Why Are Black Students Lagging?

New York Times | 11/29/02 | FELICIA R. LEE

[kattracks]

he persistent academic gap between white and black students has touched off difficult and often ugly debates over the question why. Are racist stereotypes to blame? Substandard schools? Cultural attitudes?

This long-running argument may bubble up again next year with the arrival of a book that argues minority communities themselves contribute to student failure.

The book, "Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement" (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), is by John U. Ogbu, an anthropology professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a well-known figure in the field of student achievement for more than three decades. Indeed, it was Mr. Ogbu's research that popularized the phrase "acting white" in the mid-1980's to help explain why black students might disdain behaviors associated with high achievement, like speaking standard grammatical English.

Now Mr. Ogbu is back, arguing with renewed fervor that his most recent research shows that African-Americans' own cultural attitudes are a serious problem that is too often neglected.

"No matter how you reform schools, it's not going to solve the problem," he said in an interview. "There are two parts of the problem, society and schools on one hand and the black community on the other hand."

Professor Ogbu's latest conclusions are highlighted in a study of blacks in Shaker Heights, Ohio, an affluent Cleveland suburb whose school district is equally divided between blacks and whites. As in many racially integrated school districts, the black students have lagged behind whites in grade-point averages, test scores and placement in high-level classes. Professor Ogbu was invited by black parents in 1997 to examine the district's 5,000 students to figure out why.

"What amazed me is that these kids who come from homes of doctors and lawyers are not thinking like their parents; they don't know how their parents made it," Professor Ogbu said in an interview. "They are looking at rappers in ghettos as their role models, they are looking at entertainers. The parents work two jobs, three jobs, to give their children everything, but they are not guiding their children."

For example, he said that middle-class black parents in general spent no more time on homework or tracking their children's schooling than poor white parents. And he said that while black students talked in detail about what efforts were needed to get an A and about their desire to achieve, too many nonetheless failed to put forth that effort.

Those kinds of attitudes reflect a long history of adapting to oppression and stymied opportunities, said Professor Ogbu, a Nigerian immigrant who has written that involuntary black immigrants behave like low-status minorities in other societies.

Not surprisingly, he said, the parents were disappointed when he turned the spotlight on them as well as the schools. Peggy Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the Shaker Heights City School District, said that minority families cared deeply about their children's academic achievement and the district was working with education experts to reduce the racial achievement gap. She noted that while Professor Ogbu called most of the black families in the district middle class, 10 to 12 percent live in poverty.

Also not surprisingly, many researchers take issue with some of Professor Ogbu's latest findings.

"When we asked if friends made fun of kids who do well in school, we don't find any racial difference in that," said Ronald F. Ferguson, a senior research associate at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard who analyzed a new study of 40,000 middle and high school students in 15 middle class school districts, including Shaker Heights.

Indeed, the study, which was administered by the Minority Student Achievement Network, an organization that explores ways to close the racial achievement gap, found that African-American and Latino students work as hard and care as much about school as white and Asian students do.

Mr. Ferguson said that while minorities lag behind whites in things like homework completion, it is wrong to infer that they aren't interested in school. "High achievers are more often accused of acting white than low achievers, but it's because the low achievers suspect the high achievers believe they are superior."

"It's things like talking too properly when you're in informal social settings," he continued. "It's hanging around white friends and acting like you don't want to be with your black friends. It's really about behavior patterns and not achievement."

Mr. Ferguson speculated that what Professor Ogbu saw was a clumsy attempt by black students to search for a comfortable racial identity. "What does it mean to be black?" he said. "What does it mean to be white? The community needs to help kids make sense of their own identity."

"I would agree with Ogbu that there are youth cultural patterns and behaviors that are counterproductive for academic success," he went on, mentioning socializing in class and spending too much time watching television. "But when they engage in those behaviors, they are not purposely avoiding academic success."

Other researchers have zeroed in on other culprits, whether inferior schools, lower teacher expectations, impoverished family backgrounds or some combination.

Theories of black intellectual inferiority, too, have popped up from the 1781 publication of Thomas Jefferson's "Notes on the State of Virginia" to "The Bell Curve" in 1994 and beyond. Given that sensitivity and the implications for policies like school desegregation and affirmative action, virtually every aspect of the academic gap has been examined.

Where Professor Ogbu found that some middle class blacks were clueless about their children's academic life, for example, Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina, instead concluded that such parents were often excluded from the informal networks that white parents use for information about courses, gifted programs and testing. "I believe, based on my own research, that the center of gravity lies with the school system," she said.

Claude Steele, a Stanford University psychologist, meanwhile, has hypothesized that black students are responding to the fear of confirming lowered expectations.

And Walter R. Allen, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles, said that even when racial minorities and whites attended the same schools, they could have radically different experiences because of tracking and teacher expectations.

