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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Apr '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Stuart Creque
Because African immigrant parents tend to kick their children hard in the behind when they misbehave and when they do poorly in school. And African parents tend to stay married as they raise their children.
Also, self-selection. We tend to get the best and brightest.
Apr '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Stuart Creque:
You can also look at Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers to see how counter-intuitive factors lead to different outcomes. For example, the counting system in the Chinese language and the demands of extracting maximum rice yields from small plots contributed to the mathematical aptitude of people from Southern China. The historical anomalies around immigrant Jews becoming small businessmen in the garment trades, then sending their grandchildren to what were then excellent public schools in the Depression (when enrollments were down and college professors were taking jobs as high school teachers) led to high achievement in that group.
2 minutes ago
Ashkenazi jews also have the highest IQ of any racial/ethnic group in the world (mean of 115). Here is an excellent article by Steven Pinker:
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2006_06_17_thenewrepublic.html
Dec '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
wmartin
Stuart Creque:
You can also look at Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers to see how counter-intuitive factors lead to different outcomes. For example, the counting system in the Chinese language and the demands of extracting maximum rice yields from small plots contributed to the mathematical aptitude of people from Southern China. The historical anomalies around immigrant Jews becoming small businessmen in the garment trades, then sending their grandchildren to what were then excellent public schools in the Depression (when enrollments were down and college professors were taking jobs as high school teachers) led to high achievement in that group.
2 minutes ago
Ashkenazi jews also have the highest IQ of any racial/ethnic group in the world (mean of 115). Here is an excellent article by Steven Pinker:
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2006_06_17_thenewrepublic.html · 1 hour ago
Gladwell points out cultural factors that explain this.
Oct '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
We might say it's because of the Lion Moms? Or Leopard Moms?
Sep '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
And your point is? The reason is?
May '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Stuart Creque
wmartin
Stuart Creque:
...rical anomalies around immigrant Jews becoming small businessmen in the garment trades, then sending their grandchildren to what were then excellent public schools in the Depression (when enrollments were down and college professors were taking jobs as high school teachers) led to high achievement in that group.
2 minutes ago
Ashkenazi jews also have the highest IQ of any racial/ethnic group in the world (mean of 115). Here is an excellent article by Steven Pinker:
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2006_06_17_thenewrepublic.html · 1 hour ago
Gladwell points out cultural factors that explain this. · 5 hours ago
Why does IQ correlate with brain size? Does culture make your brain bigger?
Jul '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
A lot of this seems to touch just briefly on the roles the teacher plays now in every classroom, which is largely social worker, family interventionist, and/or a mandatory reporter for any potential hint of abuse or illegal activity. I would hardly like to defend the educational system such as it is; everything stated above more or less speaks to the problems the unions present, and the fact that throwing more money at the problem over decades has not fixed a damn thing, and everyone knows it.
Mainstreaming kids into classrooms where they are so far behind other kids serves to take everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Hobbling the front runner in a race by tying his or her legs together, so everyone else who can't run as fast as this person can are all crossing the line at the same time, means we've lowered our expectations for everyone. I can personally attest to the fact that once you lower your expectations for yourself in life, you can be damn sure you'll meet those lower expectations every single time. We only grow and mature when challenged. It's that simple.
Oct '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
I have two nephews who attended some of the KC magnet schools, driven there in publicly funded taxis from their Missouri suburb. They did excellently well in them; both are IT geeks now, one working for Google. I have to say if those schools failed to improve performance in their target demographic, it probably wasn't the schools' fault.
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Looking for a "one thing" answer is futile. There is certainly a combination of factors.
Maybe a better exercise would be to list the reasons for lower scores in minority school systems in order of significance.
Dec '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
I think Aaron Miller is on the right track. It's not the IQ, which only provides a vague bracket of competence. It's what you do with it. With application, people with "average" or "below-average" IQs can be extremely successful.
It's more complicated than that, of course; for instance, as Aaron points out, it has much to do with the culture. Example: many black kids I've worked with "knew" that certain things are not worth studying because they are "white man's knowledge" (math, science, engineering), an attitude encouraged by Afrocentric staff. But they all "knew" they can be doctors or lawyers. This ideologically induced false self-esteem was a one-way ticket downward...
