In the UK, stats show poor white boys to be the worst performing group (“apart from a small group of traveller pupils”, according to my cite) academically. This is measured by performance at the age of 16, when the main public exams are taken. And to put it crudely, the black people in the UK are ‘more black’, whatever that means, since a lot more of them are likely to be second-generation African. Cite from the Grauniad; this statistic gets a lot of coverage in all British media sources.
Also, white British boys as a whole did worse than black African girls from a report five years ago: BBC source - for some reason I can’t find any more recent cites on this specific divide.
Arguing for ‘innate differences’ between the ‘races’ (mswas points out the problem with this - which ethnicities are you comparing exactly?) in a US context is seriously problematic to me.
Personally, I don’t hold that there is an innate intellectual aptitude difference between blacks and white, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be. In the U’S", as you suggest, there are clear innate differences having to do with physical ability between those who we would classify as white and those who we wold classify as black. Just look at the NBA. Then look at the NFL. You’ll see the speed positions dominated by blacks. You’ll see a lot of whites on the offensive line. So, I don’t see how we can see clear differences in the physical realm and simply assume that they wouldn’t/couldn’t be manifested in the brain, as well.
The US is one of the worst possible places to make the argument from a scientific POV, due to extensive genetic mixing, and radically different legal, cultural, and economic environments.
It’s a very useful argument politically, though, precisely because black Americans are numerous, and relatively powerful politically and economically. Black Americans are worth attacking in a way that Australian aborigines or Native Americans aren’t, since those groups have marginal influence in their countries.
Mine was that even tho more and more of our local kids go to private schools, the voters are always willing to throw more tax money at our public schools to make up for whatever loss of federal funds there has been. Despite those schools being full of minorities…
First I want to thank those people who had kind words for my participation in this debate.
Second, I want to clarify something about the benchmarks I set yesterday. I find it indescribably sad that so many people in this thread jumped to the conclusion that I intended that society should somehow be manipulated in order to reach those benchmarks. The implication, of course, is that on their own, black Americans would never be able to achieve these goals. That was not at all my meaning. I categorically reject the idea that there is any innate difference at all between white and black homo sapiens, other than superficial physical characteristics such as skin color and hair texture (which are widely variable anyway – check out the skin color of the current head of the NAACP). I believe that the current disparity in statistics is entirely the result of historical racism and continuing discrimation, and the impact they have had on both black culture and society as a whole.
If instead of breaking the statistics down by white and black, what would happen if you broke out the white statistics by say, Irish-American and other, or French-American and other, or Polish-American and other? Would you expect to see significant variations, particularly if you looked only at fourth generation Americans, for example? We don’t expect to see those variations, in fact we don’t even look for them, because whatever discrimination those groups suffered was relatively minor and has been long overcome. All of those groups are now equal. Looking at the statistics tells me that whatever barriers have been eliminated, black Americans and white Americans are still not equal.
This is the great tragedy of American society. The fact that we have now elected a black president is a great step, and indicates that we are that much closer to someday achieving the dream. But the statistics show that we are not there yet. On the day that all of my benchmarks have been met, when, as with Irish or French or Polish Americans, we no longer need to break out those statistics, I will say that we have overcome.
To your request re a cite for SAT performances of upper income blacks v poor whites:
"But there is a major flaw in the thesis that income differences explain the racial gap. Consider these three observable facts from The College Board’s 2005 data on the SAT:
• Whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000 had a mean SAT score of 993. This is 129 points higher than the national mean for all blacks.
• Whites from families with incomes below $10,000 had a mean SAT test score that was 61 points higher than blacks whose families had incomes of between $80,000 and $100,000.
• Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000. "
In the US, the term “black” is more accurately “self-described as black.” As noted above, this is a pretty broad and very diverse group–it is frequently argued that this makes it a nonsensical cohort (genetically speaking). I do not agree with that argument. One might create a cohort of tall people, for instance, in which whatever genetic profile makes you tall is broadly represented. An otherwise broad genetic diversity in the short group would not make it less of a cohort; the two cohorts would still reflect the relative deficiency of tall genes in the short group.
I am familiar with data correlating poverty and educational achievement. There has long been a known correlation with IQ and income level, and it passes the common sense test, although obviously many other factors are also at play. It would be more surprising if the brightest segment of a population was at the economic low end and the least proficient were the most successful economically, would it not?
This is an interesting article. It is a report on SAT scores divided by race and economic lines, and possible reasons for the disparites. The JBHE is a black centered publication.
Do you find yourself using this language when arguments for innate differences are raised, but not using the term “attack” for those who blame society for the underperformance of blacks?
What we need is a careful debate that examines possible explanations dispassionately and leaves rhetoric somewhere else. We’ll get to a just society and we’ll get to solutions which best ameliorate inequality when we can stop assuming that positions with which we disagree are attacks.
