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

.............look here dude. All humans currently living on the planet are off the SAME species.

Being of African descent does not predispose someone to failure!

 

There are a lot of reasons for the plight of the "black" male in this nation as raised in this survey. I could go into to all of them but that would take a long time and very few people would actually be paying attention. (Thats another topic)

I haven't been inside of every "black" household so I don't know the inner workings of every "black" males household, but I can say that from what I've seen, among the poorer of our race, is that a large percentage of these young men are trapped in a vicious cycle.

To paraphrase El Haji Malik El-Shabazz (Malcom X):

Poverty is a vicious cycle. When your poor, you typically have access to poor schools, in these poor schools you typically receive a poor education, this poor education limits the jobs that are available. The jobs that are available are typically lower paying jobs and the only place that you can afford to live is right back in that same poverty stricken area.

I would add it that that, on average, in these poverty stricken areas there doesn't seem to be an emphasis on education in every household. Obviously there are a variety of reasons for this. ( Yet another topic) Every once in a while a child can succeed on his/her own without much parental investment in education but the vast majority of children will not, it is too tough.

There are also those who get caught up in crime, looking for an easy way out of their situation. Once you go down this road it is very hard to come back out because very few people want to deal with you. And that is unfortunate, but understandable.

Before I start to ramble, let me wrap this post up. The biggest problem I see in this equation is poverty and all of the trappings that go along with this.

Its hard to break, and poverty (along with other causes that I didn't go into) play a big role in the disparity we now see before us.

 

kind of like you disrespect the fact that john kerry actually took one for the team and george bush flew planes over alabama

 

Criticism
A review by Nicholas Mackintosh, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, criticizes Lynn's occasional manipulation of data, some of it originally collected by the reviewer, from which distorted conclusions have been drawn. Mackintosh expresses astonishment that Lynn infers elsewhere that Kalahari bushmen, with an average measured IQ of 54, should be regarded as mentally r****ded; and that an 8 year old European child with the equivalent mental age would have no problems surviving in the same desert environment. He concludes:[13]
"Much labour has gone into this book. But I fear it is the sort of book that gives IQ testing a bad name. As a source of references, it will be useful to some. As a source of information, it should be treated with some suspicion. On the other hand, Lynn's preconceptions are so plain, and so pungently expressed, that many readers will be suspicious from the outset."
In a 2008 review of the data used in Lynn's book, Hunt and Wittmann[14] write:
"The majority of the data points were based upon convenience rather than representative samples. Some points were not even based on residents of the country. For instance, the “data point” for Suriname was based on tests given to Surinamese who had migrated to the Netherlands, and the “data point” for Ethiopia was based on the IQ scores of a highly selected group that had emigrated to Israel and, for cultural and historical reasons, was hardly representative of the Ethiopian population. The data point for Mexico was based upon a weighted averaging of the results of a study of “Native American and Mestizo children in southern Mexico” with result of a study of residents of Argentina. Upon reading the original reference, we found that the “data point” that Lynn and Vanhanen used for the lowest IQ estimate, Equatorial Guinea, was actually the mean IQ of a group of Spanish children in a home for the developmentally disabled in Spain. Corrections were applied to adjust for differences in IQ across cohorts (the “Flynn” effect), on the assumption that the same correction could be applied internationally, without regard to the cultural or economic development level of the country involved. While there appears to be rather little evidence on cohort effect upon IQ across the developing countries, one study in Kenya (Daley, Whaley, Sigman, Espinosa, & Neumann, 2003[15]) shows a substantially larger cohort effect than is reported for developed countries."

 

Wow! Some of this stuff is eerily similar to the flawed science the Nazis were using.

 

i wasn't responding to the origional op

 

basso, after 8 years i'm sure you realize sometimes threads take a different route, post 124

 

Never forget...











The boy in the last picture is probably still alive.

Do you think he has changed his mind?

 

His sign now says "get a brain morans"

 

I can't...my paternal grandfather was taken to jail for marching w/ MLK

R.I.P to both of them

 

LOL nice :grin:.

 

Since this thread had some discussion on anti-intellectualism, I thought I'd share a nice quote from Isaac Asimov:

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"

 

Asian countries don't have trouble with this...yet. Maybe the problem is unfettered individualism?

 

I think the problem does not get fixed by "throwing money" but by successfull men (preferably black) becoming invovled in the lives of the kids growing up in households where they are not receiving the proper motivation and motivating them.

Starting mentoring programs and successful men getting involved in the lives of families with a history of poverty / poor education. Giving the young boys something to work for (the approval of their caring mentor)

I realize that this does not address every issue and certainly does not address all the other negative affects of poverty but it could be part of the solution

 

I think people need to realize that being "book smart" does not equate to success and wealth. Maybe kids are just not motivated when they dont do well in school or on standarized tests. Maybe they lose hope and motivation when they do poorly. I think anyone can be successful and contribute to socieity as long as they work hard at it. But I agree these kids do not have the right role models. Most of them grow up with one parent who most likely has to work. Their role models are what they see on MTV.

also nice one...SamFish about the boy and the sign

 

Outside of the Jersey Shore, has anyone watched MTV in the last 10 years?

 

Jersey Shore, Real World, Tila Tequila, et al during the last 10+ years. I have not watched one episode of any of these shows, yet I am familiar with them simply due to how ridiculously pervasive they are in pop culture. You can't get away from them.

In short, someone is watching them, and is making the rest of us dumber as a result.

 

Maybe, but watching Lisa Loeb, Jon Secada or Ace of Base 20 times a day didn't make me any smarter either.