Posted on 09/23/2013 4:25:56 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
Even if they come from affluent families or attend highly rated schools, black students in Ohio continue to lag far behind their white peers in school, according to a Dispatch analysis of data from state standardized exams.
On more than two dozen state tests given to students in kindergarten through high school last year, the average passage rate among black students was 64 percent. On average, 87 percent of white students passed.
Disparities between races have existed across the country since schools were physically divided by race, researchers say, but many now view those gaps largely as a product of high poverty among minorities.
In Ohio, though, wide race gaps persist even on a level economic field.
Average passing rates among affluent white students last year topped those of affluent black students by 16 percentage points. Poor, white students outperformed black students from poor and wealthy families.
Disparities between races had been narrowing until about five years ago, data show, but the numbers have changed little since then. Now, amid a renewed focus on the topic, schools face increasing pressure to close gaps.
New state report cards penalized schools this year if certain student groups, including racial minorities, didn’t improve enough over a year. Schools that have long earned high overall marks received D’s and F’s in that area.
At the same time, parents of black students have formed groups in their districts to advocate for minority children. Groups in Westerville, Dublin and Olentangy schools have gathered steam in recent years.
“There are clearly divisions along ethnic lines within the district,” said Vaughn Bell, a Westerville parent who revived a defunct group for black parents last year. “I do believe that schools are failing our African-American students.”
Racial disparities go beyond income, experts say, but wealth plays a role.
The poverty rate among blacks in the U.S. –– 25.8 percent, according to Census data –– is higher than any other race except Native Americans. Poor families, in turn, more often face lower-quality preschool options, researchers say.
“These gaps are traceable back to early-childhood education,” said Shaun Harper, the director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education. “If kids show up in kindergarten not having had high-quality instruction in preschool, they’re already starting behind.”
Coupled with teachers who lack the training to help, gaps remain, Harper said.
Beyond poverty, though, some say schools set the bar too low for minorities.
“We expect less of our low-income students and students of color,” said Natasha Ushomirsky, senior data and policy analyst for Education Trust, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit group that works to close achievement gaps.
Studies have found that black and Latino students are less likely to be placed in advanced courses, even if they show promise in a subject. Minority students are also more likely to be taught by less-experienced teachers.
“Our school system is set up in a way that makes these gaps worse rather than making them better,” Ushomirsky said.
Where students live is as important as family income in Ohio, said Damon Asbury, legislative director for the Ohio School Boards Association. Minorities are more likely to live in high concentrations of poverty, he said, while poor, white students might live in safer areas with more public resources.
“All people can learn,” Asbury said. “It’s not the individual; it’s the circumstances they often find themselves in.”
The consequences of achievement gaps can be crushing.
For example, 61 percent of black students in Ohio pass the third-grade reading test, compared with 87 percent of white students.
That’s important because one study found that students who don’t read proficiently by third grade are four times less likely to graduate by age 19. It’s 19 times less likely for poor students who don’t read well by third grade.
“There are huge personal ramifications to the students themselves,” Ushomirsky said. “Too many kids are either not graduating high school at all, or they’re graduating not prepared to do what they want to do next.”
Some of the widest gaps in Ohio are in urban schools, which have long struggled to improve scores among large minority populations.
In 2010, less than 5 percent of black students passed the Ohio third-grade reading exam at Lincoln Park Elementary, a majority black school at the time. More than 70 percent of white students at the Columbus school passed.
But even in suburban districts, including Dublin, Worthington and Westerville, there are schools where whites routinely outperform blacks by wide margins.
Some schools have added more minority teachers, which parents are lobbying for in Westerville.
“The overwhelming number of teachers are white; they connect better with white students than minority students,” said Bell, of the parent group.
McVay Elementary School in Westerville has had some of the widest gaps in third-grade reading proficiency between black and white students for the past five years. The smallest gap in that period was 20 percentage points.
“When you’re talking about a racial gap, it’s a pretty uncomfortable subject,” Principal Amy Miller said. “But you have to just say, ‘This is our data and it’s telling us something matters here, and we need to figure out what to do about it.’ ”
This year, teachers at McVay are working to pinpoint more quickly where individual students –– not groups –– need help. That approach helped at nearby Annehurst Elementary, which the state has honored for closing gaps.
McVay also added a reading specialist to help students, and the school is focusing on third-grade reading. Teachers, too, are having open discussions about race and breaking down preconceived notions. Miller believes that those changes will help.
