Somehow, I missed Rich Lowry's excellent dissection of the state of "sacred" public education for black youth when it was published six days ago. It includes yet another great review for the new Thernstrom & Thernstrom book, No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning (which is on my Wish List and is 30% off, hint hint):
If there is any area in American public life where liberals hold nearly total sway, it is public education, which is sacred to them. Liberals are always able to win more "spending on education." And one of their key interest groups, the teachers unions, has a hammerlock on education policy and its implementation.
Consider, then, what Ted Kennedy and Co. have wrought:
--The typical black high-school graduate has, in effect, only an eighth-grade education.
--The typical black student scores below 80 percent of white students on tests. A majority of black students score in the lowest category -- Below Basic -- in five of the seven subjects on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
--Seventy-seven percent of white students read at a higher level than the average black student. Only 23 percent of black students, on the other hand, read at a level equal to or better than the average white student.
--During the 1990s, average black math scores fell dramatically. Despite two decades of spending and "reforms," black students' achievement in math is at its 1978 level.
--The average black student knows less about science than 90 percent of white students.
If these numbers make you queasy, they should. America has an educational system worthy of David Duke. Its effect is to perpetuate and exacerbate the country's racial divide, disadvantaging blacks (and Hispanics) and blighting their prospects.
The figures quoted in Mr. Lowry's article come from the Thernstrom's new book, in which they also tackle the apparent "racial discrimination" in earning power. If equal years of schooling translate to unequal academic achievement between blacks and whites, it stands to reason that salaries for members of those groups with equal academic credentials won't necessarily be equal.
Mr. Lowry wonders, as I often have, why those who claim to care so much about black youth spend so much time opposing tests, which help identify poor schooling, and charter schools, which have shown such success in helping underprivileged students.
Posted by kswygert at October 15, 2003 11:39 AM