Schools report finds ‘jaw-dropping’ gap for black boys

[The Spartan]

Yahoo News

Schools report finds ‘jaw-dropping’ gap for black boys
By Zachary Roth Wed Nov 10, 1:20 pm ET

A new report has found that black boys lag behind their white counterparts in reading and math to an even greater extent than previously thought. The sponsor of the report -- the Council of the Great City Schools, an advocacy group for urban public schools -- calls the findings as "jaw-dropping."

The study concluded that the school performance gap between black boys and white boys couldn't be chalked up to poverty alone. That could provide ammunition to those who argue that cultural factors, as opposed to economic forces, explain low educational performance among African-Americans.

The study found that just 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, the New York Times reports. Only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

The report also says that black boys drop out of high school at nearly twice the rate of white boys, and have SAT scores that are 104 points lower, on average.

Poverty isn't the sole explanation for the differences. The report found that poor white boys do as well at reading and math as non-poor black boys. That will give a boost to those who argue for the need to look at differences in culture and child-rearing techniques. That "culture of poverty" approach, championed by the late New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has long been treated gingerly, out of concern that emphasizing cultural differences could be perceived as a form of racism. But it has been making a comeback of late.

"There's accumulating evidence that there are racial differences in what kids experience before the first day of kindergarten," Ronald Ferguson, a Harvard University scholar who focuses on the racial achievement gap, told the Times. "They have to do with a lot of sociological and historical forces. In order to address those, we have to be able to have conversations that people are unwilling to have."

Ferguson added that those conversations should include "the activities that parents conduct with their 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds. How much we talk to them, the ways we talk to them, the ways we enforce discipline, the ways we encourage them to think and develop a sense of autonomy."

I have to say I'm stunned. Even the "better" figures of the white boys are appalling. Only 12/38 percent can read* proficiently? I know I'm a little atypical, but at that age I was already reading at a high school level.


*Edit: Though, I'd really like to know more about how they define "proficiently" in this case.

[Steel]

I know I'm a little atypical, but at that age I was already reading at a high school level.

Have you considered that perhaps by definition the majority of children are not going to be reading at a 'high school level' before they get to high school?

[Ritterin Sophia]

Yeah that was my first thought.....

[Chaotic Neutral]

Jesus Christ, people are fucking stupid. 38% of whites are proficient at reading? 12% for blacks?
12% of blacks are proficient at math, and 44% for whites?

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

[PREDATOR490]

White boys are only 38% proficient in reading ?
When I see this I dont think 'hey, black boys cant read as well as white boys, something is clearly wrong with blacks'

I think: What the fuck is going on to make the amount of people proficient in reading so low overall.
One hopes this study is merely applying a really stupid level to 'proficient' otherwise a really large amount of people are shockingly stupid or the education system is beyond awful.

[HankSolo]

The white grade 8 NAEP reading score was 270. White males scored 267, so I'm guessing white females scored 273. Black males scored 238 versus 248 for black females. That's one third of the race gap right there. Why is there such a big difference between the boys and girls.

[PainRack]

With such low rates, its seems that they're using the more stringent standards for comprehension and writing of literacy as opposed to just being able to read words and understand them.

Its not enough to know that your computer manual has words which means computer, software and hardware, but profiency/literacy comes when you are able to understand what it means by connect USB mouse to USB port.

[Stravo]

When black popular culture portrays anything remotely educational as "acting white" and routinely call their women bitches and hos you bet your ass this is not just about poverty. There is a reinforcement of thug culture by black entertainers and media in general that is painfully ironic. The lesson being pedaled by many of these rappers is not "Don't be like me. Stay in school and learn." the message is "Be a thug, keep it real and you will be sipping Cristal and have bitches at your feet."

[PainRack]

When black popular culture portrays anything remotely educational as "acting white" and routinely call their women bitches and hos you bet your ass this is not just about poverty. There is a reinforcement of thug culture by black entertainers and media in general that is painfully ironic. The lesson being pedaled by many of these rappers is not "Don't be like me. Stay in school and learn." the message is "Be a thug, keep it real and you will be sipping Cristal and have bitches at your feet."

To be honest, I feel that pop culture is only the.... symptoms of dysfunction as opposed to the cause.

When you have broken up families, absent parents due to work, jail or disinterest in raising kids, a broken support network that help raises children........

[Oni Koneko Damien]

When black popular culture portrays anything remotely educational as "acting white" and routinely call their women bitches and hos you bet your ass this is not just about poverty. There is a reinforcement of thug culture by black entertainers and media in general that is painfully ironic. The lesson being pedaled by many of these rappers is not "Don't be like me. Stay in school and learn." the message is "Be a thug, keep it real and you will be sipping Cristal and have bitches at your feet."

To be honest, I feel that pop culture is only the.... symptoms of dysfunction as opposed to the cause.

When you have broken up families, absent parents due to work, jail or disinterest in raising kids, a broken support network that help raises children........

Agreed, I think you have cause and effect mixed up there. It would be like claiming Twilight actively makes teenie girls crave abusive relationships, rather than managing to tap into a cultural problem that had existed beforehand/independent of it.

[MKSheppard]

When black popular culture portrays anything remotely educational as "acting white" and routinely call their women bitches and hos you bet your ass this is not just about poverty.

I can't help but wonder if the problem would go away pretty fast if we started using the RICO statutes in anti-gang efforts. I mean; if you're part of the Italian Mafia or the Russian Mob; you're responsible for and can be charged for the actions of the group as a whole, irregardless of whether you actually participated in the actions or not.

I mean; in my area we have Mara Salvatrucha-13 or MS-13 as a major gang problem. I don't have exact statistics on me, but MS-13 is certainly responsible for a non trivial amount of murders, attempted murders, etc. So it's entirely plausible to use RICO to put away the entire gang that we can get access to for those murders, instead of the designated foot soldiers who carry out the acts for the rest of the gang.

[hongi]

So...is the answer to adopt the cultural habits of East Asian or Indian families? I'm being completely serious here. There's almost like an imperative in immigrants to do well in school.

[bobalot]

So...is the answer to adopt the cultural habits of East Asian or Indian families? I'm being completely serious here. There's almost like an imperative in immigrants to do well in school.

How exactly would you do that?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Its not the family culture, its oppositional identity. You need to change how blacks (and specifically black males) view education. Its all posturing and 'acting hard' for the approval of their peers, at the expense of their futures.

[Hillary]

Its not the family culture, its oppositional identity. You need to change how blacks (and specifically black males) view education. Its all posturing and 'acting hard' for the approval of their peers, at the expense of their futures.

If you want to do that, you also have to equalise opportunities after school. All well and good saying "blacks should work harder at school", but when they are much less likely to get a high flying career with the same qualifications as a white person, you can understand why they don't. Even if they excel at school, what chance of a seat in the boardroom?

Stravo said the message from high profile blacks is "Be a thug, keep it real and you will be sipping Cristal and have bitches at your feet." Well for many blacks it is difficult to argue that this isn't their best chance for a successful life.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Its not the family culture, its oppositional identity. You need to change how blacks (and specifically black males) view education. Its all posturing and 'acting hard' for the approval of their peers, at the expense of their futures.

If you want to do that, you also have to equalise opportunities after school. All well and good saying "blacks should work harder at school", but when they are much less likely to get a high flying career with the same qualifications as a white person, you can understand why they don't. Even if they excel at school, what chance of a seat in the boardroom?

Same way some other immigrant groups reacted? Some people react by going "I'll work twice as hard and be twice as good!" (like many women overachievers for example. Or certain ethnic minorities. Or very succesful African Americans. Or some immigrants).
It's a cultural problem, on multiple fronts. (Innate, and the "Bow down to the white man?!?" thing which was mentioned).