Ultimately, though, there is no magic bullet.
Some experts such as Ushomirsky argue for school-level solutions, such as pairing top teachers with low-performing students. Harper says governments need to invest more in minority neighborhoods. Both agree that the stakes are clear.
“If we don’t do something about these inequities, the long-term consequences for our economy are enormous,” Harper said. “Inevitably we will see more poverty, more crime and so on.” cbinkley@dispatch.com
It does appear that way, statistically. But, they may be evolutionary as fit, or more fit, depending on the times and the environment. How would the white population fare in Africa in the aggregate? Not well, I'd guess.
Coming to America, we have a situation where the "cuckoo strategy" seems to be operative. Working Americans are delaying their childbearing because they are heavily taxed to subsidize the careless. Maybe that is the evolutionary strategy that is favored (shudder) under the current circumstances.
My mother’s family were all engineers and independent conservative businessmen. I grew up with relatives who flew their own planes, owned their own companies, built their own houses, fixed their own cars. They traveled the world and brought back pictures, stories and piles of exotic coins for me to play with. They gave me books and broadened my horizon immeasurably.
The blacks I knew were visited by recently released felons, people who had never held a job and drug addicts. I think if you’d raised them in my household and they’d never known their family they’d have done at least as well. (I got 3.0’s without trying and this was long before grade inflation. I got 4.0’s when I tried. I have owned two businesses. I own everything I have outright. I’ve published 57 articles and four of my 10 novels.)
The most successful black I know was helping me with a video project. I was at his house. Not one family member has a key to his house. He wouldn’t let his mother stay with him when he was recovering from an operation. He said, “They’d steal me blind.” Wow.
pre school is glorified baby sitting. It didn’t exist when I or my children were growing up. I didn’t even have kindergarten, straight into the first grade for me. Don’t know how I ever made it!
hat do you expect when a whole race of people in this country is taught from birth that everything is against them and all their problems is someone else’s fault.
What does that mean? A whole lot more? If it wasn't for affirmative action a whole lot more wouldn't be in college. Is that what you mean?
Are blacks really less intelligent than whites? If so, why?
As a group they are. Why not? Are you suggesting we are all the same?
Until Blacks fix their culture, we’ll never know whether they CAN be educated as well as whites, much less asians.
Many more generations of black children will be immolated on a failed culture supported only by leftists.
B.S. And exactly how many times do the parents of these disadvantaged pre-schoolers them to the library, read a story to them at bedtime, teach them the alphabet, how to print the alphabet and their name, recognize shapes and colors, how to spell simple words, etc. Most all museums and zoos have free or reduced rate times. Do they ever take their children?
Once a child starts school, how many parents sit down with their child every night and go over their homework, meet the teacher and observe in the classroom, hold the school accountable for the quality of instruction and instructors?
Until such time as parents accept responsibility for teaching their children and being involved in the educational process beginning at the time of their birth nothing will change.
The thing is, people perform about as well as their cohorts expect them to. And the expectations for persons of African descent have been set remarkably low, both by the white liberals and by other black “leaders”, like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The popular image of entertainers and sports stars of African descent seems to be they can “be as bad as they wanna be”, and there is no negative consequence for them.
But the soft racism of low expectations is no excuse for the slovenly behavior and seething rage that seems to engage an extraordinarily wide swath of these Americans of African descent. Decency and critical thinking are by no means genetic characteristics, yet they seem in short supply when dealing with the wider world, beyond their own thresholds.
There are good, decent and highly patriotic Americans of African descent, and some of them even take a principled position in support of the standards called for by the T.E.A. party organizations, and understand the real meaning of what the NRA preaches in terms of personal self-defense.
Regrettably, there are far too few of these good upstanding Americans among the black community, and many of the rest do not even seriously consider themselves to be “Americans”, but some wandering tribe dumped against their will in a foreign and hostile land. They have never left the plantation, even when the chains were struck off and the doors were opened. They do not know, nor shall they attempt to learn of, all that is America once had to offer.
But of course, Michelle is at last proud to be a resident of that territory once known as “the United States of America”. She doesn’t know, but she never has lived in that idyllic land. Never allowed herself to, that is for sure.
We are talking about averages. It has long been true that Black and White IQs differ by about a standard deviation. However, there is more overlap in the two distributions (bell curves) than there is difference.
