Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There are a number of reasons that are being advanced to explain the continuing and growing black-white SAT scoring gap. Sharp differences in family incomes are a major factor. Always there has been a direct correlation between family income and SAT scores. For both blacks and whites, as income goes up, so do test scores. In 2005, 28 percent of all black SAT test takers were from families with annual incomes below $20,000. Only 5 percent of white test takers were from families with incomes below $20,000. At the other extreme, 7 percent of all black test takers were from families with incomes of more than $100,000. The comparable figure for white test takers is 27 percent.
But there is a major flaw in the thesis that income differences explain the racial gap. Consider these three observable facts from The College Board's 2005 data on the SAT:
• Whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000 had a mean SAT score of 993. This is 129 points higher than the national mean for all blacks.
• Whites from families with incomes below $10,000 had a mean SAT test score that was 61 points higher than blacks whose families had incomes of between $80,000 and $100,000.
• Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000.
An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another.
But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known.
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.
My school is in the top 25 out of Mississippi's 150 public schools. The district is high performing, even though many of the kids come from low income homes. I think a combination of factors is important here:
Teachers with high expectations, positivity and tight classroom management succeed better than teachers who are lax, lazy, or who don't know how to interact with students of diverse backgrounds. I've watched "problem" students work hard for certain teachers and then go wild when they arrive in another's class...because some teachers know how to work a class and some don't. Of course, there will always be students who cannot be reasoned with or reached this way.
Parents, in my opinion, are more important factors of student success than teachers are. Most of the students who give me problems in class are kids who lack discipline in their home lives; they have parents who knowingly permit them to drink and do drugs, parents who let them stay out all night during the school week, parents who shrug off bad grades because "it's an elective subject," parents who do not reply to school correspondences and don't seem interested in their child's success. The highest performing students have parents or other family members (grandparents, usually) who care about them and are involved in their school life.
Community is another point. Some students have great teachers, involved family, and still do very poorly. Usually it's because they've gotten involved with drugs, they've taken up with people who are living a destructive lifestyle, or the people in their community don't value education or personal responsibility.
In short, a convergence of factors is needed to make a district perform well. I don't think money has much to do with it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
