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Educators see civil rights issue in bad schools
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Topic Started: Jun 12 2008, 08:20 PM (207 Views)
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Dúnedain
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Jun 12 2008, 08:20 PM
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Via James Edwards.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — If Johnny can’t read and Sally can’t add, it’s often because of the color of their skin and their ZIP code, educators and activists said Wednesday.
The heads of the New York City and Washington, D.C., school systems joined with civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton and others to press for a shake-up of public schools from coast to coast to narrow the achievement gap between white students and black and Hispanic students. The group called the gap the nation’s most pressing civil rights issue.
By the time they near high school graduation, black and Hispanic teenagers on average have math and reading skills no higher than that of white middle-school students four years younger.
Nationally, 55 percent of black males graduate high school on time, compared to about 78 percent for whites, according to recent data released by Education Week with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“All the numbers, no matter how you look at it, are shocking,” said Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City school system, the nation’s largest.
Klein, Sharpton and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee appeared together to announce the creation of the Education Equality Project, an advocacy group to reform a public education system they say has been paralyzed by special interests like teachers unions as well as political and parental indifference.
Of course, to the equality-obsessed liberal mind, the "achievement gap" must be caused by the failings (racism, bigotry, etc.) of the education system itself. The fact that this "achievement gap" is caused by genetic differences between the races isn't even a possibility for them.
If Sharpton, Klein were really interested in a "public school shake-up" that would wield real results, they would push for the reinstitution of school segregation.
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"I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen."
~ Martin Luther
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Allison
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Jun 12 2008, 09:03 PM
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I think a big part of the "achievement gap" is due to students' lives outside of school. In general, more white kids' parents are educated and willing to help their kids, while many black and Hispanic parents are either not capable or do not take the time to help their kids. Behavior is also a big issue. If the kids don't behave, they can't possibly learn anything. This also comes back to the parents...they have to take on the role of actually raising their children, and once again, more black and Hispanic parents are absent or just don't care. The black and Hispanic kids are also less likely to have financial means necessary to get extra help.
No matter what anyone says, the schools can't help solve this problem, and it has nothing to do with anyone in the school system being racist. It's just that people of that race (in general) need to step it up when raising their kids. That's no one's fault but their own. (Although I do feel bad for those students who want to learn but don't have the resources at home.)
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Dúnedain
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Jun 13 2008, 02:46 PM
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- Allison
- Jun 12 2008, 09:03 PM
I think a big part of the "achievement gap" is due to students' lives outside of school. In general, more white kids' parents are educated and willing to help their kids, while many black and Hispanic parents are either not capable or do not take the time to help their kids. Behavior is also a big issue. If the kids don't behave, they can't possibly learn anything. This also comes back to the parents...they have to take on the role of actually raising their children, and once again, more black and Hispanic parents are absent or just don't care. The black and Hispanic kids are also less likely to have financial means necessary to get extra help.
No matter what anyone says, the schools can't help solve this problem, and it has nothing to do with anyone in the school system being racist. It's just that people of that race (in general) need to step it up when raising their kids. That's no one's fault but their own. (Although I do feel bad for those students who want to learn but don't have the resources at home.) See, now you're treating it as primarily a cultural or environmental problem. Not to say that blacks and Hispanics can't improve their academic culture and the way in which they view education, but the fundamental reason why we see such a wide "achievement gap" between black (and Hispanic) students and their white counterparts is because whites are -- to be perfectly blunt -- genetically more intelligent than blacks and Hispanics.
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The black-white gap in IQ is the racial difference that has been most extensively researched, publicized, and argued over. Psychologists have consistently found a gap of about one standard deviation, or 15 points, between the mean IQ of American blacks and whites ever since IQ tests began to be administered nearly a century ago. American blacks have a mean IQ of about 85 and whites of about 100.
There is no doubt that IQ tests do measure intelligence. As Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray demonstrated exhaustively in The Bell Curve, a person’s IQ is the strongest predictor of his school performance and socio-economic success as an adult.
The stability of the difference across time strengthens the case of race realists. Despite all the efforts made in the US to achieve parity among the races, the IQ gap has not gone away. In 1917, the first large scale IQ tests in America found about a 17-point difference between the scores of the races; the most recent studies show the difference is about the same.11 The equalization of spending on black and white education, government educational programs for the poor, diversity training, and all the rest of it simply have had no discernible effect on the racial IQ gap.
Not only is the difference found consistently across time, but also across place. Blacks all over the world have a mean IQ that is low relative to that of whites. In reviewing the literature on black intelligence in Race Differences in Intelligence, Richard Lynn found that the 57 studies of the IQ of blacks in Africa conducted between 1955 and 1994 consistently showed that they had a mean IQ of around 67.12 Fourteen studies between 1986 and 2002 of blacks in the Caribbean and Latin America found a mean IQ of 71.13 Thirty-one studies of American blacks between 1918 and 1998 found a mean IQ of 85.14 Twenty-nine studies conducted in Britain and the Netherlands between 1966 and 2002 found a black IQ of 85 there as well.15 In Israel, two studies of Ethiopian immigrants who are Jewish by religion but racially black found a mean IQ of 65.16
Some of the most powerful evidence of the biological origin of racial differences in intelligence comes from trans-racial adoption studies. For example, a 1992 study examining the IQs of adopted white and black 17-year-olds raised in upper-middle-class white families found that despite their similar environment, the adopted children with two biological white parents had a mean IQ of 106, whereas the adoptees with two black biological parents had a mean IQ of 89.17
In light of evidence like this, none of the environmentalists’ explanations of racial differences in intelligence is even remotely plausible. Some object that IQ tests are not a good measure of intelligence because they contain questions that whites are more likely to know the answers to than blacks. But the racial difference appears even on reaction-time IQ tests, in which subjects must respond as quickly as possible to a simple visual stimulus, such as a flashing light or a change in color in a dot on a screen.18 It is difficult to see how such tests could be culturally biased.
