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<p>Yes, as one who has an additional specialty in the teaching of the gifted, I can confirm that it is difficult to find good teacher fits for these students. However, i.m.o. training goes only so far. It has been shown that the best teachers of gifted kids are gifted adults. It takes a certain intuitive, from-the-inside familiarity with their quirkiness and respect for their more self-driven interests.
:)</p>
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<p>I’m not sure if you are referring to me, or to someone else. Just to clarify for my own part: what I am doing is reporting what has made the sustaining difference for the most capable of minority students who come from very at-risk home environments: it has sometimes been pivotal to immerse them in a school culture which in its essence is geared for success, and during which there is very reduced opportunity to compromise that success due to contrary influences at home or in the neighborhood. If you’re living in a boarding school across the country – because your stellar record in a charter school has qualified you for that and shown that you have promise – you won’t be interacting with contrary forces on a daily basis. Nor do I assume that all prep schools are all white. </p>
<p>(That may not be what you are referring to.) I certainly do agree that a racial mix for its own sake does not in itself promote success for any in the group. I think that’s one of my concerns about the “politicization” of education which I mentioned earlier. There are no educational studies which supposedly prove that diversity produces better academic outcomes. In terms of social relations, it can go either way. Sometimes the various groups just self-segregate. Much depends on the adult leadership on a campus, as well as the size of the setting. A smaller, deliberately more collaborative environment in which there is a lot of accessibility to faculty tends to promote more genuine integration, perhaps because the students themselves are less “apart” from the adults and less likely to organize an opposing “society” with categories and implied rankings. When adults role-model a positive and fluid family atmosphere (thereby deconstructing rigid roles), it promotes the deconstruction of social assumptions as well, among students. (I’m referring to warmth, approachability, and mutual bonding rather than the abandonment of authority.)</p>
<p>“are we really talking about an achievement gap…???”</p>
<p>Yes. There’s a big economic/parents’ education effect. Then there’s also a big racial/ethnic effect. Comparing all white kids to all black kids, you see both gaps at once. If you compare the kids of white doctors to the kids of black doctors (or the kids of white HS dropouts to the kids of black HS dropouts), you still see that second gap.</p>
<p>"i take issue with the notion that black and brown children somehow need to be surrounded by white folks in order to escape this ‘culture’ of pathology. "</p>
<p>But that’s the opposite of the conclusion suggested by the article – which is that bright, motivated minority children need to be surrounded by others who are like them, not just dropped alone into a high-achieving white world. The need for a group of peers who share one’s background/experience AND one’s academic orientation is the idea behind the Posse Foundation, which has been quite successful at the college level:</p>
<p>[The</a> Posse Foundation](<a href=“http://www.possefoundation.org/]The”>http://www.possefoundation.org/)</p>
<p>“When adults role-model a positive and fluid family atmosphere (thereby deconstructing rigid roles), it promotes the deconstruction of social assumptions as well, among students. (I’m referring to warmth, approachability, and mutual bonding rather than the abandonment of authority.)”</p>
<p>I’m a little slow here. This sounds like education-speak. Can you give me some specifics of what this actually means in practice / real-life?</p>
<p>^ It’s actually not “eduspeak.” It just means that breaking down faculty/student barriers in favor of a culture of community on campus (without sacrificing authority boundaries) facilitates overall social integration among students themselves, as a carry-over from the unexpected modeling they’re experiencing from adults.</p>
<p>Students are subconsciously encouraged to apply existing social assumptions – and even create more elaborate ones – when they feel isolated as a community within themselves.</p>
<p>hanna, i admit to not having read the article/study… guess i shouldn’t have commented before doing so. i simply read a few of the comments in this thread and felt the need to respond. i have a short attention span (especially after work, lol). good to know that the results of the posse study support the opinion i have, though it wasn’t too long ago that the consensus seemed to swing in the opposite direction (blacks needing to be near whites in order to achieve academically).</p>
<p>as to the achievement gap, i have a problem with that whole concept. there are so many potential reasons for this: the stress of being black and/or brown in america (a country which still has a very long way to go when it comes to race)…boring/outdated instruction and methods… culturally irrelevant/lopsided subject matter… and–a point epiphany raised which i strongly agree with–a shortage of black male teachers in K-12 classrooms. there needs to be a significant recruitment push to attract smart black and latino men to the profession.</p>
<p>americans as a group are not performing spectacularly well. we ALL need to do better, not just ‘minorities’.</p>
<p>Some statistics for Wisconsin: (Dated 3-26-10)
From a piece by an Independent candidate for State Senate.
