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Facing Identity Conflicts, Black Students Fall Behind

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Kendall Harmon

The identity issues facing middle-class black and Latino teenagers might be a clue as to why they don’t do as well academically as their white and Asian counterparts, some researchers and educators say. The teens often live in dual worlds: the suburban one they live in, and the rougher street life they see glorified in the media.

Known as the “minority achievement gap,” the lower average test scores, grades and college attendance by black and Latino students have long perplexed researchers. Many have focused on the values and attitudes of students and whether black students think doing well in school is “acting white.”

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Posted in * Culture-Watch, Education, Race/Race Relations

2 comments on “Facing Identity Conflicts, Black Students Fall Behind”

  1. Branford says:
    November 3, 2009 at 3:28 am

    Check out this story in the LA Times from earlier this year – Spitting in the eye of mainstream education: Three no-frills charter schools in Oakland mock liberal orthodoxy, teach strictly to the test — and produce some of the state’s top scores. From the article:

    . . . The Academic Performance Index, the central measuring tool for California schools, rates schools on a scale from zero to 1,000, based on standardized test scores. The state target is an API of 800. The statewide average for middle and high schools is below 750. For schools with mostly low-income students, it is around 650.

    The oldest of the American Indian schools, the middle school known simply as American Indian Public Charter School, has an API of 967. Its two siblings — American Indian Public Charter School II (also a middle school) and American Indian Public High School — are not far behind.

    Among the thousands of public schools in California, only four middle schools and three high schools score higher. None of them serves mostly underprivileged children.

    At American Indian, the largest ethnic group is Asian, followed by Latinos and African Americans. Some of the schools’ critics contend that high-scoring Asian Americans are driving the test scores, but blacks and Latinos do roughly as well — in fact, better on some tests.

    That makes American Indian a rarity in American education, defying the axiom that poor black and Latino children will lag behind others in school.

    First graduates

    On Tuesday, American Indian’s high school will graduate its first senior class. All 18 students plan to attend college in the fall, 10 at various UC campuses, one at MIT and one at Cornell.

    “They really should be the model for public education in the state of California,” said Debra England of the Koret Foundation, a Bay Area group that has given more than $100,000 in grants to American Indian. “What I will never understand is why the world is not beating a path to their door to benchmark them, learn from them and replicate what they are doing.”

    So what are they doing?

    The short answer is that American Indian attracts academically motivated students, relentlessly (and unapologetically) teaches to the test, wrings more seat time out of every school day, hires smart young teachers, demands near-perfect attendance, piles on the homework, refuses to promote struggling students to the next grade and keeps discipline so tight that there are no distractions or disruptions. Summer school is required.

    Back to basics, squared. . .

    But of course, the teachers union in California fights them every step of the way. Ben Chavis, who started the schools and just retired, has written a book about his experience called Crazy life a fox.

  2. upnorfjoel says:
    November 3, 2009 at 8:03 am

    This is hogwash. Good schools are NOT failing black students, or any other group. No teenager, black or otherwise “wants to be poor”. It is BAD schools, popular black culture and far too many black parents who are failing our black children.
    First, bad schools continue to thrive in poor urban areas where there is little or no accountability for performance. It’s the same old story, that even a black President refuses to address. It does not even need to be explained or defended here. It is fact, we all know it, and THIS government won’t do anything to fix it.
    Second, black parents failing their children are those who that do not demand serious effort from their kids in school, and who do not discipline at home. Many of these parents are brainwashed products of the entitlement society of the 60’s where they themselves were not held accountable for learning and earning their own way in the world.
    Third, do we even have to debate the negative impact of popular black culture, with the messages being framed by hip-hop artists, black Hollywood, and many of today’s black athletes?
    And with all of this, we want to charge GOOD schools with fixing the problem? That’s precisely why it won’t be fixed.