Professor Allen is conducting a long-term project on college access for African-American and Latino high school students in California. In his view, black students sometimes underperform because of subtle exchanges with teachers who convey the message that they find the students inferior or frightening. And, he said, minority schools still overwhelmingly lack good teachers and adequate teaching tools.

He also pointed out that comparing the income level of black and white families, as Professor Ogbu did with his Midwestern subjects, can be misleading. Black incomes might be derived from two-career families juggling several jobs compared with a single breadwinner in white households.

Professor Ogbu is no stranger to controversy. His theory of "acting white" has been the subject of intense study since he first wrote about it in the mid-80's with Signithia Fordham, then a graduate student and now a professor of anthropology at the University of Rochester. They studied an inner-city Washington high school where students listed doing well in school among the "white" behaviors they rejected, like visiting the Smithsonian and dancing to lyrics rather than a beat.

The two anthropologists theorized that a long history of discrimination helped foster what is known in sociological lingo as an oppositional peer culture. Not only were students resisting the notion that white behavior was superior to their own, but they also saw no connection between good grades and finding a job.

Many scholars who have disputed those findings rely on a continuing survey of about 17,000 nationally representative students, which is conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the federal government. This self-reported survey shows that black students actually have more favorable attitudes than whites toward education, hard work and effort.

But that has by no means settled the debate. In the February issue of the American Sociological Review, for example, scholars who tackled the subject came to opposite conclusions. One article (by three scholars) said that the government data were not reliable because there was often a gap between what students say and what they do; another article by two others said they found that high-achieving black students were especially popular among their peers.

"It's difficult to determine what's going on," said Vincent J. Roscigno, a professor of sociology at Ohio State University who has studied racial differences in achievement. "`I'm sort of split on Ogbu. It's hard to compare a case analysis to a nationally representative statistical analysis. I do have a hunch that rural white poor kids are doing the same thing as poor black kids. I'm tentative about saying it's race-based."

Indeed, Professor Mickelson of the University of North Carolina found that working class whites as well as middle-class blacks were more apt to believe that doing well in school compromised their identity.

All these years later, Professor Fordham said, she fears that the acting-white idea has been distorted into blaming the victim. She said she wanted to advance the debate by looking at how race itself was a social fiction, rooted not just in skin color but also in behaviors and social status.

"Black kids don't get validation and are seen as trespassing when they exceed academic expectations," Professor Fordham said, echoing her initial research. "The kids turn on it, they sacrifice their spots in gifted and talented classes to belong to a group where they feel good."

[demosthenes the elder]

Please don't take this personally but you're blowing smoke out of your ass.

I do not, because I don't see your point. I stated that I cannot accept the old "poverty" excuse because my personal experience directly contradicts this excuse. Are you saying that I should place more weight on a study than what I myself have lived, or are you saying that I am lying about my origins?

[demosthenes the elder]

other than the gender error, I thank you for your correct defense of my post.

[Fzob]

Sorry about the gender mistake. I have no idea why I thought you were a her.

Regards

[dasein64]

Printed on my mother's fourth grade report card was "Every Catholic Child in a Catholic School". The atmosphere was no-nonsense, do your work and learn. The religous studies expanded vocabularies and thought process to include other than social contemporary exchange of thoughts. She absorbed a sense of patriotism, ethics, charity thru personal application of effort (she had no money to buy off responsibility to others). The teachers at that time saw teaching as a vocation, not a career. They were doing God's work to educate children and steer them towards heaven. Judge Clarence Thomas was sent to a catholic school by his grandparents for all of the above reasons. It does seem that children who attend church run schools have an advantage over secular schools, regardless of race. We can speculate endlessly on the IQ theories, but parents of all races who want the best for their children will find a way to educate them in a non-government school. My parents did it for me and I will do so for my children. Vouchers are the answer for non-discriminate school selection.

[Rocksalt]

" Africa had no written language before the white man, no wheel, NOTHING approaching civilization ANYWHERE, let alone culture or contributions to science, literature, NOTHING."

Is that true? What about the Ethiopian Orthodox church-isn't their bible one of the oldest religious writings and their churchs some of the oldest known?

[rmvh]

re your # 2

Better question:

Why are too few white people starters in professional basketball?...

Are they being discriminated against or is it simply another genetic situation of a reasonable and fair determination of intellect and physical capability....person by person?

[rmvh]

Re your # 46....

Your esay is the typical complaint of the "have nots"....Boo Hoo..I wasn't given a fair chance and so the world owes me all I can get...

Pure B.S.

[rmvh]

Re your #1....The persistent academic gap between white and black students has touched off difficult and often ugly debates over the question why.

Don'T worry your pretty little head about this...The problem is being resolved as the years go by.....We just have to continue to "dumb down" government education for all races so that everyone is a stupid as the lowest common denominator and then the minorities will be happy!

