Who decided this? The whole of humanity.

Like it or not, we live in a society that gets ever more complex and full of new pressures. And like it or not, in order to make it in today's society, more and more you need to be proficiently literate, able to do math, and so on.

If students cannot master those core skills, they will almost certainly end up spending the remainder lives in the lower end of the income scale.

A modest investment of time and energy spent in grade school can pay off tremendously over the course of the rest of one's life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is NOT just a SES issue. Google 'Shaker Heights achievement gap'. A study was conducted by anthropologist John Ogbu because of the achievement gap in an affluent, racially-diverse neighorhood in Ohio. While I do not agree with all of his findings, he does come to several excellent conclusions which should not be discounted.

It is well-known that the achievement gap persists even between high SES black and white students. It is definitely not just about SES.

I wish the term "achievement gap" had never been coined, and that closing it had never been identified as a goal.

really? who decided this?

It seems the important thing is that kids have the opportunity to achieve as well as they can -- not they are constantly being compared to each other on racial/ethnic grounds.

Yeah there is the Shaker Heights study

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/rich-black-flunking/Content?oid=1070459

Anonymous wrote:This is NOT just a SES issue. Google 'Shaker Heights achievement gap'. A study was conducted by anthropologist John Ogbu because of the achievement gap in an affluent, racially-diverse neighorhood in Ohio. While I do not agree with all of his findings, he does come to several excellent conclusions which should not be discounted.

It is well-known that the achievement gap persists even between high SES black and white students. It is definitely not just about SES.

Compounding the problem is the fact that and upper middle class AA's leave or never enroll in DCPS. We did after elementary school, and so did almost all of our friends. The isolation and low expectations are very real. While there may not be very much socio-economic diversity in private school, at least there's a culture of high expectations where it's good to be smart.

This is NOT just a SES issue. Google 'Shaker Heights achievement gap'. A study was conducted by anthropologist John Ogbu because of the achievement gap in an affluent, racially-diverse neighorhood in Ohio. While I do not agree with all of his findings, he does come to several excellent conclusions which should not be discounted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Challenge for a lot of poor kids is that they don't have two parents that can do something like this:

Club 2012: Black parents who made sure their sons succeeded in

For six years, their parents had nagged and prodded and pressed them to perform.

Now these African American seniors in Loudoun County were marking the end of high school with a private ceremony organized by their parents, who had banded together back in middle school to make sure their sons made it successfully to graduation day.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/club-2012-black-parents-who-made-sure-their-sons-succeeded-in-school/2012/06/13/gJQAnEdZcV_story.html

There's another cultural problem. Dad's not around. Dad can't man up and take responsibility. Dad can't be bothered with the baby's mama. Premarital sex, teen sex, irresponsibility, mysoginy, just party, be casual, and have a good time, never mind the consequences of anything. The poverty remains self-perpetuating and multigenerational for as long as this is never seriously addressed.

Being poor sucks. And it has all sorts of negative externalities. That's why we try to mitigate it.

The "cultural problem" you speak of is one that poor blacks and poor whites share.

I agree, the cultural problem is shared, and in the Rust Belt you will see poor whites with those same problems.

BUT, we are talking about DC, where the problem isn't poor white folks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Challenge for a lot of poor kids is that they don't have two parents that can do something like this:

Club 2012: Black parents who made sure their sons succeeded in

For six years, their parents had nagged and prodded and pressed them to perform.

Now these African American seniors in Loudoun County were marking the end of high school with a private ceremony organized by their parents, who had banded together back in middle school to make sure their sons made it successfully to graduation day.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/club-2012-black-parents-who-made-sure-their-sons-succeeded-in-school/2012/06/13/gJQAnEdZcV_story.html

There's another cultural problem. Dad's not around. Dad can't man up and take responsibility. Dad can't be bothered with the baby's mama. Premarital sex, teen sex, irresponsibility, mysoginy, just party, be casual, and have a good time, never mind the consequences of anything. The poverty remains self-perpetuating and multigenerational for as long as this is never seriously addressed.

Being poor sucks. And it has all sorts of negative externalities. That's why we try to mitigate it.

The "cultural problem" you speak of is one that poor blacks and poor whites share.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, this is beyond the extreme with these pummeling references.
This is not happening in the DCPS system. If anything the era has turned and many of the smart kids are the new breed of bullies. Quite honestly being smart and a smart-ass kid are all too similar. At times teachers unintentionally fuel the fire with overboard recognition of the bright child in the class. To become the teacher's pet can become a need to warrant a teacher's protection.

this can happen in a lot places, but where poor kids live it is usually not the case. The reality is that in this area the face of poverty is AA, but nationwide there are more poor white folks than AA or Hispanic or Asian. Poverty is not conducive to educational opportunity no matter your race.

DC is a city with incredible opportunities for making money. People from all all walks of life, from all around the country, and all around the world come here because of the opportunities it offers. There for the taking, yet some of those who are already here evidently can't be bothered to go after those opportunities. And so, they stay in poverty.

As they say, the Lord helps those who help themselves. Some don't want to be taught to fish, they just want to keep being given fish.

Anonymous wrote:Challenge for a lot of poor kids is that they don't have two parents that can do something like this:

Club 2012: Black parents who made sure their sons succeeded in

For six years, their parents had nagged and prodded and pressed them to perform.

Now these African American seniors in Loudoun County were marking the end of high school with a private ceremony organized by their parents, who had banded together back in middle school to make sure their sons made it successfully to graduation day.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/club-2012-black-parents-who-made-sure-their-sons-succeeded-in-school/2012/06/13/gJQAnEdZcV_story.html

There's another cultural problem. Dad's not around. Dad can't man up and take responsibility. Dad can't be bothered with the baby's mama. Premarital sex, teen sex, irresponsibility, mysoginy, just party, be casual, and have a good time, never mind the consequences of anything. The poverty remains self-perpetuating and multigenerational for as long as this is never seriously addressed.

Challenge for a lot of poor kids is that they don't have two parents that can do something like this:

Club 2012: Black parents who made sure their sons succeeded in

For six years, their parents had nagged and prodded and pressed them to perform.

Now these African American seniors in Loudoun County were marking the end of high school with a private ceremony organized by their parents, who had banded together back in middle school to make sure their sons made it successfully to graduation day.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/club-2012-black-parents-who-made-sure-their-sons-succeeded-in-school/2012/06/13/gJQAnEdZcV_story.html

Anonymous wrote:Again, this is beyond the extreme with these pummeling references.
This is not happening in the DCPS system. If anything the era has turned and many of the smart kids are the new breed of bullies. Quite honestly being smart and a smart-ass kid are all too similar. At times teachers unintentionally fuel the fire with overboard recognition of the bright child in the class. To become the teacher's pet can become a need to warrant a teacher's protection.

this can happen in a lot places, but where poor kids live it is usually not the case. The reality is that in this area the face of poverty is AA, but nationwide there are more poor white folks than AA or Hispanic or Asian. Poverty is not conducive to educational opportunity no matter your race.

Again, this is beyond the extreme with these pummeling references.
This is not happening in the DCPS system. If anything the era has turned and many of the smart kids are the new breed of bullies. Quite honestly being smart and a smart-ass kid are all too similar. At times teachers unintentionally fuel the fire with overboard recognition of the bright child in the class. To become the teacher's pet can become a need to warrant a teacher's protection.

Read "A Hope in the Unseen" by Ron Suskind"

The gap will persist as long as AA kids are pummeled by other AA kids for "acting white" when they do their homework.