Why do blacks do so poorly in school?

Question

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/06/blame.html

After about 27 replys, one thing I've notice: The people who are calling me racist use letters in place of words.

"u r racist"

It's like they don't know how to form whole words, or are too lazy to do so.

Answer 1

Committment on the part of the student. Committment on the part of the parents. Commintment on the part of the teacher to reach out to all students, regardless of color.

If you educate a black man poorly, he will be stupid. If you give a black man a quality education, the possibilities are endless.

there also needs to be a de-emphasis on the get-rich scehems of the ghetto world (pimping, drug dealing, gang-bangers)

Answer 2

It has nothing at all to do with being black, which is a common misconception, but everything to do with the society black Americans tend to grow up in:

1) More blacks go to poorer schools because more blacks are less wealthy. Since a school's wealth directly correlates to neighborhood property taxes, this means the schools in poorer regions are going to be worse off. Since your report was a national average, the black portion is skewed more toward the poorer, worse off schools, than the white side is, which leans more toward richer, well-to-do schools. Essentially, those statistics do two things: one, they place blame on being black, which isn't where the blame belongs; two, they only show how kids who tend to grow up poorer do in school, or at least how poor schools do. I'd like to see the statistics from a group of middle-class schools where everyone in attendance is above the poverty line. I bet at that school the black kids and white kids would be pretty much the same.

2) The culture of poverty-stricken people has pretty much take pride in the struggle, stay from the streets or you sold out, and education leads to not being as hardcore as the guy next to you.

3) Also, as we know, a lack of education goes a long way down nowadays where even people with Ph.D's are struggling, so this means that the kids that went to horrible schools have less preparation for college, and will tend to do worse in college, thereby not getting as good of a job as the other student who went to a good school, and was well prepared in every way.

The whole "No Child Left Behind" thing was only for kids born ahead anyway.

Answer 3

I'm not a black and never even been to the united states. But I presume the following factors count in.

1. Neighborhood - try living in an inner city slum, there's a good chance your grades will suffer too.
2. Learning materials - I presume that non-blacks have more and better quality learning materials at home.
3. Home culture - coming from a family that has definite habits that are conducive to learning (like having study room, study periods, etc...). My dad is a chemical engineer and his insistence on checking all my assignments since grade school definitely helped me have strong foundations that helped me in my studies much later(I'm an Electronics and Communications Engineer). Having parents with poor educational background is a definite disadvantage (but not an assurance of failure, a top graduate of the military academy I attended came from an illiterate family). They won't be able to help you do your homework when you failed to tell your teacher that you didn't understand the lesson. (My dad's explanation of the lesson is usually much better than my teacher's)

Answer 4

More money is not the answer. Newark, NJ has more money poured into their school district than most Midwest school districts. Newark is lucky to graduate half of its students. The Midwest students are at the top in US education. The only people here who cry for more money are school teachers and administrators. Nobody addresses the fact that blacks are failing n most nations, not just American schools. My opinion is slavery dumded down black people because slave owners knew smart black children grow up to become dangerous blacks. So they killed them in my opinion. The welfare state is designed to make sure the least productive low IQ woman has the most babies. Not only are we behind, but we're getting dumber by the generation. So looting, wilding, gang rapes, and street crime will explode from low IQ blacks. Which is when most blacks will live off gov. taxes being too dumb to educate themselves, and become useless. The few smart blacks will become blacks on TV making the rest of the shrinking whites believe, that given the chance, more money, those successful blacks are the norm. And my black grand children will be feared and hated by non-blacks of the future. While the rich liberal whites who designed this society will be living in their secluded rich parts of the cities with crazy white cops protecting their homes from blacks.

Answer 5

Well, I think that's a generalization. Blacks can do as well as whites if they come from the same backgrounds. The poor rarely do as well as the rich for several reasons: lack of proper diet for brain power, lack of reading materials in the home, lack of motivation from parents of low income people, and many poor families only have one parent...that parent is usually working two jobs to make ends meet and isn't there to help with homework, etc. Those are a few of the reasons. There are others. Your article is a minority view, by the way.

Answer 6

He's asking an honest question, and respect him for doing so and having the courage to come forward in a society that seems to be afraid of blacks, for some reason. On average, it was found that the black students tend to do more poorly in SOME schools. REMEMBER, this is an average and makes no prediction.

In my opinion, from what I have seen from my black friends, they tend to create cliques where education is not regarded as important and the slaughtering of the english language is a must. They pretend to be thugs, while in reality they're quite weak individually, but only strong in numbers. This mentality leads to violence, which gets them suspended, and they miss out on school. The bad kids never get the help of the teachers, nor the sympathy or the leaniance. Hence, how girls can get away with anything infront of a male teacher (unless he's sexist, in favour of males).

However, two of my black friends are in university, and one of them is in one of the hardest programs with me, Honours Biomedical Science. This leads me to believe it's all based on the mentality of the student and his surroundings.

Answer 7

Many live in poor areas with poor resources and bad teachers. Many just don't try because they have no motivation - in life, at home or in school. Education should be funded by the Federal Government so that all schools - no matter where they are- get the SAME amount of money. What is taught in one school should be the same from one end of the country to the other, and people who don't want the responsibility of raising a child should be discouraged (even prevented) from ever having any. That way we would lessen the number of kids who have no support or encouragement at home.

