<p>PrincessBride, comeback to this forum after a another year or two of college, when you get your facts straight and are able to legitimately support your “conclusions.” Here’s an example of where you’re misinformed: by no means are minorities favored in undergraduate admissions in the states of California and Washington (the two most populous states on the west coast), both home to elite public universities. The law in each of those states mandates race-blind admissions in the public colleges.</p>
<p>Collegealum314, you made an interesting point about how some folks view the immigrant experience. A Greek ethnic friend of mind whom is a first-generation American, told me how his father was stilll angry over the discriminatory treatment he endured regularly from NYC policemen as a young man in the 1950s. As told to me, on several ocassions the father was stopped, hassled and reminded that he “wasn’t an American” and in the minds of largely Irish cops, was not “White.” I don’t believe that pointing out Jim Crow repression minimizes what difficulties many immigrants faced. It is just that the distinctions between the immigrant experience and the Black American experience have significance for people seeking solutions today.</p>
<p>If kids are failing in HS and college, it’s for the simple reason that their families don’t value education enough to work for it and insist their kids do, too. It has nothing to do with subsidized lunches, free tutoring and fun after school activities- families and parents have to take responsibility. Note that this is not a minority or ethnic/racial issue. It’s what drove us out of public schools.</p>
<p>Don’t look to big cities with massive problems to see what is happening with AA underachievement. Look to the smaller liberal towns that always had great schools and services for the much less pathological AA families. They despite all efforts have nearly the same problems as the big city schools with fewer excuses. So the schools are not the real problem or the solution be it Madison, Evanston or NYC or Shaker Heights Ohio. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”</p>
<p>Fathers were never made disposable. If men walk away, then they own that. Most men do not walk away, most men are involved fathers.</p>
<p>The fact that most men don’t walk away is irrelevant. The fact that enough walk away to have a very negative effect on many children is the point. The ones that do walk away, are encouraged to do so by a system that will provide for their children if they’re absent. The shame of not providing for one’s children has been removed for these men.</p>
<p>The fact that most men don’t walk away is irrelevant. The fact that enough walk away to have a very negative effect on many children is the point. The ones that do walk away, are encouraged to do so by a system that will provide for their children if they’re absent. The shame of not providing for one’s children has been removed for these men.</p>
<p>The rate of abuse to the point of loss of life for children at the hands of their father’s/male of the household leads me to believe that the physical presence in the household of a male doesn’t do a child any special favors.</p>
<p>Has nothing to do with the millions of men who are great fathers, but proximity doesn’t make it so.</p>
<p>Better that accurate sex ed is taught in schools along with the rights and responsibilities of taking care of yourself- and someone else.</p>
<p>The better behavior has to be modeled too. You can teach someone but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they understand or have the ability to execute it. It has to be reinforced by observed and expected behavior. Teaching high-school students algebra can be hard when they ask what they will need it for. Calculus is even a tougher sell.</p>
<p>The idea of putting in day-care centers in schools creates the problem of moral hazard.</p>
<p>The rate of abuse to the point of loss of life for children at the hands of their father’s/male of the household leads me to believe that the physical presence in the household of a male doesn’t do a child any special favors.</p>
<p>That is the exception, not the rule. A bio dad’s role instinctively is to protect his child. Children are more likely to be hurt or killed by a non-bio male in the home.</p>
<p>That said, no one is suggesting that an abusive dad (mom) should remain in the home.</p>
<p>The idea of putting in day-care centers in schools creates the problem of moral hazard.</p>
<p>Very true…It can actually have the unintended consequence of encouraging girls to have babies. The other girls see the cute babies at school and think, “I want one, too.” </p>
<p>We shouldn’t be surprised at that. Don’t we often see one married woman get pregnant, and then soon after her married friends start getting pregnant. I was one of the first to get pregnant amongst my friends. Soon after, they were all pregnant. The baby showers, the births, the excitement…it just seems to get the baby-making ball rolling.</p>
<p>I have no problem with providing a close, but off-campus daycare or something like that. But, when daycares are on-campus, and the girls are able to walk around campus with their babies, it can cause an unintended consequence.</p>
<p>I also have trouble with installing day-care centers in high schools. I’m not sold on child-care in community colleges either. I emphatically acknowledge the need for comprehensive solutions to the problem of under-educated young people, but opportunity doesn’t always come in the precise form and time that we desire. We need to repeat it again and again to all students under the age of 30; having children before you’re financially and emotionally able can be an enormous challenge and failure or dissapointments will likely ensue.</p>
