Update (11:32 a.m.): A reader sends a link to a related Thomas Sowell article. An excerpt:
“The redneck culture proved to be a major handicap for both whites and blacks who absorbed it. Today, the last remnants of that culture can still be found in the worst of the black ghettos, whether in the North or the South, for the ghettos of the North were settled by blacks from the South. The counterproductive and self-destructive culture of black rednecks in today’s ghettos is regarded by many as the only ‘authentic’ black culture–and, for that reason, something not to be tampered with. Their talk, their attitudes, and their behavior are regarded as sacrosanct.”
Later…Ugly numbers from The San Diego Union-Tribune:
“Statewide in English/language arts, only 30 percent of black students and 29 percent of Latino students scored proficient or better. In contrast, 62 percent of white students and 66 percent of Asian students scored proficient or better…In math, only 26 percent of black students and 31 percent of Latino students statewide scored proficient or better, while 54 percent of white students and 68 percent of Asian students scored proficient or better.”
More here (type “dontbugme” for username and password). An excerpt:
“[I]n some cases, the poorest white students are doing better than Latino and black students who come from middle class or wealthy families…The so-called achievement gap — the difference in performance between groups of students — has long been chalked up to a difference in family income. It makes sense that — regardless of race — students whose parents have money and speak English would do better in school, on the whole, than students whose families struggle with employment, food and shelter.
“But this year’s test scores show that the difference in academic achievement between ethnic groups is more than an issue of poverty vs. wealth.”
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I’m convinced that no amount of money or faddish educational theories or finger pointing will meaningfully improve the academic performance of minority students or significantly narrow the achievement gap between whites/Asians and blacks/hispanics.
The District of Columbia Public Schools receives one of the nation’s highest per pupil expenditures (I think it’s $14,000 per pupil now), and the school system, predominantly black, consistently ranks in the academic basement nationally.
The Home Problem
What we have is a home problem, not an institutional problem. I don’t know how much effort, realistically speaking, working single parents with low educational attainment themselves can put into educating their children outside of school. Is it unrealistic to expect these parents to make sure their kids understand and complete homework? Is taking the kids to places like museums and libraries on weekends and during the summer (See Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap in PDF) an impossible task? Is encouraging them to read books instead of watching that blasted television a lofty ambition reserved for educated and/or high-income households?
In my opinion, it isn’t.
The home problem goes deeper, though. I suspect that children of divorced or widowed parents perform better academically than children of never-married parents of any income level. Children living with married parents (with biological, residential fathers) certainly are better off than the rest. But since 70 percent of black babies (up to 80 percent in some cities) are born to unmarried parents — and the chance that these kids will ever live with their biological fathers is nil — too many black children will never have this advantage. They’ll never know what it’s like to live with the two people who made them, to see how an intact family unit functions, and to learn what it means to be a parent and provider.
No matter how loudly people wail about the “shameful†academic achievement gap, it won’t narrow in a discernable way until black parents adopt a new attitude and new skills to help their children improve. I’m one of the few people who’ll say publicly that genetics plays a part, but genetics alone don’t determine who we are and where we end up. Some racial groups naturally perform better than others. That’s an observable fact. But individuals can and should make intelligent and sound life choices along the way, and individuals can and should go above and beyond what they think they’re capable of.
Take my words with a grain of salt. I’m not an expert. I’m not even a parent. I’m just a reasonably aware person determined not to be limited by my race or people’s perceptions of me.
Beyond genetics is environment, or culture. I have seen a general apathy toward education among certain blacks. Then again, should these families focus on educational attainment? Perhaps there should be a trade school renaissance in this country, where non-college bound students can learn practical skills to acquire self-supporting jobs.
Poor Whites Outperform Better Off Blacks
That’s quite a long intro to two articles I wanted you to read. The first, “Student scores level off in state,†is another story about the academic achievement gap, but this is the important part (emphases added):
But O’Connell ratcheted up the debate Wednesday. Educators and civic leaders, he said, must break the commonly held assumption that Latino and black students’ low scores are due largely to the effects of poverty. For the first time, O’Connell compiled statistics that showed black and Latino students who are not designated as poor are performing below white students who are at or near the poverty level.
“These are not just economic achievement gaps; they are racial achievement gaps,” he said. “We cannot afford to excuse them; they simply must be addressed.”
People have been guessing and studies have been showing for years that as a group, black kids from “wealthier†backgrounds still perform worse than Asians and whites from “poor†backgrounds. If you believe poverty causes low educational attainment, then freed slaves who somehow managed to educate themselves and achieve great things and countless immigrants who come to this country dirt poor yet outperform everyone else must be aberrations.
Here’s a question: Do the “poor” white and Asian kids mentioned in the article come from intact families?
The article sneaks in this gem: “Studies on teacher quality conducted by the group, for example, found that poor white students often have better access to more experienced, educated teachers than wealthier black and Latino students.â€
I don’t know what “have better access†is suppose to mean. How do poor white students have better access to more experienced and educated teachers than wealthier minorities? The poor white kids certainly aren’t going to private schools. They’re stuck in the same government schools as everybody else, aren’t they? So where does this “better access†come from?
Wealthier (White) Neighborhoods Don’t Produce Better Black Students
I’m surprised a story like “Neighborhoods’ Effect On Grades Challenged†was published in a paper like the Washington Post. In essence, a study (PDF) showed that moving poor, underachieving black kids to wealthier neighborhoods doesn’t improve their academic performances on average. Why would anyone imagine that it would? Social engineers believe that whatever wealthier families have that made them wealthier and more socially adept will rub off on poorer families.
We’re dealing with habits, ethics, and values conducive to success that have been passed down through generations. Moving a family living on government aid and devoid of the kind of values it takes to succeed educationally and professionally isn’t going to do squat for the poorer family. But what effect, I’d love to know, does moving Section 8 families into wealthier neighborhoods have on wealthier families’ property values or the families’ living standards or on their children’s academic performances?
As expected, researchers offer up plenty of excuses why kids from poor families don’t improve academically after they’re shipped to wealthier neighborhoods. Sociologist William Julius Wilson said the wealthier neighborhoods were still “highly racially segregated.†In other words, the kids didn’t improve because they were surrounded by too many black people. Implications?
Other researchers said that when poor families moved in, the people around them got poorer. Does that mean property values dropped, rendering the pre-existing families less wealthy? I guess they don’t count.
Here’s the bottom-line:
You can move poor blacks into wealthier neighborhoods filled with white folks; you can pour billions more dollars into closing the achievement gap through the institutional approach; you can teach black kids myths about “black†Egyptians and how the Greeks stole their culture; you can teach in ebonics; you can come up with yet more idiotic educational theories; you can continue dumbing down the curriculum and decreasing the g-load on tests so it only appears minorities are improving; you can keep telling black kids they live in a racist world in which they’ll never catch a break; or…
…you can face reality. As long as blacks keep having babies without providing children stable, intact homes, as long as black parents keep turning a blind eye to the anti-intellectual strain that runs through the black subculture and in their own homes, and as long as they continue looking to the government to work miracles and fix problems, absolutely nothing will change.
But that’s just my two cents. Do your own thinking.
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