Posted on 11/09/2010 10:24:07 AM PST by lbryce
An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another.
But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known.
Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.
Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches.
The data was distilled from highly respected national math and reading tests, known as the National Assessment for Educational Progress, which are given to students in fourth and eighth grades, most recently in 2009. The report, “A Call for Change,” is to be released Tuesday by the Council of the Great City Schools, an advocacy group for urban public schools.
Although the outlines of the problem and many specifics have been previously reported, the group hopes that including so much of what it calls “jaw-dropping data” in one place will spark a new sense of national urgency.
“What this clearly shows is that black males who are not eligible for free and reduced-price lunch are doing no better than white males who are poor,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the council.
The report shows that black boys on average fall behind from their earliest years.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Didn't Malcolm Gladwell write about this?
ML/NJ
ML/NJ
Of course not! I know an individual from Honduras who grew up in a back roads house with dirt floor, no glass windows and a single lightbulb in the house.....One niece is now a lawyer, two nephews, now deceased were physicians...........
He, my brother-in-law, is a highly successful oncologist here in S.E. Michigan.......
People in this country alleged to be poverty stricken don't know poverty!!!!!
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The Parens Patriae Powers
The 1852 compulsory schooling legislation of Massachusetts represents a fundamental change in the jurisprudence of parental authority, as had the adoption act passed by the nearly identically constituted legislature just four years prior, the first formal adoption legislation anywhere on earth since the days of the Roman Empire. Acts so radical could not have passed silently into practice if fundamental changes in the status of husbands and wives, parents and children, had not already gravely damaged the prestige of the family unit.
There are clear signs as far back as 1796 that elements in the new American state intended to interpose themselves in corners of the family where no European state had ever gone before.
In that year, the Connecticut Superior Court, representing the purest Puritan lineage of original New England, introduced "judicial discretion" into the common law of child custody and a new conception of youthful welfare hardly seen before outside the pages of philosophy books—the notion that each child had an individual destiny, a private "welfare" independent of what happened to the rest of its family.
A concept called "psychological parenthood" began to take shape, a radical notion without legal precedent that would be used down the road to support drastic forcible intervention into family life. It became one of the basic justifications offered during the period of mass immigration for a compulsion law intended to put children under the thrall of so-called scientific parenting in schools.
Judicial discretion in custody cases was the first salvo in a barrage of poorly understood court rulings in which American courts made law rather than interpreted it.
These rulings were formalized later by elected legislatures. Rubber-stamping the fait accompli, they marked a restructuring of the framework of the family ordered by a judicial body without any public debate or consent. No precedent for such aggressive court action existed in English law.
The concept lived only in the dreams and speculations of utopian writers and philosophers.
The 1840 case Mercein v. People produced a stunning opinion by Connecticut’s Justice Paige—a strain of radical strong-state faith straight out of Hegel:
The moment a child is born it owes allegiance to the government of the country of its birth, and is entitled to the protection of the government.
As the opinion unrolled, Paige further explained "with the coming of civil society the father’s sovereign power passed to the chief or government of the nation." A part of this power was then transferred back to both parents for the convenience of the State. But their guardianship was limited to the legal duty of maintenance and education, while absolute sovereignty remained with the State.
When Liberals say they want "Equal Opportunity" what they really mean is equality of outcome.
Odd that they never complain about the lack of diversity in the NBA.
Ding!
Many simply do not want an honest, science-based discussion of this topic. For proof, see the way that book has been treated by the media, politicians, and even the scientific community.
Maybe you could just address a couple of Gatto's points here instead of sending me off on a wild goose chase? Just go to the pdf of the book I linked to and go to the first reference to "Murray." He talks about statistics from Jamaica and South Africa. What do your folks say? Are Jamaican blacks and/or South African blacks conveniently defined as some other "breeding population" or are Gatto's statistics wrong?
I'll admit that at first blush, blacks can appear to be rather stupid. But I heard Willie Mays speak when he came up to the majors; and I hear him now. He's the same person, but now he's not quite so stupid.
ML/NJ
IMO American education has gone steadily downhill since the beginning of the US Department of Education.
He was disgusted with the behavior he observed.
The days my homeschool son goes to the local high school, I pick him up at 845, after his only class. He is so happy to leave the school. The first day he was out waiting for me about four or five adults came out to ask him what he was doing outside. He was frustrated and asked me why they kept asking him why he was outside. I told him that they were concerned that one of the inmates might be escaping. He laughed but did say that if it was up to the kids, the staff wouldnt have jobs.
I thought that was great insight.
The government/Affirmative Action doesn’t
Shifting subjects slightly, this is a core concept at the heart of Thomas Sowell's book The Vision of the Anointed. He calls this "The Tragic Vision". The other side of that coin is "The Vision of the Anointed", which can be quickly summarized as Really Smart People from Washington, New York, and Harvard telling The Benighted how to live their (our) lives. Because They Know Better.
If you haven't read this book, I strongly recommend adding it to your reading stack. I'm about 80% through at the moment.
“Exactly! It is the values of the Asian parents instilled in their children and the discipline applied that makes these children so successful”
Um, you missed something.
The most important asset “instilled” by Asians to their children is their genetic heritage.
North Asians test the highest of all racial groups for native intelligence (notwithstanding a very small group of Ashkenazi Jews).
North Asians measure about 1/3 of a standard deviation above Caucasians in standard IQ tests.
That intellectual gift bestowed upon Asians (properly nurtured, of course) is the unspeakable “elephant in the room” for their success as a group.
We can dream all we want about “everyone” being “equal” and capable of the same things, “if only we give them the chances they deserve”, etc., etc.
But that isn’t what conservatism is about. Indeed, the baseline for true conservatism is being able to see the reality of the human condition for what it is. That means accepting the unpleasant truths along with the pleasant ones.
As a Caucasian, do I “resent” the fact that most Asians I meet probably were endowed with more intellectual ability than me? No, not worth the waste of my angst.
But I don’t attempt to deny the truth, either.
Too many “conservatives” attempt to do exactly that, when dealing with the gritty and all-but intractable dilemma of “diversity” in our schools....
“There’s no solid evidence that IQ (in a healthy person who has no disability) is inherent.”
Your post is nonsense.
This is a fact that is accepted by most professionals who study it.
They just prefer not to discuss it publicly — for obvious reasons.
Let's look at your comparison of the brain and the heart: Consider a person born with a healthy heart. It would be preposterous to think that environmental factors, like diet and exercise, will have no effect on that person's heart. So, it would make sense that, just as a healthy heart can be affected by environmental factors, so can a healthy brain.
What you posted above is called an appeal to authority: "The professionals say so, so it must be true." You didn't even bother to name the "professionals".
With regard to your other post #197:
Consider these two opposing statements:
The most important asset “instilled” by Asians to their children is their genetic heritage. . . . That intellectual gift bestowed upon Asians (properly nurtured, of course) is the unspeakable “elephant in the room” for their success as a group.
On the one hand, you're saying Asians are bestowed genetically with an intellectual gift, and that gift is their key to success, as long as it is properly nurtured.
We can dream all we want about “everyone” being “equal” and capable of the same things, “if only we give them the chances they deserve”, etc., etc.
But, here you're saying nurture makes no difference. Those statements are conflicting.
the baseline for true conservatism is being able to see the reality of the human condition for what it is.
No, conservatism is about natural law, individualism, and free will. Conservatives judge what people do as individuals, not as members of a group. Grouping people is what the Left does. And conservatism is about taking responsibility, not making excuses.
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