What you don't see is what many studies have shown, which is that societal problems are at play here in the black and hispanic communities. This victim mentality does a disservice to these students.
I asked a liberal friend of mine recently why he thought that such a high percentage of blacks voted for Democrats, and he said "because they have no friends in the GOP." That's a load of BS. The difference is that the GOP is the party for people who want to help themselves, which the Democrat Party is the party of victims.
Although small, I was very pleased by the increase in the black vote for Bush in this last election, and the large hispanic turnout for Bush. As a white republican, I for one welcome these Americans with open arms. Together we can change the victim mentality.
I think we should pour more money into the Department of Education!!
Does it ever occur to anyone that that cursed "white" group just might be doing something right????
Yep. No "friends in the GOP"???? That's because friends don't let friends vote Dem!
I went to catholic school where black and hispanic kids are graduating all the time with degrees better than a GED.
This one sentence is the money shot of the whole article. This tells you the study is a fraud, because if Asian students had been included, there would have been no disparity between "white" students and "minority" students.
They purposely left Asians out because they too are a minority and graduate at a higher rate than all classes.
Parents make a difference.
Why not? Because it would undermine the study's preconceived conclusion that it is the school system's fault. They would be better served to figure out why Asians, a diverse minority group, equals or surpasses whites in academic achievement. I suspect it has something to do with family values and support at home.
Further statistics: of the group that goes on to actually finish college, 80 percent can tell you about the rain forests and the officially proper way to embrace a tree. They cannot write a single sentence without a great deal of help and they believe that all speech starts with, "Yo." The good side is that they make the older generation look like geniuses!
Symptoms: Whites graduate at higher rates. One has to achieve specific levels of acedemic success to graduate. Blacks and Hispanics graduate at lower rates.
Root Cause: Public Education is broken.
Seems like the analysis in this report may have been done by someone that failed to graduate as well.
The GOP is dead right on this. The societal levels of personal responsibility and personal ownership need raised.
I don't suppose the fact that just about any black high school kid who tries to get good grades is disparaged as a Oreo or worse by his peers has ANY impact on the graduation rate. Nah, we need to throw oodles of more tax dollars at this problem!
This report is crap, as long as they exclude any minority groups. They have to consider EVERY group, and how it is doing, yet they say "It confirms what a lot of people have long talked about and suspected, that New York particularly serves its minority students poorly," but then say "The study did not consider Asian students", who are certainly a smaller minority in NY schools than either blacks or hispanics. The authors of this study, along with most everyone else, know that asians consistently do well academically, possibly even better than whites. But incuding them would "blow the curve", and destroy their pet theory that, in essence, NY schools are anti-minority (read: racist). They would be forced to admit that the schools in fact do not treat minorities poorly, since some minorities do quite well. Either the schools deliberately mistreat blacks and hispanics, which would be easy to pin on actual people (read: get the teachers and their union in trouble; which we all know would never happen), rather than policies; or blacks and hispanics are responsible for their own failures, which wouldn't get any media attention (read: funding). Until they consider ALL minorities in a study, any study about minority performance is meaningless.
If it had, it would likely have found that their graduation rate is equal to or even higher than whites, and investigation of the reasons why would reveal the overriding importance of stable two-parent family life and the expectations of the parents in academic success. School spending is important, but secondary to the above.
you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him/her learn...
A statistic we really need to look at is how many kids are currently in school and how many are actually graduating? The kids in school today are the same ones who will be supporting us boomers in retirement. Here in CA it don't look too promising.
It really amazes me that the number who graduate high school is so low. Most people I bring this up with have not idea the rates are so high. But no need to worry, there's always welfare checks waiting for them...
Bill Cosby was right (at least on his comments about the crisis in the black family).
Well they need to study more and shoot hoops and Hip Hop less.