Prometheus 6

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I was expecting to see some actual research, maybe a reference to a longitudinal survey or two, but instead all this guy provides are personal anecdotes. Well, anyone can play that game, and my own personal anecdotes tell me something different - that the anti-intellectualism behind the notion of "acting white" or "selling out" is a real phenomenon which shouldn't be swept under the carpet.

I don't see what the big deal is in admitting on the odd occasion that one's side also has flaws. How are we supposed to get better if we're never willing to criticize our own shortcomings? Instead of linking to just this guy, why not also link to the late John Ogbu's book, "Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement." That at least has some real research to back it up, unlike one man's defensive anecdotes.

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Funny, I grew up in a lilly white town and we picked on the kids that had good grades.

WHich is exactly the point, Rook.

Abiola, no one is in denial here. I'm just not going to blow it out of proportion either.

Anti-intellectualism is not a Black-specific disease. And "acting white" is not about being smart.

I read BC every Thursday too!

I'm not in denial about Black children and their short-comings, but we don't want to criticize them for being human either; they'll surely end up hopeless. It's important in this whole education debate to decide who is dropping the ball, the kids or the system. Some say the kids, others say the system. I say both sides need to show up with proof, not fantasy or distortions, or we're not having a conversation, we are having a massive collective dysfunctional exercise in futility. I'm a little disappointed with the article, but it is a step in the right direction, in recognizing that we need to have a basis for this label we are plastering on our kids.

We need to ask the children who are calling people names why they are singling certain kids out, and we need to ask the children who are being called names how they perceive their treatment. It's probably not too hard of an exercise. Despite their alleged anti-intellectualism, Black kids can answer simple questions about their social lives and academic lives too. I'm tired of so-called leaders behaving as if the kids are non-entities that need to be talked about as if behind their backs, not directly engaging them to find out their needs. I'm yet to see a direct quote from these kids, these kids on a talk show, or these kids in a forum where they can really express themselves.

Thanks for the shout out P6!

it's always funny (ha-ha, not weird) when people discount anecdotal evidence as epistemology. what exactly are surveys but someone telling you that they found a whole buncha people (selected through some arcane, arbitrary methodology) who had a viewpoint or experience?

i have this discussion a lot; contrary to public opinion, the black community is still incredibly supportive of the children who want to do well. we are the most accepting, tolerant culture in this whole damn country - if we weren't we'd have BIN blown up shit before now.

as was said earlier in the comments, it is America that is anti-intellectual and has been so since before the turn of the century. again, it is the hyper-visibility of the black face that draws the most attention. instead of worrying about how we feel about education, how bout y'all adjust funding inequities, raise teacher salaries, and come up with a more challenging pedagogy than "take this here multiple-choice culturally biased test"?

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"we are the most accepting, tolerant culture in this whole damn country"

Perhaps that's the problem? Perhaps there are certain kinds of behavior within our own ranks we shouldn't be tolerating quite so much?

"how bout y'all adjust funding inequities, raise teacher salaries, and come up with a more challenging pedagogy than "take this here multiple-choice culturally biased test"?"

Answer me a few questions, please:

1 - Why are children in the DC school system doing so poorly, despite recieving some of the highest funding in all of America?

2 - Why are teachers in poor countries able to do a better job with fewer resources than those on whose behalf you're pleading?

3 - If there's something "culturally biased" about these tests, I've seen no evidence of it myself. Not only are they excellent predictors of what they're set up to predict - academic performance - but loads of foreign students with even less cultural connection to America happen to do just fine on them. How is it possible that these tests should be less biased against students from countries like Ghana, Taiwan or Bangladesh than they are against African-Americans?

The empirical evidence indicates that more money is *not* the answer, and the studies that have been done (e.g, by John Ogbu) argue against the notion that anti-intellectualism in the black community is no worse than it is amongst whites. The problem with anecdotes isn't that they are incorrect in themselves, but that they naturally suffer from sampling bias, and we can't take our own individual experiences as representative of the whole.

I've provided one reference to an actual study indicating that the "acting white" issue is real, and that it has an impact on black students' expectations for themselves. I've yet to see any references to actual *studies* (as opposed to individual anecdotes) arguing against this conclusion. Until I do see such references, I'll have to dismiss any claims against the truth of the assertion as wishful thinking.

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1 - Why are children in the DC school system doing so poorly, despite recieving some of the highest funding in all of America?

Because most of the expenditure goes to infrastructure. If you look strictly at expenditure on instruction D.C. isn't terribly exceptional.

