Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Solving the Achievement Gap

Latinos score lower than whites on tests and drop-out of school more often and it is largely their fault!!!! The same goes for Black American youth! Wow!!! That was risky. One can get fired for saying such things. So to cover my buns let me just clarify that nothing in this paragraph had anything to do with race. Culture, not I.Q. or innate ability, explains this discrepancy. And if you really want to minimize the achievement gap between Latinos, Asians, Whites and Blacks, you should read on.

Fifth graders in Taipei, Taiwan spend an average of 13 hours a week on homework; their counterparts in Minneapolis spend slightly more than four hours a week on homework. In Asian cultures not having completed one's homework normally results in shame. Completing your homework is positively associated with academic success. Cultural differences provide a complete and satisfactory explanation as to why students in Asian countries do better at math.

The concept that racism plays any part in the achievement gap comes from the twisted logic of education professionals. As much as anything, their thought patterns create the disparity. Educators' fealty to multiculturalism makes us unable to do anything but praise cultural diversity. Yet, at heart, these multicultural educators take cultural diversity to be very shallow. They cannot imagine that it could be so important as to impact something as fundamental as study habits or the love of education. After discounting culture as a factor, the educators correctly discount innate ability as a factor. And from here on the errors of their assumptions lead to more and more destructive conclusions.

After discounting culture and race as possible sources of the achievement gap, the education professionals still have to find a culprit. Their solution? Institutional racism. This means that the achievement gap becomes proof of schools being racist. The other cause cited is poverty. But since this cannot have anything to do with culture or race, this explanation becomes proof that society is racist.

Teaching the youth of your country that your society is unjust and racist is something no culture that wanted to survive would ever do. Beyond endangering our society, though, it fosters anti-social behavior in youth. Would you work to fit into a racist society in which you have no hope of success? This attitude pervading the education environment largely explains why so many Black American youth consider studying to be "acting white" and giving in to "the man."

To help, we need to be willing to take a culturist point of view, to consider that culture might in fact be able to impact achievement. Such an explanation would reinstate the vital connection between merit and achievement. Culturist interpretations of the achievement gap can prompt cultures to take a good hard look at themselves. Meetings and community based solutions - such as tutoring centers - could then be discussed as solutions. The culturist perspective has the merit of better reflecting reality than saying schools are racist against Latinos and Blacks, but not Asians and Whites. Beyond this, it is much more likely to motivate students and close the achievement gap than calling schools and society racist.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A few years ago, a law professor at UT made a similar observation; it resulted is massive demonstrations throughout the state. But the truth is you are correct. In our evolved multicultural society, were every immigrant culture has equal value, we should not be surprised to learn that since reading is not valued in Hispanic culture, students from that group, in most cases do not/will not read; I am speaking of reading classroom assignments — forget any notion of outside reading. In fact, they will not even read ethnocentric works, such as “Cholo Stories.”

I believe that social programs that traditionally allow minorities access to benefits has generated laziness among many black Americans; we wonder why they do not value education, knowing full well that if they can get something for nothing, or make a fortune in illegal activities, then there is no reason to value education. It is disturbing to find, upon visiting many middle and high school campuses (excepting magnet schools), you will be hard-pressed to discern where the learning is taking place.

Sadly, these circumstances are now crossing over into other ethnic groups, as well — including those that have a previous laudatory reputation in academics. Easily 70% of high school freshman read at the 5th or 6th grade level, lower among Hispanic students. The evidence in the failure of our schools, deeply rooted in multiculturalism, is overwhelming — and yet no one is much interested in fixing the problem. It is apparently preferable to throw more money at the system. It hasn’t worked so far, but I suppose there is always hope.

Lexcen said...

Thinking more and more about culturism I realized that this is what is needed in the economic discipline that studies economic growth and more specifically the understanding of what is referred to as "take-off". Economists who ponder on the failure of third world countries to develop a robust industrial economy should include culturism in their analysis.

Anonymous said...

For me the parents guidance is of utmost significance in their children's educational achievement.

You might be interested in the Young Entrepreneur Society from the www.YoungEntrepreneurSociety.com. A great documentary about successful entrepreneurs.

Unknown said...

Lexcen, I'd love to hear more of what you're specifically referring to. But Ronald Inglehardt has done statistical work on world values. He has shown that some cultural values, for example thinking about the future and a sense of control over ones life, correlate with economic achievement.

I love Ingelhardt's work. But it sort of proves the obvious. If ten percent of your population gives birth before finishing high school . . .

Max Weber and Durkheim showed the same thing. I'd like to know more about what you're thinking of.

Interestingly a heavy multiculturalist emailed me today and said she had found my blog post. She said she agreed! There is hope. All non-Atzlan teachers know culture is central to achievement. Unfortunately, since it has nothing to do with race, Mustang you are very correct about the slide crossing demographics.

Jannick, agreed parents are important. But their values very often reflect that of their culture. Nothing is more hopeless than a bad kid whose parents are gangbangers and see nothing wrong with failing, drugs and violence. But I'll check out the website!