Surprise, surprise, surprise!

“Early data in the project show that white law students are significantly more likely than minority students to have been raised by two parents and to have had English spoken as the primary language at home”. . . it’s not only the Supreme Court that ignores the data, is it?

TRA, at 7:20 am EDT on August 13, 2007

Fair and Balanced Coverage

Actually, the last thing this article needs is “ideological diversity". This is not a story about some tedious food fight between culture warriors. It is a report about social scientific research that finds the following:

“The cumulative impact of these inequities is such that minority students who are admitted to top University of California campuses are more likely to have attended white majority schools than other schools.”

So unless IHE can locate someone who can persuasively argue that either 1) these data are incorrect; 2) the study is methodologically flawed; or 3) the results can be attributed the factors other than racial and ethnic inequality, there is really no need to seek gratuitous “balance".

We certainly don’t need to hear from the president of some interest group like “The Center for Colorblind Laws that Somehow Always Seem to Benefit White People". We need to hear from social scientists. Evidence matters. Everything else is just noise.

Unapologetically Tenured, at 8:30 am EDT on August 13, 2007

While I agree that there is no need for “balance,” there are different ways to interpret this data. For instance, the California study appears to ignore class. How many of these mainly “white” schools” are also private schools? Is this about a bias in admissions, or about a lack of funding for public schools?

Further, evidence does indeed matter, however, there is a problem when the evidence is gathered to fit a particular agenda, as the author of the California study even admits:

“Robert T. Teranishi, assistant professor of higher education at New York University, said that his research was designed to counter the “blaming the victim” mentality in which he said people assume black enrollment declines suggest a lack of merit by black students.”

Ryan, at 9:25 am EDT on August 13, 2007

There seems to be an assumption that California universities form a hierarchy of merit, with the UC’s at the top, the CSU’s below them, and the community colleges at the bottom. California’s system is actually divided by the type of training offered, not the quality of the school, with the CSU’s focusing on applied fields. The preponderance of minority training may be at the CSU’s because (1) there are more campuses located close to home and applicants cannot live away from the family; (2) there is a greater emphasis on training for a career instead of learning for its own sake, a more vocational attitude among poorer people; (3) students from minority dominated high schools may feel more comfortable on campuses where they are not the minority, e.g., CSU campuses instead of UC campuses; (4) costs are lower at CSUs instead of UCs; and (5) costs are even lower if you start at a community college for two years and transfer, something that is easier to do from a cc to a CSU than cc to UC; (6) CSUs may do a better job of outreach to minority high schools than the UCs. The UCs are not the top schools or even the best schools for many students — they are the ones who prepare students for doctoral grad programs. The impact of under-representation at the UCs is that there will be fewer minority applicants for jobs in academia, not fewer well-trained minority applicants for jobs in other fields. The UCs are not the only game in town.

Chuck, at 10:15 am EDT on August 13, 2007

Life Experience Counts

I attended a majority black elementary school system in New York in which I recall only having a textbook in grades 1 and 2. Ms. Rodriguez and Ms. Lane were excellent professionals. In grades 3-5, my teachers HATED being in the school and thus we were simply “baby sat". My 4th grade teacher missed 75% of the school year -"Out sick” and we had a rotating cast of substitutes take a stab at watching over our non-existent lesson plans. My parents were older thus I spent most of my learning time with them and our World Book Encyclopedia tools. So when I took the SRA standardized tests, I always seemed to place in the top 20% of the nation. Realizing that their input was falling on deaf ears and that their post-retirement incomes would hinder me from attending a private school like other deemed gifted and talented from my minority community, we relocated out of state to a majority white school district. Took a year or two for me to adapt to going from having NO curriculum to a very rigid college preparatory program (my test scores earned me the ONLY black female student status in the HONORS PROGRAM). By 7th grade I began my track record of being a Dean’s Listed/Scholar Athlete. I earned my bachelors and MBA on full fellowships/scholarships and went on to be the highest and youngest #1 ranked district sales manager (black or white) for a FORTUNE 100 Pharmaceutical company. My belief is that looking back...my peers and I were cheated and robbed of an tax paid early education during very formative periods. I know that this type of dysfunction still remains in our majority communities throughout the country. I also know that throughout my travels around the world I see the same argument “blacks cannot achieve success without affirmative action". I have lived enough to know that although there are well meaning whites who have never met a racist soul, only 2% of the people in this country are black with a college degree or higher. There are very real and obstinate barriers that are NOT always self-imposed that prevent a very talented group from rising to the top. Affirmative action as the complex tool it was designed to be shield and guide that cream from spoiling as it attempts to reach the top. Every family does not have the luxury of being transported into a majority white neighborhood and school system as mine did. From the kids that I grew up with in New York, I am the only college graduate. However, I do have a 5th grade classmate who is a prominent rapper and business executive and he seems to be doing pretty well financially. Opponents to affirmative action should perhaps step outside of their comfort zones and see more of the world. I had to do it in order to survive.

