Closing the Achievement Gap: Race Still Matters | Mother Jones

Closing the Achievement Gap: Race Still Matters | Mother Jones

Closing the Achievement Gap: Race Still Matters

— By Kristina Rizga

| Wed Nov. 10, 2010 3:06 AM PST

istockphoto.comMore bad news for folks, who think that Obama's election landed us in a post-racial America. A new report (PDF) looking at math and reading proficiency among young black males in urban public schools concludes they're doing even worse than is generally known, and poverty alone doesn't explain it.

Race still matters. Case in point: African American boys who are not poor get the same test scores as white boys who live in poverty.

Most K-12 data is usually broken up by race or ethnicity, but not gender. What this sharpened interpretation reveals is that young black males face more obstacles to graduating from high school than any other subgroup, from living in a household without a male guardian, to more frequent encounters with overzealous cops, to higher dropout rates and more suspensions.

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The intention of this report is a call for more targeted solutions that take race into consideration, such as recruiting more black male counselors or creating more culturally relevant lesson plans. The report's authors call for increased national efforts, like a White House conference on black males, creating a special task force, and providing more resources to public schools for after-school programs specifically for black males.

What we are likely to actually see are roughly the same (or less, with Dems losing the House) education reform efforts using "market-friendly" mechanisms to eradicate poverty, like opening more charters, turning around or closing schools, and increased pay for teachers whose students get the highest test scores. What we definitely won't see are new federal programs that anyone could brand as affirmative action. Not at a time when a mainstream publication like Forbes runs a cover feature on Obama describing him already "so outside our comprehension" that he can only be fathomed "if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior."

Kristina Rizga covers education issues and culture for Mother Jones. You can also follow her on Twitter. Get Kristina Rizga's RSS feed.

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• Esteban Rodriguez 11/10/2010 05:41 AM

  The problem is those market reforms such as bonus pay for high test scores, the privatization of public schools, and the double down on the NCLB testing agenda doesn't work. (see the work of Diane Ravitch)
  
  This will be just more fodder to fire teachers, close schools, and hand over the responsibility of educating our urban black and latino children to private corporations.

• Jim Welke 11/10/2010 05:46 AM

  With the Republican "starve the beast" tactic in full swing, i.e. cut taxes, then fix budget shortfalls with spending cuts, I think we can expect public education to atrophy to the point of meaninglessness. I don't hold out much hope for the poor receiving any sort of lift from a benevolent government in the coming years. We're too ignorant to elect decent politicians. We seem to prefer simple minded demagogues who suggest we pray when things go badly.
  
  BTW, how come no one seems to be mocking the "GOP Young Guns?" Jeez!
  http://completelybaked.blogspot.com/p/t-h-e-d-u-n-g-g-u-n-s.html

  1 person liked this.

• Luther 11/10/2010 08:44 AM

  "black boys face more obstacles to graduating high school..."

  It's the poor grammar one sees on the internet.

  1 person liked this.

• Kristina Rizga 11/10/2010 03:22 PM in reply to Luther

  Luther--thanks for catching that. Fixed it.

• Jungefrau1 11/10/2010 11:47 AM

  I would like to see how biracial males score. Do kids who are raised in white/black families do better in school? How about black children raised by adoptive parents who are not black? How do they fare?