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[quote=SteveMA]
Does anyone have kids that attend a middle class or upper middle class public high school with a larger black population that is also middle class to upper middle class? If so, any personal experiences with how the black students do compared to the white students? Would you say that parental involvement is similar among all students and their families?
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<p>I don’t have a lot of experience at the high school level, but I have plenty of Preschool through 8th grade experience. I’m the parent of a child who has attended several public schools with large middle class black populations. I’ve also had 20 years experience teaching and working in schools with significant middle class black population. I have many black friends, many of them middle class, and many of them parents. I’m also the middle class parent of a black boy, although I myself am white.</p>
<p>My own anecdotal data aligns very closely with the article someone linked above. While i certainly know white children who struggle, and black children with stellar academic performance, on average, the proportion of black students who struggle or underachieve is higher than that of their white peers at similar socio-economic levels. For example, in my county math acceleration is the norm, and pretty much every middle class white student I know takes algebra in 7th grade. In contrast, the majority of black students I know take it in 8th, with a significant minority taking it in 9th. </p>
<p>There’s a pretty prevalent myth that the reason for this underachievement is black parents who are uninvolved or uninterested in their child’s education. In my experience, this myth is both innaccurate and hugely damaging to children, and is, in fact, a major factor in the underperformance of our black youth. </p>
<p>When I look specifically at the middle class black parents I know, I see parents supporting their children’s education in various ways. I see fathers checking their children’s online grades on the sidelines of sports practices. I invite kids over to our home, and find out that they can’t come today because of Kumon, or French lessons, or because their science fair project is due. I see mothers buying books in the Children’s section at Barnes and Noble. I talk to parents about what their kids are doing this summer, and hear that they’re attending space camp in Florida, or engineering classes at UMD, or a residential program at a college in New England. I speak to parents at Back to School night, where dads ask my permission to video tape me so that mom, who is upstairs in a different class, can watch my presentation later. In short, I see black parents acting very much like their white, and Asian and Hispanic peers. </p>
<p>However, when I look at the response of teachers, professionals, and other parents, I see people who are far quicker to judge black parents of the crime of “not caring”. Can’t get a white parent on the phone to talk about an issue? They’re probably busy, happens to everyone. Teacher keeps trying. Can’t get a black parent on the phone? Well, clearly they don’t care, don’t even bother to leave a message. White child shows up without homework? Well, maybe the parents had other priorities, or they made a decision about what was right for their child or they decided not to “helicopter”. Black child without homework? Parents don’t care.</p>
<p>This gets transmitted to kids. When a white child misses an exit ticket, clearly the teacher did something wrong, let’s have an afterschool study session, or a “reteach group”. Black child “well, that’s what happens when parents don’t care”. When interventions are suggested, they’re aligned with the hypothesis that the problem is the parent. White kid failing? Let’s put in place some tutoring, get them tested for learning disabilities, find a research based instructional program, get a new teacher. Black kid failing? Must be because their father isn’t involved, he needs a “role model”, let’s have the janitor spend some time with him, perhaps they can meet during the reading block. </p>
<p>When my kid was in Kindergarten he had a lousy teacher. A number of parents, myself included, eventually went to the principal. The white and Asian parents had their concerns addressed. I was told that the issue was that my son wasn’t “ready”, and that the school could address it by having him repeat the grade. </p>
<p>When my son was in 3rd grade, his school offered an afterschool class to prepare for the state reading test. None of the white kids in my son’s reading group were invited. In fact, my son told me there were no white children in the class. My son attended for the first three lessons, which consisted of listen to the teacher read the book Bunnicula, a book I’d already read to him. When I queried how listening to someone read a novel aloud was going to prepare my kid for a test where he was expected to read short passages, I was told that since most of the kids hadn’t been read to as young children, they needed to make up that experience. </p>
<p>I could go on with examples, but this is already way too long.</p>