Reply to Please tell me about your A student's experience at Wilson?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the problem is that on average black students lag white students pretty significantly by a variety of measures, even when social scientists account for most of the obvious factors.  (Obviously that's only on average, because individual students perform better or worse, and aren't defined by averages.)

Most people believe that race cannot be the factor that causes low performance, so we are looking for the other X factor that's causing lower performance.  But identifying that X factor has proven difficult.  The economist thinks it's an economic factor; the physician thinks it's a "psychosocial" factor; I'm sure six other disciplines would finger six other factors.

My personal view is that there's no single X factor any longer.  We started with the stain of slavery here in the United States, and then shifted to many decades of discriminatory practices.  Similar discrimination and mistreatment occurred over many generations throughout the European world.  As a result, the black population as a whole faces several problems that other races have avoided: lower income, higher crime rates, less stable families and social structures, less emphasis on education, etc.  Indeed, some people have even suggested that under slavery, certain genetic traits were encouraged or discouraged, which inherently changed the characteristics of the average black population.  It seems to me that those many generations of discriminatory treatment introduced several different X factors into the black population that all combine in ways we cannot fully understand, but which that make it very hard to change the course of the population.  And [b]even after all the obvious impediments to success are removed (such as overt discrimination, or economic insecurity, or environmental factors)[/b], the black population still struggles to achieve the same success as other racial populations.  That's not because the black population is inherently less capable, but rather because many generations of discrimination got is all screwed up.  So change is happening, but very very slowly.

Sorry to go off on such a tangent.[/quote]

There may be a valid point in your tangent.  But the irony in what you're saying is that when you believe in all these inherent factors, you're less likely to believe in - or even be aware of - other factors that impact achievement.  Your own unconscious bias shows in your word choice (Other races have avoided low income and high crime - really?) and there's no way to measure how that affects a student when it's held by teachers and peers, but there's no doubt that it does.

What I find most interesting about your post is the thing that's at the crux of the problem but most often ignored:  you think black people have to change, but no one else does.

At a minimum, I don't want my AA kid in a classroom with anyone who thinks the way you do.  That's what's so hard to change.[/quote]

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