By Jason Riley via AEI's "American"
(This article is excerpted from Riley’s new book, “Please
Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed")
* * *
* * *
In the late 1990s the black residents of Shaker Heights,
Ohio, an affluent Cleveland suburb, invited John Ogbu, professor of
anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, to examine the
black-white academic achievement gap in their community.
Roughly a third of the town’s residents were black, and
the school district was divided equally along racial lines. Yet the black kids
trailed far behind whites in test scores, grade-point averages, placement in
high-level classes, and college attendance. Black students were receiving 80%
of the Ds and Fs.
Nationwide, the racial gap in education is well documented.
Black kids are over-represented among high-school dropouts and students who are
not performing at grade level. Black scores on the SAT and other standardized
tests are far lower on average than those of whites.
The achievement gap begins in elementary school and
widens in higher grades.
By the end of high school the typical black student is
several years behind his white peers in reading and math.
The usual explanation of this is class inequality.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
Blacks don’t perform on the level of whites because they
come from a lower socio-economic background and their schools have fewer
resources, goes the argument.
* NOPE...
(*SIGH*)
But what Ogbu found is that this problem transcends class
and persists even among the children of affluent, educated black professionals.
“None of the versions of the class-inequality argument
can explain why black students from similar social class backgrounds, residing
in the same neighborhood, and attending the same school, don’t do as well as
white students,” wrote Ogbu.
* YEP..
(*NOD*)
“Within the black population, of course, middle-class
children do better, on the average, than lower-class children, just as in the
white population. However, when blacks and whites from similar socioeconomic
backgrounds are compared, one sees that black students at every class level
perform less well in school than their white counterparts.”
Ogbu and his team of researchers were given access to
parents, teachers, principals, administrators, and students in the Shaker
Heights school district, which was one of the country’s best. And he concluded
that black culture, more than anything else, explained the academic achievement
gap.
(*SILENCE*)
The black kids readily admitted that they didn’t work as
hard as whites, took easier classes, watched more TV, and read fewer books.
“A kind of norm of minimum effort appeared to exist among
black students,” wrote Ogbu. “The students themselves recognized this and used
it to explain both their academic behaviors and their low academic achievement
performance.” Due to peer pressure, some black students “didn’t work as hard as
they should and could.” Among their black friends, “it was not cool to be
successful” or “to work hard or to show you’re smart.” One female student said
that some black students believed “it was cute to be dumb.” Asked why, “she
said it was because they couldn’t do well and that they didn’t want anyone else
to do well.”
Ogbu found that black high-school students “avoided
certain attitudes, standard English, and some behaviors because they considered
them white."
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
"They feared that adopting white ways would be
detrimental to their collective racial identity and solidarity. Unfortunately,
some of the attitudes labeled ‘white’ and avoided by the students were those
that enhanced school success.”
The behaviors and attitudes to be avoided included, for
example, enrolling in honors and advanced-placement classes, striving for high
grades, speaking properly, hanging around too many white students, and
participating in extracurricular activities that were populated by whites.
“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,” Ogbu told the New York Times in 2002, the year before
he died. “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.”
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Indeed, Ogbu found that it wasn’t just the black kids who
were academically disengaged. Few black parents were members of Parent Teacher
Organizations. Early-elementary-school programs designed primarily for black
children were spurned by black families. And white parents tended to have
higher academic expectations for their kids.
* AND I'D GUESS STUDIES WOULD BACK ME UP IN GUESSING WHITE
JEWISH PARENTS HAVE EVEN HIGHER ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS THAN "GENERIC WHITE"
PARENTS...
* WHICH BRINGS US TO ASIAN PARENTS... AND INDIAN
PARENTS...
(*SMILE*)
“From school personnel reports of school authorities,
interviews with students, discussions with parents themselves, and our
observations, we can confidently conclude that black parents in Shaker Heights
did not participate actively in school organizations and in school events and
programs designed to enhance their children’s academic engagement and
achievement,” he wrote.
(*SIGH*)
But in at least one important respect, Ogbu faulted the
school system itself for the achievement gap. It turned out that teachers were
passing students who did not perform at grade level. The practice was
widespread, particularly in kindergarten through eighth grade, and well known
among students.
* AND I'LL BET THAT NOT ONE OF THESE TEACHERS LOST THEIR
JOBS AND THEIR TEACHING LICENSES AS A RESULT.
* AND THE ADMINISTRATORS... I'LL BET THEY SKATED AS WELL.
The teachers who were setting lower standards for black
kids had “good intentions,” he reported.
* I... DON'T... CARE...!
* AND NEITHER SHOULD ANY OF YOU READING THIS!
But it had the effect of leading some black kids to
believe that they were doing better in school than they really were.
* DUH!
Other kids simply didn’t try as hard as they would have
otherwise.
(*GNASHING MY TEETH*)
When Ogbu asked students why their grades were poor,
“they would say that they did not take their schoolwork seriously because they
knew they were going to be passed into the ninth grade anyway.” Ogbu’s team of
researchers also noted that in classes where most of the kids were black,
teachers expected less of the students in terms of homework, even going so far
as to de-emphasize its importance.
* AGAIN - SUCH PEOPLE HAVE NO BUSINESS TEACHING!
Obviously, school officials aren’t responsible for the
poor attitudes and lack of effort among black kids, but ignoring or indulging
this isn’t going to help close the learning gap.
* SCHOOL OFFICIALS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS AS
WELL AS THEIR INACTION. HEADS SHOULD HAVE ROLLED!
Today’s civil rights leaders encourage blacks to see
themselves as victims.
* IT CERTAINLY SEEMS THAT WAY TO ME; ANYONE HAVE A
DIFFERENT TAKE?
* WITH ALL HIS SINS, I ACTUALLY HAVE MORE RESPECT FOR LOUIS
FARRAKHAN THAN I DO FOR AL SHARPTON AND THE LIKE.
The overriding message from the NAACP, the National Urban
League, and most black politicians is that white racism explains black
pathology.
(*SNORT*)
Ogbu’s research shows that this message is not lost on
black youth.
“Black students chose well-educated and successful
professional blacks in Shaker Heights and elsewhere in the nation as role
models,” he noted. “However, the role models were admired because of their
leadership in the ‘collective struggle’ against white oppression or in the
civil rights movement rather than because of their academic and professional
success or other attributes that made them successful in the corporate economy
or wider societal institutions.”
There was a time when black leaders understood the primacy
of black self-development. They fought hard for equal opportunity, but knew
that blacks have to be culturally prepared to take advantage of those
opportunities when they arrive. “We know that there are many things wrong in
the white world, but there are many things wrong in the black world, too,”
Martin Luther King Jr. once told a congregation. “We can’t keep on blaming the
white man. There are things we must do for ourselves.” Learning to value
education is one of those things.
* I FEAR IT'S TOO LATE FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS AS A GROUP.
ONE STAT - 73% ILLEGITIMACY WITHIN THE BLACK COMMUNITY - PUTS "PAID"
TO ANY REAL CHANCE OF A TURNAROUND.
(*SHRUG*)
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