There are Whites and Black who are geniuses and Whites and Blacks who are idiots. IMHO, Black culture reinforces the notion that it’s cool to be an idiot. From what I am seeing from Generation Y, that is increasingly common among Whites.
Is there any desparity in Gender? Sexual preference? Socio-Economic background? Food preferences? Testing location...
For hundreds of years they have, in one way or the another, either as private property or as wards of the state, have been cared for on a minimalist level thus keeping the invisible hand of the very cruel social darwinism at bay.
In my opinion it’s much simpler than IQ. It’s desire. Those who want to excel and are both allowed to and coached/mentored/taught, end up being much better off in their chosen field than those who do not, regardless of race.
The real question is why more minorities don’t want to excel in education and why those who do, are not offered a support structure to help them excel. The racial component here is that going after education is equated to being white. I say take command of the language and make going after education equated to being successful.
There were once slaves in this county that risked death to learn to read and write, now there are black children who risk ridicule, injury, and maybe more for trying to learn to read and write. The difference is that it the one “keeping the black man down”, is usually another black man.
The method of teaching reading was the key to beginning if dumbing down inner city students. Functional illiteracy took minority students back to the role of slave. Chicago set the pace and still lead the RACE to the top. Those who would destroy this Republic are now in control. Eugenics aka RACE is the key. Refocus on RACE,not as an academic goal but as an attempt to control population. Evil? You bet!!! Education has ever been the key to control. Lest we forget....
Yup; “you can’t make a silk purse out of sow’s ear”, but Lib’s keep on tryin’.......
Every group is going to have a spread of highs, lows, and midranges. The only difference is the spread.
There are a lot of factors that impact educational outcomes for all students, regardless of race: the quality of teachers, the curriculum used, the educational philosophies, the amount of money available for resources in the classroom, the expectations for achievement, resources and exposure to educational materials in the home and community, etc. But the most important factor is the home. What support and influence do the parents and/or grandparents provide? What help do they give to their children? What expectations do they hold for them? I don't know about Condi Rice's background or Dr. Carson's, but I would guess that both had very strong influences in their childhood that helped them become successful. Sometimes a child will succeed despite a lack of support from home if they have a very positive influence such as a teacher or relative who takes a special interest in the child to encourage the student to do their best, but generally, it is the family that provides the bedrock for academic success. This is true regardless of whether the student is educated in the public, private, or home.
Most Black students are born into a disadvantaged situation to begin with since 7 out of every 10 Black children are born out of wedlock and the majority of those children continue to live in single parent homes.
Why can't all black students excel? I believe they can, but in so many instances modern Black American culture does not reinforce an expectation of excellence. In so many instances that expectation is replaced with an attitude of victimization. That cultural aspect is a big factor. Compare the cultural expectations of Asian American families, and the average outcome is vastly different.
Okay, not all black students but a whole lot more. Are blacks really less intelligent than whites? If so, why?
According to the testing results from the Bell Curve, average IQ in the Cacasian races is between 100-105 points, the IQ if Blacks is around 82-87 points and the IQ of Asians is 107-111 points.
Why?
Very controversial, but it seems to be based fundamentally in evolutionary biology and genetics, but several cumulative generations of fetal alcohol and fetal drug syndrome from drug and alcohol abuse while pregnant certainly contributes to the IQ and behavioral issues.
Used to work in teaching, tutoring and mentoring Black children in one of the worst ghetto urban battle zone environments during the crack cocaine epidemic and gang drug wars of the 1980’s and children suffering fetal brain damage from their mothers substance abuse while pregnant was pretty devastating even back then and it’s got much worse since and we are dealing with two additional generations of cumulative exposure.
On the other hand, 85 % of professional basket ball players are Black for similar reasons.
Let’s see, we have been regurgitating excuses for decades and in fact for centuries as to why blacks as a group can’t seem to do as well as whites in school. Instead of designing school to capabilities we try to force square pegs into round holes and it never seems to improve.
We have heard everything from slavery, poverty, broken families and/or inadequate food to gangs and black culture among others.
There have been studies of genetically-indistinguishable European populations as well—of roughly similar cultural and historical background and without severe nutritional difficulties, etc even within the same country—that also display huge variances of 1 standard deviation across different decades and locations, so I agree we should be extremely cautious about assuming that other ethnic IQ differences are innate rather than environmental.
Same here. I also didn't grow up rich or white. What I did have was a Mom that was home and a Dad who laid down the law...
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