Estelle, President at HBCU kidz, Inc., at 11:15 am EDT on August 13, 2007

“Discriminatory” system

So, could someone explain how the racist school system is somehow causing black and Latino students to disproportionately come from one-parent households and to not speak English as a first language? Or could it be possible that the minority-majority schools have lower college placement because of the home enviornment of the students who go there?

Prof. Challenger, at 11:35 am EDT on August 13, 2007

Considering that more Asians go to Berkeley than ‘whites,’ i’m amused at the seemingly anti-white racism present in the article and study. Should whites — a larger majority in California than Asians — start taking the positions of Latinos and Blacks too, just in a relative way? I think not. I think the study is all correlation and no causation. The worst of sociology — it says what is, but not why that is, or what it means.

A, at 12:10 pm EDT on August 13, 2007

“White” high schools in L. A.

Because this is a California study, L. A. matters. The current percentage of white students in the L. A Unified Schools District is 9% because of demographic shifts and white flight to private schools. So, there are very few “white majority” schools, only a couple in decidedly affluent neighborhoods. Even the “magnet program,” designed decades ago to bus minority kids to white schools, mainly now buses minority kids to “minority-majority” schools with specialized programs (or in my white son’s case, white kids to such programs—his was music). I can give plenty of personal anecdotal evidence that, outside the magnet program with its own teachers and administrators, the main school at this predominantly black-Latino high school was far inferior to the white grammar school that my son had attended in his neighborhood, and not just the students. He took a couple of courses outside the magnet program and learned nothing in them—lousy teaching. There is much inequity in the education available among schools, and only part of that problem home-environment, wealth, and parental environment (although they are surely problems).My son had a privileged public-school education in California because of his white middle-class grammar school and because of special programs that his educationally involved parents sought out for him thereafter.

Ergo and moreover, the quality of available education offered throughout L.A. is as variable as the educational quality of home and neighborhood environments. Now, isn’t that a surprise?

Dave, professor emeritus at USC, at 12:50 pm EDT on August 13, 2007

Funny, but

all the proponents of keeping little kids on busses (the plaintiff in one of the cases was a kindergartner who would have a 90-minute commute each way to achieve the Holy Grail of “diversity” in his school) would:

1) never subject their own children to such a long bus ride, and 2) never subject themselves to it either.

Forced bussing is cruel and unusual punishment for being the wrong color, be that color black or white. It was and is a stupid idea.

Let’s try something different—let’s take the money spent on diesel fuel and busses, and spent it on programs that encourage families to stay together. That would have a much greater impact on student success. Funny how the study ignores its own findings and touts the same old failed approach.

SkepticalToo, at 2:50 pm EDT on August 13, 2007

DNA

To the skeptical bigot. I assume that you are not a micro-biologist (as my son is), given your vague “what if” of DNA, yet you seem confident emough to imply genetic differences as a source of the problem while dismissing ’social engineering” as one solution.

You might read the “Bell Shaped Curve"; even it does not claim what you suggest about genetic differences. A very little knowledge is a dangerous thing, although the danger varies with the position of the person.

Dave, at 7:20 pm EDT on August 13, 2007

Racial Obsessions

The affirmative action/racial double standards zealots in education use appallingly divisive terminology.

The term “ethnic minority” has been replaced with “under-represented minority” as a sly way to disregard “Asians” and refer almost exclusively to Hispanics, Blacks and Native Americans.

This has also brought the rise to prominence of the term non-Hispanic white. I have two questions that perhaps the distinguished scholars and researchers here can answer:

1) Is there also a term “Hispanic Whites?” If so, would it not refer to about 90% of all people who, according to the U.S. Census, are Hispanic whites?

2) Given their successes in education and loss of “minority status,” should Asians henceforth be classified as “Non-European Whites?”

