# Why do black pupils in the US underachieve academically when one factors out poverty? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 25, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948 "2009-01-25T20:13:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 734
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/734 "2015-03-07T03:56:33Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It is my honest recollection that he always qualified his claim with “on par” or something similar. Either that, or it is shared as his hypothesis, based on 1) the difference in scores and 2) the degree that non-genetic factors have been controlled for. (Mind you, I’m not saying that I’m believe this has been done completely.) But if you can provide a cite substantiating your claim of what he did say, that’s another story. Can you? Yes (in addition to the one **Trinopus** just pointed out). Here he both falsely attributes the idea to me and implies that he agrees with the “cannot compete” part: > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > This idea that highly privileged black students from backgrounds with high SES and high parental education have some sort of secret cultural millstone preventing them from learning is risible. And the farce that the cultural millstone persists such that the best black students entering college still cannot compete 4 and 8 years later on graduate and specialty exams is not grasping at straws–it’s grasping at thin air. Also here: > [@Are you a racist? Warning signs](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-racist-warning-signs/692519/1368): > > I am curious why you think an ancestral history of brutality prevents a student from learning that 2 + 2 = 4. > > And why whatever reason that is would apply, say, to blacks but not the Ashkenazi? > > Can you be more specific about what it is that happens with a history of brutality to prevent a current student from learning? I’ve interviewed hundreds of candidates for med school over the years, and I actually saw quite a few neat success stories for immigrants (Vietnamese, e.g.) whose parents suffered quite a bit, but who themselves were still able to learn once given an opportunity. And here: > [@Are you a racist? Warning signs](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-racist-warning-signs/692519/916): > > Is racial oppression in the schools–which the parents apparently overcame–so horrible the black kids can’t learn? Are the black students so wounded by the trials of their grandparents that they are unable to learn how to reason and assimilate facts? > [@Race is non-existent](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-is-non-existent/643100/347): > > How would low teacher expectations and oppositional culture explain the abysmal performance of HBCUs? How would it explain crappy MCATs and LSATs? Are populations of students performing at the level that would let them apply to Law and Med school so malleable to these forces that they literally cannot learn material? How about if we look four years further on at the post-med school exams used for residency application? What about if we look yet further on to the success rates for passing specialy board exams in medicine? When does this effect end, and why is there such a pervasive pattern across the world, whether the population demographics put a SIRE group in the majority or minority? “Cannot compete”, “prevents a student from learning that 2 + 2 = 4”, “prevent a current student from learning”, comparing black students to Vietnamese immigrants, wondering why the Vietnamese were “able to learn” and the black students weren’t, “can’t learn”, “unable to learn how to reason and assimilate facts”… “Are populations of students performing at the level that would let them apply to Law and Med school so malleable to these forces that they literally cannot learn material?” Literally cannot learn material. **CP** said here in the last quote that black students “literally cannot learn material”. > [@](#): > > The difference between “didn’t score on par with” and “unable to learn on par with” really goes to the heart of your disagreement. Of course there is zero dispute about the former claim, as it is a matter of fact. The latter one is a hypothesis based, in part on the former. He’s certainly entitled to hold that opinion. I’m really unclear as to why you think he should be deprived of his position, whatever it may be. It’s an utterly ridiculous position, disproven by a single black student learning “on par with” his privileged white peers. Complete nonsense. That’s what those words mean. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948)._