[CaptainChewbacca]

If you want to do that, you also have to equalise opportunities after school. All well and good saying "blacks should work harder at school", but when they are much less likely to get a high flying career with the same qualifications as a white person, you can understand why they don't. Even if they excel at school, what chance of a seat in the boardroom?

Stravo said the message from high profile blacks is "Be a thug, keep it real and you will be sipping Cristal and have bitches at your feet." Well for many blacks it is difficult to argue that this isn't their best chance for a successful life.

Without a doubt that's the stupidest thing I've read all week. What you're saying is akin to me demanding you hire me for a job with the promise that I will become qualified for it later. They will NEVER get the career opportunities their community needs if they are handed the positions, they have to bust their asses and work for equality just like everyone else. And who says they have to jump straight to the boardroom? How about upper middle management? How about law school and medical school? How about master's degrees in literature and getting jobs as college teachers?

You know how you change the stereotype that blacks aren't as smart/professional/career-oriented as whites? SMARTEN THE FUCK UP! Work hard, stay in school, and quit giving a shit about how 'acting white' makes your broke, unemployed friends look down on you.

[Bakustra]

Many of those immigrant groups don't have the same problems that face African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans (who do even worse). All of those groups were outright enslaved historically, generally are racially segregated by real estate companies, tend to get denied for loans, many towns were sundown towns until recently and a number still are... those problems are not as common for East Asian, South Asian, and Middle Eastern immigrants (and practically nonexistent for many European immigrants). There's also the slight matter that a black man will do worse in job-hunting than a white man with a felony for equal qualifications. I bet that this also extends to Latino and Native American groups.

One major problem that I have is this emphasis on "black culture" as though it arose out of a vacuum. So you have a group that is massively underemployed, incredibly impoverished, faces discrimination regularly, has an immense incarceration rate and is often prejudiced against in the legal system... and more importantly, its members know this. Young kids in the inner city know that 1) they won't be going to college, and 2) they won't be able to get a job. So their only real means of success is through music, sports, or crime. That's ignoring the number of kids that join gangs for a sense of family or community, or because of peer pressures. But they need to be sent to the salt gulags anyways, right? They just need to bootstrap themselves up into negating prejudice and privilege, right? After all, this is America, and people only succeed or fail on their own merits- class is nonexistent here. :v

Rap music being singled out as the root problem with racial disparities, or close to it, is exactly like blaming the Sex Pistols and Clash for the disparity between the English upper and working classes and the dissatisfaction with society that many youths had. Both reflect what's going on, rather than instigating it- unless perhaps the Beastie Boys and Wu-Tang Clan time-traveled to instill discrimination in American society. We should instead examine why said culture emerged. Of course, that would mean confronting our own guilt and complicity, and would involve work, so I bet that doing so will invoke major cognitive dissonance.

If you want to do that, you also have to equalise opportunities after school. All well and good saying "blacks should work harder at school", but when they are much less likely to get a high flying career with the same qualifications as a white person, you can understand why they don't. Even if they excel at school, what chance of a seat in the boardroom?

Stravo said the message from high profile blacks is "Be a thug, keep it real and you will be sipping Cristal and have bitches at your feet." Well for many blacks it is difficult to argue that this isn't their best chance for a successful life.

Without a doubt that's the stupidest thing I've read all week. What you're saying is akin to me demanding you hire me for a job with the promise that I will become qualified for it later. They will NEVER get the career opportunities their community needs if they are handed the positions, they have to bust their asses and work for equality just like everyone else. And who says they have to jump straight to the boardroom? How about upper middle management? How about law school and medical school? How about master's degrees in literature and getting jobs as college teachers?

You know how you change the stereotype that blacks aren't as smart/professional/career-oriented as whites? SMARTEN THE FUCK UP! Work hard, stay in school, and quit giving a shit about how 'acting white' makes your broke, unemployed friends look down on you.