Nor do arguments that blacks score lower on tests because of socio-economic deficits hold water. If class background explains differences in IQ scores, why do blacks raised in upper-middle-class white families score so much lower on IQ tests than whites from the same background? Moreover, black high-schoolers from affluent backgrounds regularly score lower than whites from poor households on SAT tests, which are a good measure of intelligence.19
In media coverage of race, including the PBS documentary mentioned earlier, hand-picked authorities tell the audience that the genetic theory of the racial IQ gap has no credibility among experts and is merely a relic of pernicious superstitions. This is another lie. The school of researchers that argues for the biological basis of racial intelligence differences, among whom are psychologists Arthur Jensen, J. P. Rushton, and Richard Lynn, have solid academic credentials and publish in peer-reviewed psychological journals, and their work is respected even by those who disagree with them. Furthermore, in 1988, a survey of experts in intelligence and its measurement found that a full 53 percent believed that the black-white difference in IQ was partially genetic in origin. The same study found the news media consistently overestimated the percentage of IQ experts holding egalitarian views. There can be little doubt there still exists today at least a significant school of experts that hold race realist views despite pressure from their colleagues and society at large to abandon them.
(It's not touched upon in the above article, but the mean Hispanic IQ is somewhere around 87-88.)
Again, not to say that blacks and Hispanics absolutely cannot do better than what they're doing now, because they can -- at least as far as their genetic limitations allow them. However, given the the inherited, proven IQ differences between whites and blacks/Hispanics, there will ALWAYS be an "achievement gap." It's important that we come to this realization so that we can stop wasting time and money chasing this dream of "equality" and instead focus in on solutions that will benefit us all.
~ Joel
Edited by Dúnedain, Jun 13 2008, 02:57 PM.
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"I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen."
~ Martin Luther
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Dúnedain
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Jun 13 2008, 02:55 PM
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This is all just one more reason why multiculturalism and multiracial societies don't work. All they do is conjure up resentment and infighting between the various races. Nations made up of a common, unified race of people don't have to worry about this kind of stuff, and they're far better off for it.
~ Joel
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"I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen."
~ Martin Luther
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Allison
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Jun 13 2008, 07:42 PM
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I'm just not really sure I buy into all of that. I'm not saying that it's not true to a certain extent, but what I am saying is that I'm not sure that it makes the large impact that you are saying it does.
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Dúnedain
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Jun 13 2008, 08:03 PM
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- Allison
- Jun 13 2008, 07:42 PM
I'm just not really sure I buy into all of that. I'm not saying that it's not true to a certain extent, but what I am saying is that I'm not sure that it makes the large impact that you are saying it does. The problem is, if it were all environmental and cultural, how can we explain the myriad of studies like this one:
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Some of the most powerful evidence of the biological origin of racial differences in intelligence comes from trans-racial adoption studies. For example, a 1992 study examining the IQs of adopted white and black 17-year-olds raised in upper-middle-class white families found that despite their similar environment, the adopted children with two biological white parents had a mean IQ of 106, whereas the adoptees with two black biological parents had a mean IQ of 89.17
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Nor do arguments that blacks score lower on tests because of socio-economic deficits hold water. If class background explains differences in IQ scores, why do blacks raised in upper-middle-class white families score so much lower on IQ tests than whites from the same background? Moreover, black high-schoolers from affluent backgrounds regularly score lower than whites from poor households on SAT tests, which are a good measure of intelligence.
Socio-economic, cultural, and other such environmental factors should not be completely ignored, but genetics are ultimately the underlying issue here. If my biological parents had, instead of raising me as their own, sent me away to be raised by Michael Jordan and his family, could I (or anyone else, for that matter) reasonably expect, under such conditions, to be taller than I am now? No, of course not -- because I'm still the son of a father who's 5'5 and a mother barely taller than 5'. Why do the rules suddenly change when we're talking about race and proven intelligence differences?
~ Joel
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"I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen."
~ Martin Luther
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Allison
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Jun 13 2008, 08:13 PM
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- Dúnedain
- Jun 13 2008, 08:03 PM
Socio-economic, cultural, and other such environmental factors should not be completely ignored, but genetics are ultimately the underlying issue here. If my biological parents had, instead of raising me as their own, sent me away to be raised by Michael Jordan and his family, could I (or anyone else, for that matter) reasonably expect, under such conditions, to be taller than I am now? No, of course not -- because I'm still the son of a father who's 5'5 and a mother barely taller than 5'. Why do the rules suddenly change when we're talking about race and proven intelligence differences?
~ Joel
You're 5'5"?
And I'm not sure that analogy is such a good one...
Blah. My brain is too tired right now to think about this.
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Dúnedain
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Jun 13 2008, 08:18 PM
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- Allison
- Jun 13 2008, 08:13 PM
And I'm not sure that analogy is such a good one... Here's a better one:
No matter how hard I try, no matter how focused and well-behaved I am, no matter how supportive my parents are, and no matter how many academic resources I have at my disposal, I will NEVER be an Einstein. Why? Because my inherent genetic makeup simply doesn't allow it.
~ Joel
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"I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen."
~ Martin Luther
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