Now here's a doozy of an op-ed in the New York Post by well-known education researchers Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster. Despite the well-known stereotypes of New Yorkers as sophisticated and unprejudiced, and West Virginians as uneducated, racist hicks, it seems that black teenagers in WV stand a much better of graduating high school, and of being prepared for college, than do their peers in NY:
First, West Virginia high schools are far more likely than their New York counterparts to keep black students in school all the way through graduation.
The graduation rate for black students in New York is a dismal 47 percent, below even the disappointing national average of 51 percent. This is an ongoing problem in New York - its black graduation rate for the class of 1998 was 51 percent. Meanwhile, the graduation rate for black students in West Virginia is a comparatively heartening 70 percent.
That difference translates into thousands of black students with brighter prospects and higher earnings...
...black students leaving West Virginia high schools are not just more likely than their New York peers to get that door-opening diploma. They're also more likely to have the academic abilities necessary to go on to college.
There are three things a student must have before he can even apply to a four-year college. First, he needs a high school diploma. Second, he needs to have taken the right courses - math, English, and so on...Finally, he needs to demonstrate basic literacy.
By these three criteria, we estimate that only 16 percent of all black students in New York leave high school meeting the bare minimum requirements to apply to four-year colleges...By contrast, 31 percent of all black students leave West Virginia schools ready for college - just about twice as many as in New York.
What do Greene and Forster conclude is the reason behind these differences? They believe the differences are related to the theories listed in Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom's new book, "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" (see here and here for previous posts about the book):
The Thernstroms don't look specifically at New York and West Virginia, but it isn't hard to guess how their findings might apply. There are definitely a lot of people in New York always willing to make excuses for black student failure. The data seem to indicate that West Virginia is holding its black students to a higher standard, and with outstanding results.
Hrm. Is this the case? Well, here's Dr. Greene's report on graduation rates across the 50 states. Here's the table with the numbers by state. Note that the numbers for white students are identical for West Virginia and New York, yet there's this discrepancy for black students. That certainly suggests that whatever has gone wrong with the NY system is affecting black students more often than whites (there's a gap between white and black students in WV as well, but it's not as large).
Other such within state gaps are also apparent:
Illinois: white grad. rate = 89%; black grad. rate = 57%
Iowa: white grad. rate = 95%; black grad. rate = 57%
Kansas: white grad. rate = 80%; black grad. rate = 54%
Minnesota: white grad. rate = 87%; black grad. rate = 43%
Nebraska: white grad. rate = 90%; black grad. rate = 53%
Oregon: white grad. rate = 70%; black grad. rate = 49%
And so forth. Within the paper, Dr. Greene makes this statement:
The gap between white and minority graduation rates is alarmingly large. Indeed, the lowest state graduation rates for white students are close to the highest rates for African-American and Latino students. In some of the states the disparity between white and minority graduation rates is exceptionally high. For example, Wisconsin has the largest difference between its graduation rates for white and African-American students, with 92% of whites graduating compared to 40% of African-Americans...
Interestingly, all four of these states [Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska] are predominantly rural, white states with concentrated, smaller minority and urban populations. This may reveal that the problem of low graduation rates is really an urban problem.
Thus, Dr. Greene may have chosen the NY vs. WV comparison because of the likelihood that our cultural stereotypes are most evident for those (plus, they published this in an NYC paper), but I'm curious as to why he did not point out in the NY Post article that the cause of the difference might be related to NYC's urban areas. Perhaps the researchers have concluded that the Thernstrom's theories still apply in this case (because urban schools are more likely to make "excuses".)
Posted by kswygert at November 18, 2003 01:18 PM