So how do you propose that impoverished inner-city youths be made to stay in school when they have no career prospects, no hope of college, and are endangering themselves with it anyways, thanks to gang violence. Blaming the discriminated party is frankly disturbing. Would you blame a battered wife in the same way? Americans are frankly blind concerning racial matters, only ever seeing the end results and blaming it on the victims.

How is somebody going to get into college, let alone law or med school when their public school system is a joke, they have poor grades in that thanks to dysfunctional teachers and home life, and they're too poor to even pay for it? Scholarships are probably to definitely out of their reach thanks to grades and lack information, as well as lack of a postal office or internet connections. There are few community colleges in large cities, and many of those would be too expensive. Things are more complex than blaming the blacks for why they're so poor.

[CaptainChewbacca]

So how do you propose that impoverished inner-city youths be made to stay in school when they have no career prospects, no hope of college, and are endangering themselves with it anyways, thanks to gang violence. Blaming the discriminated party is frankly disturbing. Would you blame a battered wife in the same way? Americans are frankly blind concerning racial matters, only ever seeing the end results and blaming it on the victims.

Who said they have no career prospects and no hope of college? It sure wasn't me, I think it was you. IF they apply themselves and do the work they can advance themselves. I don't blame a battered wife for getting hit. But if she gets hit 100 times and never asks for help, I will blame her for not asking for help and tell her she should've gone to the cops sooner. The opportunities for advancement for minorities are there. I also agree that crime and gang violence should be addressed, but what would you have us do? Bus the 'good blacks' to 'good schools' away from the gang violence?

How is somebody going to get into college, let alone law or med school when their public school system is a joke, they have poor grades in that thanks to dysfunctional teachers and home life, and they're too poor to even pay for it? Scholarships are probably to definitely out of their reach thanks to grades and lack information, as well as lack of a postal office or internet connections. There are few community colleges in large cities, and many of those would be too expensive. Things are more complex than blaming the blacks for why they're so poor.

I don't know why you're arguing that schools need improved as if I was arguing AGAINST that. I don't blame blacks for being poor. I blame black students who don't do work for NOT DOING THEIR WORK.

I can't tell you how many times I've been trying to teach a concept when a student has laughed at me and said 'Man, niggas don't need to be doin no erfquakes.' The young man then receives high-fives from his classmates. They don't believe an education is in their best interests because PEOPLE LIKE YOU have convinced them that they can't help themselves and society will have to lift them out of ignorance and poverty, because they can't.

And that's BULLSHIT. I've seen blacks from single parent families go to medical school after attending the most violent highschool in my town. They wanted out, so they got out. So far in society we've been trying to end segregation by changing the hearts/minds/culture of the whites. Maybe we could work a little bit on the minorities too, what do you say?

[Rye]

When black popular culture portrays anything remotely educational as "acting white" and routinely call their women bitches and hos you bet your ass this is not just about poverty. There is a reinforcement of thug culture by black entertainers and media in general that is painfully ironic. The lesson being pedaled by many of these rappers is not "Don't be like me. Stay in school and learn." the message is "Be a thug, keep it real and you will be sipping Cristal and have bitches at your feet."

I do not buy that argument. No amount of nihilistic rap or death metal or punk will over-rule proper upbringing and decency of character.

[Serafina]

*Edit: Though, I'd really like to know more about how they define "proficiently" in this case.

I can't give you an exact definition, but keep in mind that "proficient at reading" means "you are good at reading book and other texts with high fluidity and in recalling the information presented therein". It does NOT mean "can you read the text".
It doesn't mean your ability to read words, but rather your ability to understand texts.
Someone not "proficient at reading" can certainly read a sign and read a book, too. He will also understand the text in the book. He just isn't as proficient at actually following the text itself - he might not connect information given at the end of a page with that at the beginning of that page. He might skip over descriptions of scenery without memorizing them, miss tiny clues in the text and so on.

Put simply, while almost all students can read, few of them read longer texts regularly. Since they practice the former (you can read stuff everywhere) but not the latter (it takes time and focus), they just don't get good at it.