Quoted only for the statistics and examples.</p>
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<p>Back to California: 12-13-2010:</p>
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<p>[Dropout</a> Rate Increases for California’s Minority Students - Education - GOOD](<a href=“http://www.good.is/post/dropout-rate-increases-for-california-s-minority-students/]Dropout”>Dropout Rate Increases for California's Minority Students - Good) </p>
<p>For Oakland, CA, the drop-out rate among all schools, including those highly performing charters where the drop-out rate is tiny, is 40%.</p>
<p>[The</a> Education Report](<a href=“http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/]The”>http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/)</p>
<p>ay ay ay!!</p>
<p>i suppose i wasn’t clear. to make it plain, i am ACUTELY aware of the stats on grad rates, etc. with black and latino children. i realize there is a crisis. i am black, and the mother of a son. so i’ve followed the situation closely. my son isn’t one of the ‘statistics’, but i’m still deeply concerned. HOWEVER, what i REJECT and have issues with is the tone of the debate. there is a consistent subtext of supposed racial inferiority injected into the tone. this is undeniable. rather than a focus on ‘those people’ and ‘their values and substandard home situations’, the focus should be on raising the bar on our education system as a whole (because many of our children are underperforming regardless of race), and truly investing in/overhauling ALL american schools. as long as there are deep pockets of inequality, this ‘gap’ will persist.</p>
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<p>There’s no suspicious subtext. Rather, the text is that public education, as I have said often in the last 6 years on CC, is based for its effectiveness on the availability of the child’s home environment to strengthen, enrich, and supplement the mere basic literacy and knowledge that is introduced in the classroom. The schoolroom is not comprehensive. It has always (almost always) been this way. Public education certainly from the 1950’s on, has assumed available and literate adults at home to reinforce and extend the 5-6 hour/day learning. Students spend far more time at home than at school; hence that necessity. Obviously you know this; I am repeating the obvious because some parents do forget this, or never realized it in the first place. That’s even more true of immigrant families, by the way: depending on the country, the student may have an exceedingly long school day in his native land, with a teacher providing supplemental help after school, and the teacher making sure that the lesson is understood prior to the student going home. The homework assigned consists of reinforcement/repetition, or extension, of what has been determined has been truly learned & understood during the school day. This is the pattern that some immigrant families (including those very educated) are acquainted with.</p>
<p>In contrast (for all races, obviously), this is not true necessarily for the majority of U.S.-educated students. Students (even as young as Grade One) can be assigned homework which has not been introduced/explained, or examined for understanding, and even in some cases (recently, in my experience), the parent can be assigned to introduce, teach, and examne the child at home. It may not be realistic, and in my opinion it is unprofessional, but I am telling you that this model happens often. If it happens in upper middle class families with the parents sometimes complaining about it (though capable of functioning in that role), it is happening and has happened as well in families from other economic strata, in environments where for economic or educational or language reasons (or all 3), the parent or parents is unavailable to provide support or unable to.</p>
<p>No one is doubting that your son is not one of the statistics. There’s no statement in these reports, or any hidden attitude in my observations, that all minorities are at risk, or all minority families are unable to compensate at home. Nor do I assume that it is merely an environmental (home) issue. But you yourself admit that there may be different approaches necessary for African-American students, for example, than for some other populations – in order for those students to succeed and feel committed to academics. I already cited several times successful programs/schools for those inner-city African-americans who are most at risk from an environmental point of view. That would indicate that, unlike the assumptions of 60 years ago, One Size Fits All does not apply in 2010 in public education.</p>
<p>Further, I brought up quite different needs of very different populations, which have nothing to do with racial classifications – but in these cases it is also true that One Size Does Not Fit All. </p>
<p>This whole argument, and the statistics accompanying it, have nothing to do with “inferiority”/“superiority” but rather, effectiveness in education and the challenge of persuading heretofore unpersuaded students that engagement with academics is worth the effort – having personal, economic, and social payoffs. No one is making a comment about your son’s promise, your commitment, or about the potential of various ethnic/racial categories to stay in school. It’s saying: Here are statistics; are there particular needs that are not being met by the standard classroom in the current system? The charters which are doing well (by contrast with traditional classrooms) would tend to indicate the answer is Yes to that question. They operate on a different scheme and do far better, statistically.</p>
