Monday, September 10, 2007
As the economic gap widens -- 'appears as if -- No Child Left Behind (and SAT tests) need more than to be measured by school districts:
Nationwide (SAT test scores this year are starkly...very, black and white),
white students averaged 1579 on the SAT in 2007;
blacks averaged 1287.
(The gap, 292 points)-- according to the Washington Post.
"The disparity is..the classic example of the racial achievement gap in public education." -- this complicated issue of standardized test goes beyond textbook learning and color barriers...and by no means suggests white students are better...just way better positioned for success.
'and the article goes onto to say "Education starts at home": "sending their children to a top school is not enough. Parents must learn the system: enroll their children in advanced courses, see that they get good grades, take the right tests and earn the right scores, and "aggressively" encourage performance.
. . .
Christopher Jencks, a professor of social policy at Harvard University who co-wrote a book about the achievement gap, notes other societal forces that can drag down black students at affluent schools. Black teens in well-heeled suburbs tend to socialize with children less affluent than themselves, to the detriment of their academic goals, he said. And black families might be less gripped by the "rat-race mentality" that sweeps up most parents in such suburbs as Potomac.
"Being behind is discouraging," he said. "And the easiest thing to do when you're behind is say, 'Oh well, who cares about this race anyway?' "
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