Used to be a bond trader. So he basically told the kids they were idiots.

[robertpaulsen]

"Although they did outperform other black students from across Ohio and around the country,"

With a 1.9 GPA?? That's sad.

[MississippiMan]

It's such a shame that the truth is essentially banned from this debate. Speak the truth, like this guy, and risk everything because the attack dogs will in fact show up and do their best to ruin you so you can't be heard again, and so that if you are, you have no credibility.

MM

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Just returned from my kindergartener's graduation, this morning.

Our school partnered with the Pizza Hut Corporation and their "Book It Beginners", program. If the students each complete reading X number of books a month, at home with the parents' involvement, a list is returned to the school and signed, and the student gets a monthly coupon for a free indiv. size pizza, from Pizza Hut. Great program, right?

Out of the one hundred kindergarten students, only perhaps thirty, completed the project for the year. The parents who didn't do this robbed their children of quality parent-reading time in the home, and being singled out in the award ceremony this morning. It is the PARENTS' fault that their children didn't participate in this program. And, I did feel badly for those children who were left out, every month, and today.

(Yes, my son did read with us every week... only five books were required... we read fifteen or more.)

[Zack Nguyen]

"They believe the school system should take care of the rest. They didn't supervise their children that much. They didn't make sure their children did their homework. That's not how other ethnic groups think."

Interesting. I believe it is safe to say that blacks in America trust government far more, on average, than whites do. They have a more positive view of government. They certainly vote for big government every single election. I think I have seen an actual poll but cannot remember where. It seems that black parents simply believe that educating their children is the "government's job" and that the government will take care of it.

In contrast to this, I have also read that the number of black homeschools have gone up dramatically. So perhaps some families are getting the picture.

[Lunatic Fringe]

African-American parents worried that Ogbu's work would further reinforce the stereotype that blacks are intellectually inadequate and lazy. School district officials, meanwhile, were concerned that it would look as if they were blaming black parents and students for their own academic failures.

WOW- the truth hurts, doesn't it?

[Only1choice____Freedom]

>>"I'm having my doubts his work is going to motivate African-American parents and kids."

It's sad that when they pay an expert to do just what he did, they don't want to hear the answers.

The truth hurts sometimes. If you don't want to know the truth, don't ask the questions. How can you grow as a person or society if you are unwilling to listen to truth and change?

[Flightdeck]

Having gone to high school in northeast Ohio, I can tell you that the students strive to be: (in order)
1.) good at football
2.) as hard core as possible (guns, drugs, and fighting helps)
3.) with as many girls as possible
26.) good students

and I went to a catholic school. We had rival cross-town students show up in carloads with guns. I've been shot at in the parking lot. Our local public school has had teachers held hostage with screwdrivers. Kids walked around school trying desperately to project an image as tough-guy as they could.
We need more money pumped into the system in the form of higher teaching salaries to attract better teachers. But I agree the most important factor is parental encouragement. I was lucky enough to have parents that made my high school years hell. It's funny, my post-college years are making up for it.

[wideminded]

It wasn't socioeconomics, school funding, or racism, that accounted for the students' poor academic performance; it was their own attitudes, and those of their parents.

Ogbu concluded that the average black student in Shaker Heights put little effort into schoolwork and was part of a peer culture that looked down on academic success as "acting white."

Very interesting article. But I think that the bad attitude toward academics is a general problem for many white Americans as well. My own son once said to me that concentrating too much on schoolwork would be "acting Asian".