<p>I’d like to add that the article the OP posted deals specifically with the “nerd penalty” relative to social acceptance among peers. It appears from all indicators that that is a particular problem, statistically, among certain minority communities. I don’t think a generalization is being made about ability – in fact quite the opposite.</p>
<p>Non-minorities (or, more exactly, whites and ORM’s) suffer from different achievement challenges, some of those related to the downside benefits of income relative to effort (the perceived need, or lack thereof, to apply oneself). Some of those I discussed on the thread about U.S Students Can’t Crack Top 10 Skills.</p>
<p>The OP’s article was singling out a particular “stigma” attached to academics. It is not exclusively among minorities, but since concerns such as high inner-city minority drop-out rates and overall minority performance continues to be national issue, it’s valid, i.m.o., to examine concurrent factors as well. </p>
<p>I’m clear, since I work with very diverse communities of high school kids, which include all cultures and colors, that there is sometimes a similar nerd penalty among non-minorities as well, but not nearly to the same degree. And the difference is, that there is a countervaling strong factor of nerd “award” (admiration, approval) among that set. You may become “ostracized” among the slacker set of your subculture, but not among the achievers, who will be glad to welcome you into their ‘club.’</p>
<p>Ok, maybe this website has more sense than I do, since it effectively logged me out while I was writing a very lengthy post. So, all of you have been saved from reading it. and, I’m not certain how to summarize…</p>
<p>I guess first of all I want to say that I hope that none of my posts sound as if I am blaming families or entire communities for children’s school problems. One of my kids, when she was in middle school, was upset that we didn’t get the flyers for the Latino parents’ group (non Latino surname from dad). As well, she astutely mentioned that the kids who were obviously Latino (by surname) as well as the African American students had received invitations to a conference on “how to help your student prepare for college,” or something of the sort. These were the two subgroups that showed lowest level of performance on the district’s standardized tests( as well as the kids designated as English Language Learners and those designated as low SES (free and reduced lunch).) Her question was, “Why would they give a conference for only those groups of kids? It seems like they are implying they don’t have as good a chance to go to college. If I were a parent, that would make me mad.” </p>
<p>So, in this instance, some general conference for all parents, possibly with special sessions for first generation parents/kids or focussing on minority concerns, would have been better. Took a 7th grader to see it.</p>
<p>My kids always also complained that their friends from honors classes would be pulled for Latino achievement awards; most of these kids were ones with professional parents, a number of these kids were very nominally Latino, as in somewhere in Dad’s history there came to be a Spanish surname, such that the kids were identified as Latino…My kids never were, “wrong” surname despite being half Hispanic. So, the whole definition of group is a minefield, albeit more so for mixed ethnicity/race kids. Yet, when there are on average group differences in achievement, how do we talk about this? Should we not? </p>
<p>I hope we can have respectful conversations without resorting to implications of inferiority. Yet, there may be elements in our family life, culture, educational experiences (either the U.S. in general or specific subgroups), peer culture, etc that do not coalesce well with academic expectations. How do we, as citizens, do anything about this if we can’t talk about it? </p>
<p>All of our kids matter. A 40% drop out rate in a major metropolitan area such as Oakland is heartbreaking, and it would be regardless of the racial makeup of the district’s students. They are all our kids. </p>
<p>I was a a young child in the South Bronx, before it became so notoriously bad, and my first memories was of a birthday party; the children and families were of a variety of skin colors. When I came to California as a young adult after having grown up in Md/VA (moved there at age 5), I felt as if I had come home. </p>
<p>I have more comments on this, but this post has also gotten long, but substantially less well-articulated than the previous one.</p>
<p>LOL mamita: i’ve been booted off before for a long post. it’s frustrating!</p>
<p>i guess i should clarify: i’m not saying that anyone on this thread has made the discussion about inferiority. when i comment on here, i’m usually speaking in the general sense. in this case, i’m talking about the national debate on this subject (though there have been comments i’ve read on this site that suggested to me that there are racist belief systems at work…though not necessarily on this particular thread).</p>
<p>It seems like every time we turn around, our school and district are showing us the state test scores, broken down by race and socioeconomic status, and telling us that they have to “do something about this achievement gap”.
