Maggie's Farm

I taught 8th grade math one year at a 2% white school- and the white student I had was a horror. After the Assistant Principal transferred some of my poorly behaving students to other schools, I was amazed at the change in my classes. I could actually teach.

There is an interesting story behind 2 of those poorly behaving students being so easily transferred to other schools. In that school district, middle school students could attend a school outside their home schools. Two of the students wanted to attend the middle school where I taught, even though it was not their home school. Was it because of my middle school's stellar academic reputation? Not at all.Test scores were well below the district's average. The school had a reputation for having a lot of poorly behaving students. My conclusion is that these 2 poorly behaving students wanted to go to the middle school where I taught because they correctly calculated they were more likely to get away with poor behavior at that school.

Until the Assistant Principal sent them back to their home schools.

That means those who can in fact manage the program can't do it either, and you get to 15% success where perhaps 50% success was possible.

That was a pretty good rule-of-thumb estimate. The middle school where I taught for one year, and had also substituted there, improved its pass rates on the state-mandated math test from 18% to 65%. This took 5-6 years, and in subsequent years the pass rate stayed around 65.%

For those who do not like the state-mandated tests, I recall the travails of a high school senior. He complained that he couldn't get admission to a college finalized because he hadn't yet passed the state-mandated math test. The state-mandated test for high school seniors tested for competence in 8th grade math. I doubt colleges would like to have students that were not competent in 8th grade math.

The pass rate didn't make a big jump until the math teachers redesigned the courses to test for objectives. For example, if competence in calculating with decimals is needed, test for that. See where the shortcomings are on understanding decimals, and teach to resolve that. Rinse and repeat. Merely taking practice tests that duplicate the state test is a waste of time.

No simple answer. Nature and nurture. Certainly there is a genetic component to it. But most people who have taught primary or secondary school have also come to the conclusion that black kids are alienated in some degree from the educational system, and that their parents have something to do with that alienation. I did. (Yes, there are exceptions to this generalization. After all, it is a generalization.)

There is a vicious circle. Many black kids operate under the assumption that as the educational system is racist, why bother. Which brings forth several responses. First, anti-Semitism didn't stop poor Jewish kids from academic achievement in the first have of the 20th century. Nor has racism stopped poor Asian kids from academic achievement in the 21st century. Second, the educational system has bent over backwards in the last 50 years to extirpate racism. It's not white KKK members teaching blacks, but whites who are doing their best to operate in a non-racist manner.

If black students operate under the assumption that they won't make an effort in school until the last traces of racism are extirpated, they will have a very long wait. First, quite often what they define as racism is usually an attempt to apply behavioral rules to everybody. Second, other groups have achieved academically in spite of racism or bigotry- see my previous point.