Shawna, at 7:20 pm EDT on August 13, 2007

The Raleigh Article

The article in question was touting Raleigh’s (Wake County Public School System’s actually) relatively new school reassignment plan in which students are bussed based on economic status rather than race. To be quite blunt about it, in WCPSS, economic status is strongly correlated with race so it was really a way to do race-based busing while claiming to not do race-based busing.

The article claimed that this was allowing WCPSS to have rising test scores in the various statewide tests that NC gives. (Which tests predated and formed a little bit of a model for NCLB testing. We can have the argument about the merits of such testing some other time.)

What the article didn’t say was that test scores have been rising in concert statewide in ALL school systems. So the rise in WCPSS scores really can’t be accounted for using the busing policy.

In fact, WCPSS scores have always been about 3-4% ahead of the statewide averages which, given the level of wealth in Wake County and the relative impoverishment of some of our other counties, is really rather pathetic.

In contrast, as admitted by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, the city of Charlotte NC had, for 25 years, forced busing which resulted in nearly perfect integration. Regardless, the achievement gap persisted. The Harvard Civil Rights Project was, of course, bemoaning the end of forced busing and the gradual partial resegregation of some of the schools.

Not to worry. Judge Howard Manning has ruled in the “Leandro” suit that NC must equalize funding in all county school systems (it’s more complex than that but you get the picture). Of course, in the Charlotte example cited above the funding was equalized for all students without much effect. Why anyone would think this would work on a statewide basis is beyond me.

My prediction is that his court orders will have little effect. It has been my experience that even the best school can rarely make up for an unfavorable home situation.

Locomotive Breath, at 7:20 pm EDT on August 13, 2007

Simple

Simply: Education is a choice not a gift. It requires few resources but absolutely demands intention. Parents are the primary source of that intention, and, although one may absorb this value from many other sources as well, it will never be as powerful as lessons learned from a mother or father. Race will always matter, and life will always be unfair, sometimes cruelly so, but family matters more.

Big Cat Kahuna, Sigh at University of Consciousness, at 12:00 pm EDT on August 14, 2007

Terrible Attempt at a Study

“He started by noting that while California is famous for its ethnic and racial diversity (in statewide totals), 88 percent of high schools have a racial majority of one group. Of those schools, he said, 44.7 percent have a white majority, while 43.4 percent have a black or Latino majority. But among new University of California students, 65.3 percent come from white majority schools and only 21.7 percent come from black or Latino majority schools.”

This paragraph is near meaningless. Here’s why:

1) Having a ‘majority’ is not necessarily an indicator of ‘diversity’ or ‘non-diversity’.

2) It’s utterly inane to be comparing the proportion of schools to the proportion of students attending certain schools at a given UC. Given that no two high schools have the same population, or even ethnic makeup, it doesn’t hold that proportion of say ‘black’ schools would in any way correspond to the proportion of students FROM a ‘black’ school in any given population.

Assuming the black/white school classification had any real meaning, it would make more sense to compare the proportion of total high school students in the entire State of California who attended a ‘black’ school to the proportion at a UC. Comparing schools to people, rather than people to people, is disingenuous at best, but more likely dishonest to prove some sort of low-brow point that has no relation to the complexities of the state K-12 and UC systems.

JsinGood, at 7:05 pm EDT on August 15, 2007

Race Still Matters

As someone who was well educated from kindergarten to the PH.D. level in South America, the Caribbean, and Europe, in public multicultural institutions at every stage of my education, I am fascinated by the inequity that continues to define the educational system in America. I teach students from rural and suburban majority white school systems, and urban minority-majority schools and find large numbers of students from these systems equally under-prepared for college level work. But contemporary debates seem to revolve largely around ideas of ‘white excellence’ and minority ‘under-performance’ when, in fact, the problems lie not with the students, but with the school curriculum; the pedagogy; the quality of school faculty and administrators; and, misplaced priorities with little emphasis upon academic excellence in large numbers of public school districts. The unwillingness to address these issues directly has led to an unfortunate focus upon student performance, culture, and student psychology rather institutional failings across the educational system.

I have found the best students to be those who have acquired a systematic understanding of complexity in the use of language, and have an appreciation of reading serious material. When the K-12 system is unable to inculcate these qualities in their students,there is very little academic learning that can occur.

Cary Fraser, Penn State University, at 12:25 pm EDT on August 25, 2007