[ray245]

Chewie, do you know what's the student-teacher ratio in most public schools? I would think that vastly improving the funding and student-teacher ratio for schools that is located in the poorer areas would help things a lot. It seems that schools in those areas often do not have enough funding to deal with the vast amount of problems to begin with.

If one can ensure that teachers would have an much easier time providing the attention that the student needs, something that is lacking back at home, and reduce the need for them to look to their peers for attention, the chances of them rejecting the value of education is much lower. After all, isn't this how children from Asian families usually manage to achieve a much greater success in education? Parents from Asian families usually spend a huge amount of time and effort to ensure that they attend to the academic needs of the child.

I mean it is kinda ridiculous to criticise teachers for not being caring and attentive to their students when they have to deal with four to five classes of troubled kids on a daily basis. Even if a teacher is extremely well paid, the chances of them investing emotionally into their students is going to be quite low. Try investing emotionally into 200 students that all require you to spend a huge amount of your social life attending to their every needs.

[Simon_Jester]

When black popular culture portrays anything remotely educational as "acting white" and routinely call their women bitches and hos you bet your ass this is not just about poverty. There is a reinforcement of thug culture by black entertainers and media in general that is painfully ironic. The lesson being pedaled by many of these rappers is not "Don't be like me. Stay in school and learn." the message is "Be a thug, keep it real and you will be sipping Cristal and have bitches at your feet."

I do not buy that argument. No amount of nihilistic rap or death metal or punk will over-rule proper upbringing and decency of character.

Note word "reinforcement."

If you grow up in a community that tells you to be a good little career-oriented college-bound kid, odds are no amount of death metal will change that. You'll just wind up being a good little career-oriented college-bound kid who wears black with spiky bits of metal more often, or something, so to speak.

If you grow up in a community that tells you "fuck this noise, you have about the same chance of graduating from college that you do of walking on Mars," popular culture probably won't change that either... but it can sure reinforce it.

[RedImperator]

I can't tell you how many times I've been trying to teach a concept when a student has laughed at me and said 'Man, niggas don't need to be doin no erfquakes.' The young man then receives high-fives from his classmates. They don't believe an education is in their best interests because PEOPLE LIKE YOU have convinced them that they can't help themselves and society will have to lift them out of ignorance and poverty, because they can't.

Oh, horse shit. Young black men don't believe education is in their best interest for a complex array of current and historical sociological reasons, most of them--surprise--linked to hundreds of years of poverty and oppression. The idea that some gangbanger would have studied hard and gone to medical school if only it wasn't for well meaning white liberals is the most ridiculous thing I've heard all month.

Look, nobody's arguing that the black community itself doesn't need to change. They're going to have to change from within, though, because sure as shit white folks can't roll into the ghetto now and fix everything they've broken. That ship (ha ha) sailed a long time ago. But racial prejudice still plays an enormous role in determining the attitudes and prospects for young blacks, especially young black men. The fact is, most of them still believe that any attempt to succeed in the white man's world will be an endless uphill slog that will probably fail--and bluntly, they're right. They're disadvantaged out of the gate, their schools aren't preparing them for college, and their skin color is going to cost them opportunities, and they fucking well know it. That's the root of the problem.

[Bakustra]

So how do you propose that impoverished inner-city youths be made to stay in school when they have no career prospects, no hope of college, and are endangering themselves with it anyways, thanks to gang violence. Blaming the discriminated party is frankly disturbing. Would you blame a battered wife in the same way? Americans are frankly blind concerning racial matters, only ever seeing the end results and blaming it on the victims.

Who said they have no career prospects and no hope of college? It sure wasn't me, I think it was you. IF they apply themselves and do the work they can advance themselves. I don't blame a battered wife for getting hit. But if she gets hit 100 times and never asks for help, I will blame her for not asking for help and tell her she should've gone to the cops sooner. The opportunities for advancement for minorities are there. I also agree that crime and gang violence should be addressed, but what would you have us do? Bus the 'good blacks' to 'good schools' away from the gang violence?

