NYT: 'Jaw-Dropping' Data on Black Male Student Achievement

Disturbing but Not surprising.

Solutions? *sigh* Alas I have no magic bullet.

I will have to think on it some more

Rocket River

 

The black-white achievement gap is interesting because it hasn't been a linear affair. Things seemed to be squaring up in the 1970s, with gains in civil rights being reflected in decreases in infant mortality, educational milestones among blacks etc.

http://www.ets.org/research/news/ets_report_progress_stalled_closing_black_white_achievement_gap

Freakonomics has a really good case on this. The theory Steven Levitt provides is that the crack cocaine epidemic completely reversed everything-regardless, it's encouraging to see that measurable results have been obtained and that solutions are possible.

One guy who does a lot of work on it-Roland Fryer
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/roland-fryer/

This guy has devoted pretty much his entire life to closing the gap and is trying all sorts of things-check out his work on incentives and things like cell phone programs. His research also shows that given the right investment, results do follow-http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/hcz%204.15.2009.pdf

 

We have done all that. The problem with your position is that if we spend x amount of money on education and get poor results, then you will advocate x +1. Then if we spend x+1 with no tangible improvement, you will say that it needs to be x+2. And so on and so on. Where does it stop? At what point do people say "enough is enough" because it's not about the money? At what point does society say that we have done all we can and that now it's up to the students and their families?

 

I feel no obligation to cite you anything. Do your own research.

 

We've done all that? The class sizes are going up, teachers aren't getting significant raises, and many have gotten pay cuts, or furlough days which amounts to a pay cut, and precious few professional developments deal specifically with the issue of meeting the needs of these learners.

We most definitely haven't done all that.

 

It's an attitude. An elitist thinks that they are not only the smartest person in the room, but that they are so superior that they should be empowered to dictate how everyone else should live.

Given that elitists have given us communism, Nazism, and other maladies, their judgment is very questionable.

 

Really? Over the course of the last 45 years we most certainly have. School districts are having financial problems now, but it's not like we have been in a recession for the last 40 years. Teachers received pay raises, class sizes went down, money was allocated to special needs students.

Now, you will probably say it was not enough. But that's what liberals always say on social programs. They always make the x+1 argument.

 

In other Jaw Dropping news, non poverty White males do as well as poor Asian males.

 

Excluding everything else that is bolded, here is where I agree with you on what an elitist is.

One could argue that conservative attitudes toward liberals are elitist. They believe that certain parts of liberal culture, society, morals and way of life are wrong. Conservatives believe, whether it's right or wrong, that certain rights that liberals fought for should be overturned (ie: abortion).

I think that when we start coining others as elitist just because they vehemently disagree politically and/or religiously we are lowering the quality of discourse that we need to be having.

Furthermore, I think our biggest issue between both liberals is a HUGE culture clash. There is nothing wrong with being a god-fearing, gun-owning farmer from Kansas. There is nothing wrong with being an atheist, organic-food eating computer programmer from California. So what do you get when these 2 types of people are competing for their set of beliefs and way of life in the political system that we have? You get the crappy name-calling from BOTH sides and it honestly needs to stop.

Thanks for your time man.

 

It has to do with the culture the children were raised in. If his/her parents don't value education it's very hard to get him to value education.

 

I didn't see it in the article, but I wonder if the poor black vs poor white and poor white vs not poor black were compared in the same schools. For example, were the poor whites in inner city schools or poor rural schools? I would think there would be a huge difference in educational environment. In general it would be better to get as many comparables for such a study.

Also my recollection from what I have read is that poorer schools have been getting poorer since the 80's and money has not been constantly thrown at them.

Speaking from experience I went to majority black middle and high schools and I know for a fact that money was not there, that competence was not there with the administration or majority of teachers. I was in honors classes and they were bad enough. As an example, I didn't have regular 8th grade history or chemistry teachers - just rotating subs the majority of the year (who did stuff like read the paper). Regular classes were essentially free-for-alls. How was any of that supposed to help students? I learned at home and on my own.

 

I would dispute totally the idea that poor predominantly white and black schools are on the same parallel in terms of quality but anyway. His conclusion is completely flawed. Blacks have different attitudes exactly because of racism. The cumulative effect of slavery, whitewashing of culture, intentional destruction of the black family, forced illiteracy, violence, lynchings, intimidation, Jim Crow, segregation, rates of incarceration, institutional racism's effect on employment, wealth, ownership, advancement, etc. all play a role in the attitudes of today's generation of black kids. The guy can't see the forest from the trees.

 

This problem wasn't this bad prior to integration (which placed a lot of black students in classrooms where "some" teachers didn't care about their success) or things that removed black fathers from households (Vietnam War, War on Drugs, Welfare Laws, etc). Just my personal opinion. This guy has some pretty good takes on it though (long but good lecture). I also recommend his books for those educating black children.*

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As a teacher I can tell you that teachers have not received huge pay raises, and class sizes have gone up.

 

i raise you

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An article that called black people black instead of "African American". That might be a sign of progress in itself.

Absolutely. I've been grumbling about that for a while. Female accomplishment is to be credited. Always better that SOMEONE is doing well rather than NO ONE. But you can sense it around you - its like focus is put on making sure females' needs are tended to almost at the expense of males. (And in a some cases it is a direct expense)


I posted this in another forum, an example of the tone used. A report from The National Women's Law Center titled
"When Girls Don't Graduate, We All Fail: A Call to Improve High School Graduation Rates for Girls"
PDF version link

I'm sure they meant well. But really, why is female failures weighted any different than males' failing? And its the MALES who are doing worse, and its been that way for DECADES. Where's the "equality" there? If females were doing 25-40% worse in schools than males, itd be NATIONAL CRISIS. Even when women are ahead, its the same talk of harrassment prevention and institutional inadequacies and so forth...

Back on topic, the topic of educational disparity should be projected out MORE. Even if its about race, so what. Educated racism is better than ignorant racism

 

+1 on all. A little of anything and everything sprinkled in.

The culture of easy divorce and the cycle of single-motherhood/absentee fatherhood shows its negative side everywhere, and especially with blacks.

"Welfare and the benefits given per child", "limiting the need to have men around to pay for anything" .... well who's the one in charge of managing what the child gets, and when you limit the man out of it, who's that leave..... is the MOTHERS and females.

Gotta tone it down with all the "deadbeat before proven innocent" approach, gotta tell some of these mothers to choose BETTER men, include women in the faulty decision making. You said it without saying it, if you honor and protect the womb and all the children that comes out of it by giving it money and shelter at all costs no matter what it does, the womb won't care to look for a good male provider. We KNOW the whole "Women love BAD BOYS" culture going on in this country. When women actually follow THROUGH on that, and plenty do, do we associate "bad boys" with EDUCATED boys? Or good caretakers?

Gotta of course keep getting men to perform their fatherly roles ... basically we need to have people GIVE A POOP about child development in the first place. A kid is always gonna be the apple of the mother's eye, their kids will ALWAYS be special. Some groups choose to back that assertion up by having their kids prove it through their education.

 

I never said huge pay raises. But they have received pay raises and class sizes did go down in some areas. You simply cannot dispute that we have spent a huge amount of money on education over the last 40 years. It just cannot be done with any credibility.