Answer 8

You are speaking in general, right? Because one of my best students is currently under a scholarship with a top notch Journalist. And, he is black. I would have to say it is because of gang mentality. It is not cool to be a nerd. It's more cool to be hip with the crowd. Do you think older gang members don't want to push someone around? It would have to be a younger member. And youth are easily swayed in their opinions. Hispanics are very family driven, so they listen more to mom and dad and family even if they get involved in gangs, they are more apt to leave a gang. Whites, for the most part, aren't even accepted in gangs, and if they are, they are stupid gangs like Neo-nazi gangs. I think economics have a lot to do with doing well in school although I always teach the underdogs and my students do well. I have taught in a rich school and I was not happy because my students were so ignorant and prejudiced. Racism is really taught at home and by some very educated people at that.

Answer 9

Most of the answers to your question are ironic in their ignorance. And "The Bell Curve" is a classic of pseudo-science, not unlike "Chariots of the Gods" or Intelligent Design. If you are truly interested in the subject, I recommend two very readable books, Tracy Kidder's "Among Schoolchildren" and Jonathan Kozol's, well, anything by Kozol, actually.

Anyway, blacks do pretty poorly in our schools, for the most part. It's pretty easy for nitwits like some of the folks above to see a direct causal connection, i.e. black=low performing. But a few simple examples will suffice to correct their misapprehension (although evidence and examples will do nothing for their prejudice).

Do all black kids do poorly in school? Well, no. Rich black kids in well-funded schools do fine, just like their counterparts of other ethnicities.

Poor black kids in well-funded schools are a rarity, and their numbers are not as consistent. Poor black kids in under-funded schools don't learn, and their situation is the majority. Poor black kids whose parents didn't finish school don't do well either.
Here's the thing: all of this is not just true for black kids. It's true for all kids. The data is overwhelming and consistent.

All children, regardless of color or culture, perform well academically when their parents are college educated, when their schools are well funded, and when they are not poor. It's simple math.

There are some who use standardized test scores to argue for a lower academic performance by blacks. There are two fatal flaws with this argument:

1) All students who are not of the same culture as the test-preparers tend to score lower than those of the same culture. (Try asking a kid from Hong Kong whether slavery was the principal cause of the American Civil War. If he doesn't know, does that make him dumb?)

2) Standardized tests are cheap to make and easy to score. Other than that, they are probably the poorest measure of intelligence or ability out there.

Here's how useless standardized testing results are. A few years back, the Superintendent of Schools in Houston, Texas got all fired up over standardized tests. He was able to show an amazing increase in his students' test scores in just a few years. How did he do it? Was testing making the kids smarter? Quite the reverse, actually. Students who were struggling or not passing were simply expelled. Removing those kids shot up the averages for the district, and he was made the Secretary of Education under President GW Bush. I am not joking.

The worst thing about what Rod Paige did was that he turned his back on the kids that needed him most. Education is the only way in our society for poor people to stop being poor. Without education, there is simply no opportunity.

As for the person who decried poor role models in black communities, the answer is simple. Give students a real path to success, and they will take it. Kids aren't stupid, whether they are in Italian, Irish, Latino or Anglo neighborhoods.

At the end of the day, it's about money. If you pay teachers a decent wage, more smart, effective people will want to teach. The same goes for textbooks, buildings, and other facilities.

And for all of you hypocrites who trot out the old "you can't throw money at the problem" crap, try saying that to our soldiers in Iraq. Try saying that to corporate executives. None of them are trying to solve their problems without billions and billions of dollars.

Black people do poorly in school because blaming them is cheaper than actually fixing the problem, and we keep letting politicians get away with it.

Peace.

Answer 10

If you look into black history (ghettos and the way of life for blacks etc), black kids are deprived of education when compared to white kids. Life is made much harder for them due to their enviromental surroundings in the ghettos, thus contributing to your poor understanding. Back in history, the blacks asked for help, they were poor and constantly hungry, do you think in their minds education would come over this?? The whites never helped. Instead they fed the blacks with Alcohol and drugs to destroy the blacks, you walk into a ghetto you'll see a liqour store in every block, would you see this in beverly hills? Blacks asked politely to give us help and feed us and the whites never opened the door for them, so if your not going to help the blacks, the blacks will help themselves therefore their coming in guns blazing. They didn't have the comfort whites had and they didn't have time for education because their trying to feed themselves. In Austraila, academia is goverened by ethnic diversity. The majority of white students dont score high enough marks to get into the top courses such as medicine. So much that the government has trying to lower the marks for entry which is covered by a false statement ofcourse, and false to, is your question.


Dr Pratt

Answer 11

not all blacks do poorly in school, there are ppl from every race and ethnicity that does poorly in education, due to self commitment, parents commitment to their children, the schools commitment, society's commitment, there are other issues such as poor funding in some schools and these factors make it extremely hard to make it above this problem, many black kids as well as other races dont commit anymore because they feel theyre not good enough or ppl treated them so poorly that thats how they feel about themselves and they no longer see a point in trying anymore so they give up.

Im not going to assume you are racist because you never told me so but if so thats such a pathetic way to be...

But i hope this wasnt a racist question and i hope i answered your question