Recently, my daughter told me that they are holding assemblies for the kids where they also show them the test scores broken down in this manner. She is white and says that she cringes with embarrassment when the school administrators do this. She thinks that this just provides “negative suggestion” for the African-American kids, makes them “feel bad and feel that they can’t achieve” and so on.
What do you think about this tactic? Motivating or de-motivating?</p>
<p>There’s a lot of empirical research on this. Telling the minority children about their low scores relative to whites depresses subsequent scores.</p>
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<p>Seriously? They announce at student body assemblies, “The rich blacks got these scores, the poor blacks these; the rich whites these, the poor whites these…” etc.? There would be all kinds of political action if that happened in my state.</p>
<p>Even in very non-PC privates, public identification of economic class is considered off-limits, not to mention grouping by race.</p>
<p>“Seriously? They announce at student body assemblies, “The rich blacks got these scores, the poor blacks these; the rich whites these, the poor whites these…” etc.”</p>
<p>They just break it down as African American, non-African American, free and reduced lunch, and non free and reduced lunch. They do not break it down within race by SES. Hanna, do you have any sources on this?</p>
<p>“There’s a lot of empirical research on this. Telling the minority children about their low scores relative to whites depresses subsequent scores.”</p>
<p>Hanna, do you happen to know where I could find these studies? I would love to be able to present these to our administration.</p>
<p>levirm, I can only say Wow. </p>
<p>I find it not helpful even to volunteer such information to parents. The information may be useful to teachers and administrators to the extent that it tracks gains in performance or lack thereof. But to offer it to students is pernicious, not just for the possibility of social judgments and even overheard discussion about that, but as Hanna mentioned, for its discouraging effect. </p>
<p>My daughters’ k-12 schools were minimally racially diverse, and even less economically diverse. It would actually have been far more stigmatizing and humiliating to have scores publicly announced based on financial aid (for example). (Recall the movie Scent of a Woman.) It also would have been considered even by these non-PC privates as a major invasion of privacy (even by group, not individual).</p>
<p>i second epiphany’s wow!!! to my knowledge (and if it ever was even considered, i would have pitched a serious fit) this sort of thing never occurred when my son was in school. we live in southern california. so…to answer the question… DE-MOTIVATING!!! </p>
<p>i made a conscious decision to not discuss test score disparities with my son around college entrance test time for this very reason. not to mention he had a little bit of test anxiety anyway. i became vaguely aware of the research hanna referenced (the negative self-fulfilling prophecy…i forget the proper term for this specific phenomenon) a couple of years ago. makes sense because of course if you’re told repeatedly that your performance just isn’t ‘up to snuff’ then…</p>
<p>i’m horrified that any school would hold such assemblies.</p>
<p>levirm: isn’t it interesting that the kids seem to ‘get it’? why would any group of adults think that that sort of ‘assembly’ could be productive???</p>
<p>Well it couldnt be that blacks and hispanic are inferior, because I’m smarter than most of the white kids at my school</p>