Why is there a great disparity in math and english test scores among student groups?

Question

I read a report which stated that the Blacks and Hispanics scored substantially lower than their White and Asian counterparts and, that affluency (economic status) played was not a factor in the result.

Answer 1

Go to the SAT/GRE web sites and look at their reports on bias in testing. Then look at the relationship between parental income and SAT scores (it is quite strong according to the SAT people) then if you can find it look at the same for wealth (which is different than income).

One reason that the SAT I is no longer being used by as many schools is that is 1) a poor predictor of first year success (grades, SAT II, ACT are all better) and 2) is heavily weighted for family income and wealth. The entire state of CA stopped using it at state schools for these reasons.

So, the question you should now ask is: What differences between Hispanic, Black, White, and Asian scores (and the groups score in that order) are due to ethnicity (whatever that may be) and what are due to income and wealth?

Well, when the Immigration Act changed most recently, and led to a large influx of asians into the US, the rules required that immigrants be able to demonstrate the ability to be self supportive. So, many educated people and professionals came over to the US from Asia - and guess what has happened to Asian SAT scores? Go figure.

African Americans are still struggling out of the old bad days, and there are more, by percent, poor blacks than poor whites. Similarly Hispanics are not found evenly distributed across the income distribution. So, poor folks go to crappy schools, because they are in poor neighborhoods and supported by property tax dollars, and get crappy educations, and get poorer SAT scores.

Most of the differences between scores based on ethnicity go away when you look at income or parental education which is similar. That which is left over may, according to some newer studies, be related to wealth, and again that goes to family histories. There is also no doubt that there is a majority culture bias in the tests, however, as many 'ethnic minorities' are members of the majority culture due to income and wealth, that bias is diminishing in effect, but it is still there if you are poor, and even if you are poor and european-american.

Answer 2

The disparity is not with Math and English scores alone. It is across the board. In addition, it is not just Blacks/Hispanics vs. Asians/Whites. The races can be broken down even further. But, nobody likes to talk about it - its not PC! There have been a few medical schools who researched this phenomenon. They started by looking at there own medical school applicants and making distinctions for GPA averages and races of those accepted into their own school. As it turns out, the following was the national average and trend in 2001:

Asian/Indian 3.8
White 3.6
Blacks 3.1
Hispanic 2.9
American Indian 2.6

Why? No real answer anywhere. The arguements range from unfair means of testing to genetic predisposition. Your guess is as good as anyone elses....