[Mark-F]

I’m putting that book on my reading list to see for myself if what everybody says about it is true. As an educator in a mostly minority school district, I’ve seen my share of educational failures and successes. Unfortunately for blacks, it’s more of the former than the latter. Based on my experience as well as my own examination of the research done on various cultural and ethnic groups in the United States, it seems that most of the theories that seek to explain low black test scores are not supported by empirical data. For example, it’s become fashionable to justify poor black test scores based on blacks’ higher poverty levels than whites. This theory suggests that low socioeconomic status is the biggest determining variable when it comes to test scores. Unfortunately, rich blacks going to affluent, mostly white schools do no better or worse than working-class whites in poor districts. Asians, among them Hmong and Mien from Laos and Cambodia (who incidentally have the highest percentage of welfare participation) routinely score as high or higher than affluent blacks and working-class whites (sometimes higher), even though they attend segregated minority schools. Any college freshman with a statistics class and Sociology 1A under his or her belt wouldn’t buy that explanation. I wish that it were true, though, because my job as a teacher would be a lot easier: fighting for social justice on the basis of economics and class is an easier task than asking people to look at much more complicated issues surrounding ethnicity and culture. I’ve seen poor blacks come into class and just blow everyone out of the academic water; some, but not many. When they’re on, they’re on, but when they’re off, they are really, really off. I’ve seen research that asked black college freshman what they were most afraid of. Surprisingly, school failure wasn’t No. 1 (it was No. 2). Instead, the notion that college success would make them seem ‘white’ (and thus non-black) was their biggest fear. What can we do to understand that while money does matter in attaining successful educational outcomes, cultural factors seem to be far more powerful than many of us are willing to admit. If culture is that which drives academic achievement, what can we ALL do to come to terms with creating a shared culture that values all of our successes?

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Name : Mark-F, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 28, City : Richmond, State : CA, Country : United States, Occupation : Teacher, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

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