Its PC, don't you see?

[Clara Lou]

I didn't say anything about "unfair." Try not to read more meaning into people's posts than they say. It's simple: People who come from generations of lower-class existence know a different reality (including thinking in a different way) than those of the middle class who know a different reality from those of the opper class. Life is tough. We have to deal with it.
You have a good evening, now.

[mafree]

I live the Washington, DC area. Care to tell me where I can find that bookstore or theater, or opera group that caters to blacks?

Here are several that are in DC: African Continuum Theatre Company, Encore Theatre Company, The Essential Theatre, Hip Hop Theatre Junction, Pin Points Theatre. There is a group in Rockville, MD called the Soul in Motion Players, and there are three more in Baltimore.

Here are some Black Bookstores in the District:

Drum and Spear Books, 556 Varnum Street NW, Washington, DC 20011 202-722-4758, http://www.drumandspear.com

Virtigo Books, 1337 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 429-9272, (202) 429-9505 Fax

Sisterspace and Books, 1354 U Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009, (202) 332-3433, (202) 986-7092 (fax) sistersp@erols.com

Yawa Books, 2206 18th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009-1813, (202) 483-6805

Now I'll grant you that most Black communities can do a better job of supporting businesses and culture that caters to Blacks- in some places, Black performing artists and groups wouldn't exist without the support they get from other races.

OTOH, you can't tell me that there are no Black cultural outlets. There are- you just won't hear much about them on the 6 o'clock news.

[rmvh]

Re your # 153.... It's simple: People who come from generations of lower-class existence know a different reality (including thinking in a different way) than those of the middle class who know a different reality from those of the opper class. Life is tough. We have to deal with it.

What you say is absolutely true!.....The enviornment we all live in impacts our lives. But this is not a surprising observation.

The only way we can be made to "think" alike is to create a society where everyone has exactly the same enviornment....a concept the communists dearly love.

[demosthenes the elder]

AXUM - a trading and military empire worthy of note. Not my field of study, but IIRC: Developed in the ethiopian highlands somewhere around AD 200 or so, became christian somewhere around AD 400, had cordial relations with Byzantium, had a very far-flung trade network including Arabia and India, perhaps as far as Indonesia and China. Impressive culture, closest analogue being Polis of Sparta. Solid logistical system, strong coinage and numismatic economy. Became isolated by the rise of Islam. The Ethiopian retreat into obscurity did as much as anything else to isolate subsaharan Africa from the development of the rest of the world.

[valkyrieanne]

Why do so many ignore the elephant in the room? Asians average IQ (115), Whites (100), American Blacks (85--given that most American blacks have approximately 20% White inheritance), and African Blacks (70--and 70 is borderline retarded).

I don't believe there's any such thing as a "black IQ" or a "white IQ," because racial categories are extremely unscientific. If you assorted people by 5 or 6 different kinds of blood types (not just ABO, but M, N, and other alleles) you would find a far different racial picture than the one we have that's based on skin color and hair texture.

Similarly, what we call "white" is really a broad group with some significant genetic differences. Some used to matter 100 years ago (like calling Jews a "race" and drawing a distinction between northern & southern Europeans.)

You cannot look at a black child and say, that child isn't going to do as well in school simply on the basis of his race. What you *can* look at are all the things that contribute to success in school, and IQ is just one. Far more important are factors like early childhood language development; are the parents married & stably employed; does the mother provide a language-rich environment for the child?

Obviously this kind of parental preparation of the child for school isn't racially determined - if "African genes" were that determinant, then black children should have far fewer problems with language in school (after all, Africa has been home for centuries to incredibly rich & varied oral language traditions.) White parents who raise their children in dysfunctional families with language deprivation from birth to age 3 show the same problems in school *and* in life.

What we need is an entirely race-blind school system, with every child treated *completely* on the basis of his individual educational needs, NOT on the basis of his race or income level. This means no racism; it also means no affirmative action or other special treatment. It means that teachers need help & support dealing with a *wide* variety of children, not just the "smart" ones. It also means that parents should be held to some pretty basic and minimal expectations, like get your kid to school properly clothed, fed, homework done, on time, etc. No one should be held to a higher OR lower standard because of his race.

[MrB]

From what I've seen of IQ tests, it's basically a ratio of "what you know" divided by "what you should know at your age".

If children are not being taught problem solving skills and/or logical thinking, they are not going to score as well on this test.

I'm not going to say the tests are "culturally biased", but a difference in culture does affect "what you know", and the test may be based on a different cultural "what you should know". Given that this basis is on what is expected in our society, it gives an idea of the ability to succeed. I don't believe it accurately reflects the individual's ability to learn.

The SATs probably are a better assessment in that they determine how well you will perform in a college environment and in society as a whole.

I welcome others' insight on this.