When they see the results in a non-abstract sense. Left Hand of Dorkness would require it so that such bonds go into the Federal pot, so that no school is funded better than another. Somehow I do not think people are going to be quite as zealous to fund Federal initiatives as local ones.
Having schools completely federally funded might work better than what we have now - at least all schools would probably end up being more or less the same. OTOH, the feds seem to waste more money percentage-wise than local governments.
Maybe if they take that per child income tax write off away from the parents and put it in the schools?
Absolutely: I would accept such a conclusion when it was conveyed with scientific rigor, eliminating other variables.
Given the wretched history of racist pseudoscience attempting to prove the intellectual inferiority of black people, ranging from neoteny genetics to phrenological comparisons to The Bell Curve. I’m going to start off highly suspicious of any such claim. If the claim is unwarranted, it is by (my) definition a racist claim, and I’ll start off suspecting anyone making such a claim of being racist.
But make the claim with scientific rigor. Establish a causal relationship. Preferably establish a mechanism (for example, show that mice injected with a particular gene found primarily on black people’s DNA have fewer neural connections than mice injected with the equivalent gene from white people’s DNA).
Make the claim scientifically rigorous, with cause and mechanism, and I’ll concede my error in suspecting the claimant of racism.
When such claims are made based on sloppy correlations, as they nearly always are, the claimant is racist, by definition.
I think the real world doesn’t jive with your categorical rejection. I’ll simply repeat my Post #82 here and await your response:
Personally, I don’t hold that there is an innate intellectual aptitude difference between blacks and white, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be. In the U’S", as you suggest, there are clear innate differences having to do with physical ability between those who we would classify as white and those who we wold classify as black. Just look at the NBA. Then look at the NFL. You’ll see the speed positions dominated by blacks. You’ll see a lot of whites on the offensive line. So, I don’t see how we can see clear differences in the physical realm and simply assume that they wouldn’t/couldn’t be manifested in the brain, as well.
Yes, of course. They should also be allowed to volunteer at their local after school program, and buy pencils for their kids, and take their child’s friend to the local art museum. But I’m not going to answer any more of these questions. If you have a point to make, go ahead and make it.
I’m just trying to understand your position, which you seem now to want to keep vague. I asked about fundraising for the local school. My point goes back to your idea to federalize funding in an attempt to make it equal for all students. But this simply won’t happen. Let’s say it is federalized and each school gets $X for each student per year. Now wealthy District A feels their kids could benefit from other things not covered by the allotment, so they raise funds for a new science lab, library, gym, or music room. Maybe another wing to reduce crowding. So, immediately there is fresh inequity. The ten percent of wealthy districts in the country and improve their local schools, and the rest once again fall behind.
Also, what wold stop thoise districts from self-imposing a new school tax? Or pass a law saying that X% of funds going to the general fund be allotted for school improvements?
I share your desire to fix schools, particularly inner-city schools, but people need to be able to carve their localities to serve the needs they find important. Additionally, I’m loathe to have the government take my money and disperse it to schools that have not demonstrated that they can put it to good use. The bottom line is that beyond a very basic funding level, money is not the answer. It’s not the answer because it is not directed at the problem: a culture that, at best, does not value education.
Huh? What the fuck does this even mean and where do you get that from? And if you don’t like answering questions, perhaps you should spend your time on YouTube.
As I said to you when you started this line of questioning:
I didn’t say “a baseline financial maximum.” Of course I’m not saying that parents should be prevented from fundraising, or even that folks in one area should be prevented from having a property tax to improve their schools above the minimum. That has nothing to do with what I said, thus my irritation in these leading questions that led away from my argument.
As for your CATO study, that does indeed go to show that giving a shitload of money to a gang of idiots will not result in dreamy school. That doesn’t show that our educational problems can’t be helped by improved funding.
The KC Experiment doesn’t prove that money is unimportant, but it shows that may very well be the case.
as far as the rest, fair enough. But a question on your earlier statement:
“We need to establish a baseline financial minimum for schools to succeed. Clearly we haven’t done that so far.”
How have you determined that “we haven’t done that so far?” I’m not necessarily disagreeing, I’m interested in what metric you’ve used to reach that conclusion. Also, if school district A does a good job of educating it’s students for $X per pupil, shouldn’t we expect that school district B (with similar demographics) be able to do the same? How do we arrive at the proper baseline funding?
No it doesn’t. The people involved in that experiment were wildly incompetent and corrupt. It’s equivalent to concluding that, because Burmese authorities confiscated rice sent to the country to feed the population after the cyclone, food is unimportant when it comes to helping victims of natural disasters.
I’ve read articles by Jonathan Kozol about the state of many schools in urban areas, for one.