Aaron Miller
A 15-point difference in IQ does not equal a substantial difference in test scores. Plenty of students with lower IQs get decent grades...(or pass)...simply by being studious. Likewise, plenty of smart kids perform poorly in school because they fail to devote themselves...
...A one standard deviation gap is very large. · 15 hours ago
Dec '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Don't forget the dads! My sense is that they are the crucial, if rarely mentioned, factor in children's success.
bereket kelile
We might say it's because of the Lion Moms? Or Leopard Moms? · 11 hours ago
Dec '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
outstripp
Stuart Creque
wmartin
Stuart Creque:
...rical anomalies around immigrant Jews becoming small businessmen in the garment trades, then sending their grandchildren to what were then excellent public schools in the Depression (when enrollments were down and college professors were taking jobs as high school teachers) led to high achievement in that group.
2 minutes ago
Ashkenazi jews also have the highest IQ of any racial/ethnic group in the world (mean of 115). Here is an excellent article by Steven Pinker:
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2006_06_17_thenewrepublic.html · 1 hour ago
Gladwell points out cultural factors that explain this. · 5 hours ago
Why does IQ correlate with brain size? Does culture make your brain bigger? · 6 hours ago
Oddly, Neanderthals had larger brains than Homo sapiens sapiens.
The brain's an amazing organ. The more you use it, the stronger it gets; the more you try to stuff into it, the more it folds in on itself to make more room.
Culture makes your brain -- of whatever size -- work better if it causes you to use it for survival. Culture makes your brain -- of whatever size -- work worse if it causes you to survive without using it.
Dec '10
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Michael Kubat: Don't forget the dads! My sense is that they are the crucial, if rarely mentioned, factor in children's success.
bereket kelile
We might say it's because of the Lion Moms? Or Leopard Moms? · 11 hours ago
Edited 29 minutes ago
30 minutes ago
Dads are frequently mentioned and emphasized as a crucial factor in the success of children. For example, Rick Santorum emphasizes their role, and it was back in 1965 that Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote the Department of Labor report "The Negro Family: A Case for National Action," which warned of the pernicious effects of de-emphasizing the role of fathers in Black families.
45 years later, those pernicious effects have spread outward to the Hispanic and white communities, where illegitimacy rates have skyrocketed and fatherhood has been increasingly deemphasized.
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Annefy: Having read the Bell Curve let me just say one thing:
Regardless, we are talking about teaching students to read at grade level, not become rocket scientists.
I have four kids and 14 nieces and nephews and their academic abilities are all over the map. We have a biochemistry major, one that scored 2350 on his SAT a few that got through algrebra on a wing and a prayer and a bunch in between.
But they all can read at grade level. · 17 hours ago
This is a great point. We're just talking basics. Nothing fancy.
Mar '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
Read this short Wikipedia entry on Jaime Escalante to learn all you need to know about the failing public educational system. His story is played out time and again in this country; good, successful teachers are pushed out or stifled to protect the under performing, poor teachers. We only know about Jaime because of Edward James Olmos' portrayal of him in Stand and Deliver. You want to improve the public school system for everyone, but especially the poor and minorities, ended school unions.
Jan '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
wmartin
Anon
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. · 7 minutes ago
Thomas Sowell is not an authority in this field. The Bell Curve and Arthur Jensen's The G Factor are far more authoritative than any work Sowell has done on this topic. · Jan. 25 at 5:43pm
Edited on Jan. 25 at 5:46pm
It's clear that you haven't read either the book, or his essays. Sowell has cited attribution for each and every point discussed, every conclusion drawn.
He's an easy read, quite logical and highly respectful of evidence. I think you'd enjoy reading him.
Apr '11
Re: Black and Latino Kids Lag in School: Six Excuses from the Usual Suspects
What really strikes me is how depressing this is in the long run. Obama talks about the rich and the poor, and classes of Americans, but we have never heard that rhetoric from political leaders, or seen it gain mass appeal. The one thing that is supposed to give us all an equal start (education) is instead churning out hordes of ignorant voters of all shapes, sizes, and colors. The lower class is being massed produced as I type this, and running into the arms of the Democratic Party. Well, not as I type this. But maybe we should make kids go to school at 5 am...