National Center for Educational Statistics

2 - Why are teachers in poor countries able to do a better job with fewer resources than those on whose behalf you're pleading?

Better job? Higher literacy rate? What job are they doing better than the USofA?

3 - If there's something "culturally biased" about these tests, I've seen no evidence of it myself. Not only are they excellent predictors of what they're set up to predict - academic performance - but loads of foreign students with even less cultural connection to America happen to do just fine on them. How is it possible that these tests should be less biased against students from countries like Ghana, Taiwan or Bangladesh than they are against African-Americans?

Actually, since humans tend not to go much more than 25-50 miles from where they were born, immigrants in general are exceptional. And is "loads" "most" anyway?

Again, it's as bad to overstate issues as to understate them.

the tolerance is by necessity; overt racism and covert institutional discriminatory practices are something we deal with on a daily basis - much more so than many whites - and require a flexibility of mental and emotional attitude than many people have the luxury of not ever needing. yes, that extends to the ne'er do wells in our own house - who loves you more than your mother?

it takes guts to try to raise a black family when the unemployment rate in your neighborhood is 3 times the national average as noted in this study; or maybe i should point you to the article where, when all educational and experiential factors are equal, employers offered jobs to white people with felony convictions before black men with clean records. my point is that we have to be tolerant or go nuts.

since you want to bring up Ogbu and relate his findings to the District of Columbia school district, i'd like to bring up that Ogbu's findings were from a MIDDLE CLASS black neighborhood in Cleveland. Since you seem to be well read, perhaps you should take a look at this article discussing the gains lower-class blacks have made in a number of areas while the middle-class blacks dither and fall behind.

your question about teachers in other countries sounds like an institutional question, rather than one of personal attitudes toward education. when i say "institutional question", i mean you should refer to the recent spate of articles discussing the institution of American education - particularly since Brown I and Brown II. it seems that for some strange reason, teachers who were racist BEFORE the Brown decision were suddnely supposed to teach black children to excel. oh wait - teachers are neutral educators, not cultural products, right? it seems that school funding problems, which were at the heart of the Brown decisions (not whether black children liked to learn), were allowed to escalate both through white flight and the courts actively denying equitable funding measures for urban schools. if nothing else, you should look at studies showing that disciplinary rates and sanctions for black students are disproportionately applied in our schools. i assume (at my peril) that your response would be, "well why are they misbehaving - they're at school to learn, not to act out". which i can agree with - until it is noted that white students doing the same things get much lower penalties and sanctions. you know - white kids bring guns to schools more than black kids ever did - they even shoot people with them - but that don't make the news, does it.

i mean, if you were serious about your case, you should have pointed to PG county instead of DC. Prince Georges County, Maryland - a suburb of DC - has the highest median income for blacks in the country. maybe your vaunted statistics could then explain the difficulties faced by these middle-class black students as they strive to achieve at the same rate of their white peers.

your 3rd point - "If there's something "culturally biased" about these tests, I've seen no evidence of it myself. Not only are they excellent predictors of what they're set up to predict - academic performance" - is way off-base. The SAT/GRE predicts how well students who prepared for the SAT/GRE do - it doesn't predict academic performance anymore than an intelligence test accurately defines intelligence. oh - unless you think that intelligence is a "neutral" cultural definition, which is pretty funny when you think about it.

with regards to your final point - perhaps you should look at statistics pointing to the fact that HBCU's generate more black PhD's than all other degree-granting institutions. if your inference about cultural attitudes toward education was correct, wouldn't those students have been pressured by their peers into not "acting white" and going after a doctorate?

Good black students'Acting White'? And Clinton is the first 'Black President'.

Fortunately Barrak Obama can end both of those stereoptypical myths.

Great response Bemused.

Is their sa mpling variation between tests? The noly way to draw direct comparison is if every test sent out that year is the exact same order of questions and content. Have the feeling there are still ways to stack the deck and deal out tougher cards.

NCLB encourages this.The same companies testing often are subcontracted out for the school's outsoruced teaching to birng students up to grade level. The more school funding get cut the more they rely on testing and outside service providers. It is a funnel trap. A pyramid scheme.

WHO will lead the exodus fromt his shame, run by the most crooked office since the teapot dome or the Kissinger/Nixon office?

Good teaching friends say the paperwork for NCLB and the school funding are terrible. 15% of the nations' schools are schedule to consolidate.

To borrow a Tenet phrase. THE RED LIGHTS ARE FLASHING.

Buscho does not mind. Everyone is too busy with Enron, WMD, 9/11, Usama.

They've pulled a bait and switch.