Just shut-up and make your kids do their homework. Jeez....
Why black parents who mistrusted the school district as a white institution would leave it up to that same system to educate their children confounded Ogbu. "I'm still trying to understand it," he conceded. "It's a system you don't trust, and yet you don't take the education of your own kids into your hands."
Well, the problem isnt intellectually inadequate or lazy parents, thats for darn sure!
As measured by what the members of the community say about education, or as measured by what they do about it?
The fundamental problem is Dr. Ogbu is unfamiliar with the fact that there are thousands of African-American students who succeed.
First, how do you know he's unfamiliar with those thousands of students? Second, he wasn't invited to study those thousands of students. He was invited and paid to study a group of students whose own parents found them to be underachieving. And, surprise, the researcher found that, in fact, they were underacheiving. Any other finding would have contradicted the parents' own observations.
It doesn't matter whether the students are in Shaker Heights or an inner city. The achievement depends on what expectations the teacher has of the students."
No.
No.
Hell, no.
While teacher expectations are very important, the number one dependency for student achievement (relative to the student's own abilities) are what the parents' expectations are.
Meanwhile, Howard Hall, a black Shaker Heights parent who is a child psychologist and professor at Case Western University, believes Ogbu had his mind made up before he even started his research. "It's scandalous to blame the kids for this,"
He's right. It would be scandalous for Ogbu to blame the kids for this. Which is why he didn't. Re-read the report, Mr. Hall. Mr. Ogbu didn't blame the kids. He blamed you. And your failure to grasp that point is very telling.
And I see a bunch of people complaining about how Mr. Ogbu is "blaming the victim". Kids whose parents have professional jobs and have moved them into a middle-class neighborhood aren't victims. I don't care what color they are. And neither are their parents.
Did Mr. Ogbu publish a "% of turned in homework" broken down by race? Because if he did, and there's a significant difference, then the parents are just blind about what that means. It's not the teachers fault if you don't turn in your homework, it's the parents.
Understand that "it isn't cool to achieve, it isn't cool to do good in school" isn't a phenomenon that only black parents are fighting. I (a white parent) have had to fight it in my own home. We won that fight, but not all the parents in my (white) neighborhood have. I know, their kids are in my Scout Troop. Or were. The deliberate underachievers usually drop out in a year or two.
Shaking my head in disbelief...
DING..DING..DING!! We have a winner!
Related linksA couple of clues [re: why our education system is failing]
Source: TownHall.com; Published: May 1, 2003; Author: Thomas SowellWalter E. Williams: Inferior Education of Black Americans
Source:CNSNews.com; Published: February 05, 2003; Author: Walter E. WilliamsUnion Fraud Underscores Need for School Vouchers
Source: CNSNEWS.com; Published: February 05, 2003; Author: Linda ChavezThe intellectual rape of Oakland's schools
Source: TownHall.com; Published: January 17, 2003; Author: David HorowitzHip-hop hogwash in the schools (Michelle Malkin)
Source: TownHall.com; Published: January 15, 2003; Author: Michelle MalkinWashington's education establishment
Source: TownHall.com; Published: January 8, 2003; Author:Walter WilliamsWhite Teachers Fleeing Black Schools
Source: Newsmax; Published:January 1, 2003; Author: Chad Roedemeier
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.
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!