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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Sinking theories |
| 2010-11-10 |
| Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys. Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches. Is there any subject on which our "cognitive" elites hold a view that matches observable reality? |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #5 There are many kinds of poverty, lack of income is only one. Lack of imagination, parental attention and lack of respect for learning are other kinds of poverty, much less responsive to infusions of taxpayer cash (the underlying goal of this article.) Learning to read is not rocket science. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-11-10 13:48 |
| #4 Obviously, the answer is racism. The article writes itself! |
| Posted by: gromky 2010-11-10 13:37 |
| #3 I believe this is purely poor parenting, My mother read us the "Little Golden Books" aloud as we grew, and when school time came around we could already read, and write. (Print, and cursive, The teachers were amazed, shows that many couldn't) Mama gave us a "Jump Start so to speak. We ALL(3) rated Genius and above, we considered it Normal. We weren't oversmart, others were Undersmart or had NO preschooling So we effectively started school in the second grade |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2010-11-10 10:37 |
| #2 Poverty alone may not explain the difference, but poverty and culture probably do, or darn near do. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2010-11-10 06:17 |
| #1 Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences I recommend they study..... individual cultures and sub-cultures! Just so you don't bias the effort, begin with the Japanese. Then possibly Sweden or Norway, making your way to Germany. I would further recommend a study of not only how cultures exist and survive, but WHY they exist. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-11-10 06:13 |