Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
From HuffPo comes this barrage of bad news, which isn't really "news" to anyone who has been paying attention:
Educators are expressing alarm that the performance gap between minority and white high school students continues to expand across the United States, with minority teenagers performing at academic levels equal to or lower than those of 30 years ago.
Whenever you read the words "educators are expressing alarm," you know you're about to enter into farrago of excuses and clichés. Brace yourself:
On average, African-American and Latino high school seniors perform math and read at the same level as 13-year-old white students.
"We take kids that start [high school] a little behind and by the time they finish high school, they're way behind," says Amy Wilkins, vice president for government affairs and communications at the Education Trust, a Washington-based educational advocacy group. "That's the opposite of what American values say education is about. Education is supposed to level the playing field. And it does the opposite. . . .While many people are celebrating our postracial society . . . there is still a significant hangover in our schools."
More signs that what's about to unfold is a swampy mess of nonsense, blame-shifting, and crapola? These words are all you need to read: "A Washington-based educational advocacy group." You may as well hang a sign that says: "What follows is going to miss the point entirely."
Here's what the Education Trust says is the problem. Here's why black and Latino students are fairing so poorly:
Educators cite these causes for the disparity in performance:
- Lowered expectations for students of color
- Growing income inequality and lack of resources in low-income school districts
- Unequal access to experienced teachers
- An increased number of "out of field" teachers instructing minority students in subjects outside their area of expertise
- Unconscious bias" by teachers and administrators.
- These factors, experts say, produce an opportunity gap for students of color.
"A 12th-grade education in a more affluent neighborhood is not the same as the education in a less affluent neighborhood," says Dominique Apollon, research director of the Applied Research Center, a national nonprofit with offices in New York, Chicago and Oakland, Calif. "Top students in low-income schools don't have the opportunity to be pushed further and further."
Six excuses. Six blame-shifting pieces of nonsense. Six new ways to say "it's racism!" Six more attempts to deflect the real reason for rotten schools, the real reason for the performance gap, the real reason for the despair and hopelessness in our public schools:
Organizations like Education Trust, and their lickspittle toadying to the teachers' unions and the criminally incompetent public school system.
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Aug '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Rob - you gotta stop holding it all back. Tell us how do you really feel about it. Get it off your chest. This is a safe place.
Jan '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
As I wrote last May, Abigail and Stephen Thernstrum have thoroughly and convincingly studied the problem of public school education (No Excuses: Closing the Gap in Racial Learning), and have concluded that the curricula in colleges of education are useless for their intended purposes; that the primary focus of teacher unions is member self-interest, not student advancement; that public schools have undertaken the role of public orphanages without providing teacher/caretakers adequate training; and that all colleges of education, and the Department of Education, should be closed. They believe that trying to continually reform what invariably fails is lunacy, and that totally new perspectives should be formulated outside of the education establishment. But, sadly, that will never happen – it’s the self-interest thing.
Edited on Jan 25 at 4:57pmDec '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
It wouldn't have anything to do with high levels of illegitimacy, generations of welfare dependence and a degenerate culture, would it?
Oct '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
The longer minorities stay in school, the farther they fall behind. How is it not obvious that school is the problem?
Vouchers will not only inspire competition, it will empower parents. I'm a pretty good parent, but if my kids were stuck in a bad school and there was nothing I could do about it, I'd give up too.
And vouchers would also save a fortune. Win / Win / Win.
And it will NEVER happen.
May '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Rob Long:
Duh.
I grew up just outside the Houston city limits, on the north (affluent) side. It was generally accepted that the public schools were worse the closer to the city's heart they were located. I recall some teachers who worked inside the city limits saying they spent as much or more time disciplining students as educating them. Without a safe and orderly environment, education is difficult.
May '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
I wonder why IQ is never considered as a root cause?
May '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
My bias against the educrats is highly concious, deliberate, and permanent.
Mar '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Great post Rob, why is it so hard for people to see that the policies of state control of education are a failure? I always ask this question: What about illegitimacy and the breakdown of families; isn't that much more correlated to success than race?
Dec '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
outstripp
I wonder why IQ is never considered as a root cause
Shhhhh, outstripp! We do not talk about such things. Perhaps over in Japan, where you live, but never, never here.
Aug '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Listening to Delingpole and Toby Young in the podcast was really inspirational and reminds me that we need to get " Waiting for Superman" into alot wider distribution somehow. It is a great film with tons of emotion wrapped in a message of grassroots activism that is all too accessible. The lines are drawn, the enemy is well-defined, and the stakes are as high as anything we can imagine.
Edited on Jan 25 at 5:21pmApr '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
I'm sorry, but teacher's unions are not the reason black and latino students lag. The problem is that the average black american has an IQ of only 85, as compared to the average white IQ of 100. The one standard deviation gap between black and white scores (latinos score an average of 90) is present on all cognitive tests, from Stanford-Binet to the SAT to the GMAT.
As the title of a recent book by Robert Weissberg puts it "Bad Students, Not Bad Schools."
Edited on Jan 25 at 5:22pmMay '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Lowered expectations for students of color
...except for Asians for some reason.
An increased number of "out of field" teachers instructing minority students in subjects outside their area of expertise
....except for Asians for some reason.
"Unconscious bias" by teachers and administrators
...except against Asians for some reason.
These factors, experts say, produce an opportunity gap for students of color
...except for Asians for some reason.
Jun '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Meet the parent(s), and you can pretty accurately predict how well the kids will do in school. It has little to do with income. It has everything to do with family stability and parental expectations.
Feb '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Lord I despise white liberals...
May '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
There is a huge genetic component in intelligence as there is in many things but the racial component of the genetic diversity of humans is relatively small. To tie the failure of our government education system to genetic inferiority of the victims of this system is beyond the pale.
Jan '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Spend a few minutes reading Thomas Sowell's take on that and you'll see why IQ is not the problem. There are a number of his essays on education which would serve, but I'd advise anyone with questions (or opinions) like yours to read his book Black Rednecks and White Liberals, along with his essays.
Jul '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
My third grader just got tested for gifted and talented today. This part is true. They first made sure he was part of the master race. That part is not true. I am curious why cultural issues, language problems, and home lives..... all not associated with school , were not mentioned along with that other poppycock.
May '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
When they put me in charge I'm going to do one thing: Suspend all advanced degrees in "education." If you want your PhD back you'll have to defend your thesis before a panel of real academics.
Then I'll resign and go back to listening to Johnny Horton records.
Oct '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
You wouldn't say that if you'd met my four kids.
But ... just for the sake of argument, let's say it's all up to the parents. Then we should get the cheapest teachers possible and just have them do crowd control. Since nothing they are going to do is going to make much difference, then why are we spending all this money hiring teachers?
Mar '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
A friend of mine used to work in a private school in a Chicago school on the South Side. There was one kid in one class who never hesitated to abuse other students for "acting white" when they were applying themselves. He was a real "too cool for school" type.
"There is another kid in that class," he said. "In twelve years, people might be calling him 'Doctor.' He could do it. He's just that smart."
His tormentor? "In twelve years, assuming he's still around, they'll probably be calling him 'the defendant.'"
The hardest chains of all to break are the ones on the human mind. Only one person can reach those chains. He has to be strong enough to do it, and he has to want to.