<p>Interesting, I think that day-care in a CC setting is totally appropriate. If a young woman or man is attempting to further their education at the college level with a child all the support is essential. By the same token I’ve moved my thinking away from the “inclusive” nature we’ve taken in K-12 education to the belief that the concepts of alternative high school situation for kids with barriers is better. I believe if a student has special needs they are better served in an educational setting geared toward those needs rather than trying to fit that individual situation into a “normal” setting. We as a society think nothing of pulling a gifted student and putting them in a magnet setting so they can perform at optimal, yet at the same time we think nothing of bending over backwards to mainstream kids with babies etc and expecting them to perform at optimal out of some fear of “correctness.” I came to the conclusion it makes no sense. The desired outcome of college read kids or vocational ready kids might be the same, but the paths can be different and that’s OK I think since the needs are different for different segments of young kids. Why would segmenting one group and not segmenting another group be viewed any differently?</p>
<p>“Don’t look to big cities with massive problems to see what is happening with AA underachievement. Look to the smaller liberal towns that always had great schools and services for the much less pathological AA families. They despite all efforts have nearly the same problems as the big city schools with fewer excuses. So the schools are not the real problem or the solution be it Madison, Evanston or NYC or Shaker Heights Ohio.”</p>
<p>Yes, that is what the data show. AA kids under-achieve compared to white kids in the same school system, with the same intact families, and with equally educated parents. So do you think this cultural problem fell from the sky? Or is culture something that’s handed down from generation to generation, so that the experience of one’s great-grandparents has a lot to do with the children’s beliefs and behaviors today?</p>
<p>That is the argument I’m making. I don’t see any alternative explanation for the data unless you want to go the Bell Curve route and say that the black kids are just dumb. I haven’t heard that from you.</p>
<p>A large number of the students in the public highschools do just “ok” and there is a large population that doesn’t give a rip…They show up to class without books, and are htere only so they aren’t “truant”
In the end they get a certificate of attendance.</p>
<p>Teachers cannot make them learn,
they cannot make them show up for class,
they cannot even take away their cells phones,
they cannot make them show up for discipline (detention etc)</p>
<p>and for example–trying to get a parent involved…
the parent/guardian will often rage at the school if you try to take away a phone in class</p>
<p>these parents are not parenting–</p>
<p>I see it every week–one generation begetting another–a lack of work ethics, moral values, respect for self/others/property</p>
<p>They are raging they are being oppressed and at the same time NOT doing anything they are repsonsible for homework, not doing classwork and failing year after year…After a few years they are “socially promoted”
Expecting a free handout and that they can get away with doing less.</p>
<p>School adminstrators say it starts at home</p>
<p>Voters/tax payers do not really know how bad it is </p>
<p>Reform needs to take place and if the kids aren’t going to learn, why not let them dig ditches and work on the roads, something that is manuel labor etc—have them DO SOMETHING instead of living off the dole and wasting everyones time and energy…this problem exists in all colors in our county and we do them and society a great disservice to NOT hold them accountable to be productive individuals often because these kids play the race card when convenient</p>
<p>H, I think the current AA culture came out of very recent decadesand is more a result of the creation of the 60’s welfare state than anything from the Civil War era. I think that welfare culture devolved into something even worse–the anti-education Hip-Hop/Gang dominated culture we have today. Here in my area we have many black immigrants from Africa and the island nations and they try to keep their kids away from the local AA kids. Now that is interesting.</p>
<p>Really? In Freakonomics data was cited showing the opposite: if you make the socio-economic, family structure, and parental education levels the same, black and white students are almost identical in terms of academic achievement.</p>
<p>Hmmm, it seems that the term “under achieve” is vague. What does “under achieve” mean if all other factors are equal? Lower grades or lower standardized test scores or lower college completion rates, less starting compensation? Lots of factors could be encompassed in the statement “under achieve” to put it in any context.</p>
<p>H, another thought. Many of the people who are from Africa and the Island countries had similar conditions to US AAs. In the Island countries most were imported originally as slaves too. And they were under colonial rule. In Africa you had all sorts of tribal conflicts, slavery, civil wars, colonial rule and more.
Thus it seems that excuse is weak today.</p>
<p>I would just like to inject a point here about “race” vs. “culture” vs. “socioeconomic factors.” With one (most likely ■■■■■■■■) exception, nobody here is saying that there is anything inherent to a person’s race that causes the kinds of problems we are talking about. Rather, the problem is that we have a persistent underclass in our country that has developed a culture in which low achievement seems to be self-perpetuating. A large part of that underclass is black, so we think of it as a black problem. It may be to some extent, if it is a result of racism–but it seems to me that racism isn’t what is *perpetuating *the problem. I’m pessimistic about it–I agree with zoosermom that the solution is probably to take a lot of kids out of their homes and raise them elsewhere, and I just don’t see that happening. Perhaps the more realistic hope is that local programs that replace elements of home support can be increased.</p>
<p>I agree with you Hunt. it’s not anything specific to race, it just happens to hit minority kids harder. I always call myself “white trash” and there is an element of truth to that because parts of my family and, particularly my husband’s, suffered the same pathologies. So I’m deeply sympathetic and, hard-hearted conservative that I am, I can see no alternative but to keep feeding the children and providing their medical care in the hope some will break the cycle while knowing that most won’t.</p>