Fix the inner cities. It's not an easy task, but it's the only workable solution in the long run. "Black culture" is a product of the inner cities, which are highly impoverished, have minimal employment prospects, and indeed, the youths have no real hope of college, unless it's via a sports scholarship. The opportunities aren't there in a practical sense for the inner city, which is the largest problem. People can advance themselves... if they have the opportunities. But there aren't many community colleges in the inner city, and many of its residents would be stretching themselves to pay for it. The public schools are underfunded thanks to crushing poverty and uncaring suburbs. There aren't a whole lot of employment opportunities since manufacturing left this country, and those that are there tend to lack major advancement opportunities.

How is somebody going to get into college, let alone law or med school when their public school system is a joke, they have poor grades in that thanks to dysfunctional teachers and home life, and they're too poor to even pay for it? Scholarships are probably to definitely out of their reach thanks to grades and lack information, as well as lack of a postal office or internet connections. There are few community colleges in large cities, and many of those would be too expensive. Things are more complex than blaming the blacks for why they're so poor.

I don't know why you're arguing that schools need improved as if I was arguing AGAINST that. I don't blame blacks for being poor. I blame black students who don't do work for NOT DOING THEIR WORK.

I can't tell you how many times I've been trying to teach a concept when a student has laughed at me and said 'Man, niggas don't need to be doin no erfquakes.' The young man then receives high-fives from his classmates. They don't believe an education is in their best interests because PEOPLE LIKE YOU have convinced them that they can't help themselves and society will have to lift them out of ignorance and poverty, because they can't.

And that's BULLSHIT. I've seen blacks from single parent families go to medical school after attending the most violent highschool in my town. They wanted out, so they got out. So far in society we've been trying to end segregation by changing the hearts/minds/culture of the whites. Maybe we could work a little bit on the minorities too, what do you say?

Where do you teach? Where did you grow up? What proportion of African-American youths entered medical school? How did they get in? I grew up in the Detroit area. You know, the city which is in the dictionary as a synonym for urban decay. I can safely say that there was barely any hope for a kid from the inner city to succeed, and that it would be a massive, massive uphill struggle all the way, unless they had the musical talent or physical skill to make it at rap or sports, and even then, that would be a matter of luck. Sure, there were kids that got into Harvard. One, or two, out of tens of thousands. That's probably about the same odds as them getting a sports scholarship to a minor university, to be honest.

Blaming anti-racism activists is just another example of a curious blindness that overtakes people when it comes to race. How do you think that this culture originated? Did it spring up out of thin air? Besides, even if you outlawed rap or sanitized it to be "appropriate", or other cultural efforts, the discriminatory conditions that give rise to this despair remain. Focusing on "black culture" is like taking a suppurating, gangrenous intestinal wound, and sticking a little band-aid on it. Sure, that might one day be helpful (but I think that the culture will die out if the conditions are addressed), but currently it does pretty much nothing.

Frankly, blaming rap is hilarious, because the largest consumers of rap are suburban white kids. Surely there should be some effects on these kids if the music is so bad. But the focus is always on the black kids.

I do not buy that argument. No amount of nihilistic rap or death metal or punk will over-rule proper upbringing and decency of character.

Note word "reinforcement."

If you grow up in a community that tells you to be a good little career-oriented college-bound kid, odds are no amount of death metal will change that. You'll just wind up being a good little career-oriented college-bound kid who wears black with spiky bits of metal more often, or something, so to speak.

If you grow up in a community that tells you "fuck this noise, you have about the same chance of graduating from college that you do of walking on Mars," popular culture probably won't change that either... but it can sure reinforce it.

Simon, should we blame Bob Dylan, the Grand Funk Railroad and Marvin Gaye for opposition to the Vietnam War? Should we blame the Sex Pistols and Clash for inequity in British society? Music is often a consequence of popular beliefs, rather than a cause of them, and that ignores that said beliefs may well be accurate and true.