It's nurture , not nature.
Since reading Paul Tough's Whatever it Takes about the Harlem Children's Zone I've wondered whether it was too good to be true. It's true.
A just published Harvard University study concludes
"At nine months old, there are no detectable cognitive differences between black and white babies . Differences emerge as early as age two, and by the time black children enter kindergarten they are lagging whites On every subject at every grade level, there are large achievement differences between blacks and whites that continue to grow..
" Harlem Children's Zone is enormously effective at increasing the achievement of the poorest minority children. Taken at face value, the effects in middle school are enough to reverse the black-white achievement gap in mathematics and reduce it in English Language Arts. The effects in elementary school close the racial achievement gap in both subjects".
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/hcz%204.15.2009.pdf
Now recall The Shape of the River in which Bowen and Bok demolished the arguments against the educational effectiveness of Affirmative Action not with high minded reasoning but by looking at the numbers.
Taken together Whatever it Takes - buttressed by this study- and The Shape of the River demonstrate the circularity of the poor old Thermstroms' arguments against educational Affirmative Action.Having provided Blacks with inferior education because supposedly they weren't capable of benefitting from a good education, we referenced their inferior educational achievements as evidence that......... they weren't capable of benefitting from a good education ..Duh.
I'm a bit confused here.
Since the 'lagging' begins by age 2 - and is already firmly established before the children have any contact whatsoever with the 'educational system', just what - precisely - are you trying to argue here?
Since they have had no contact with said system before the disparity appears, it would seem that there *is* some natural or inherent problem affecting children of color prior to even being exposed to the system that discriminates against them.
Or am I misreading the materials here?
August 6, 2009 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Undereducated children grow up to become undereducatad parents and this affects the development of their children beginning when they are two years old. By educating this generation of children the Harlem Children's Zone produces educated adults who will not continue the cycle.
One example of how this works is that the present cohort of undereducated parents don't read to their three year olds who as a result don't develop the skills that are the result of being read to.
The Harvard Study doesn't go into that ,it was concerned with measuring outcomes. " Whatever It Takes" discusses causes.
August 6, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink