XPost: alt.non.racism, alt.politics, alt.society.liberalism   
   XPost: talk.politics.misc   
   From: here@home   
      
   On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:20:41 -0700, "Gandalf Grey"   
    wrote:   
      
   >Black kids do well in school when they come from   
   >warm supportive environments.   
      
   Rich, Black, Flunking   
   Cal Professor John Ogbu thinks he knows why rich black kids are   
   failing in school. Nobody wants to hear it.   
   BY SUSAN GOLDSMITH   
      
   John Ogbu has been compared to Clarence Thomas, denounced by the Urban   
   League, and criticized in The New York Times.   
      
   The black parents wanted an explanation. Doctors, lawyers, judges, and   
   insurance brokers, many had come to the upscale Cleveland suburb of   
   Shaker Heights specifically because of its stellar school district.   
   They expected their children to succeed academically, but most were   
   performing poorly. African-American students were lagging far behind   
   their white classmates in every measure of academic success:   
   grade-point average, standardized test scores, and enrollment in   
   advanced-placement courses. On average, black students earned a 1.9   
   GPA while their white counterparts held down an average of 3.45. Other   
   indicators were equally dismal. It made no sense.   
   When these depressing statistics were published in a high school   
   newspaper in mid-1997, black parents were troubled by the news and   
   upset that the newspaper had exposed the problem in such a public way.   
   Seeking guidance, one parent called a prominent authority on minority   
   academic achievement.   
      
   UC Berkeley Anthropology Professor John Ogbu had spent decades   
   studying how the members of different ethnic groups perform   
   academically. He'd studied student coping strategies at inner-city   
   schools in Washington, DC. He'd looked at African Americans and   
   Latinos in Oakland and Stockton and examined how they compare to   
   racial and ethnic minorities in India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, and   
   Britain. His research often focused on why some groups are more   
   successful than others.   
      
   But Ogbu couldn't help his caller. He explained that he was a   
   researcher -- not an educator -- and that he had no ideas about how to   
   increase the academic performance of students in a district he hadn't   
   yet studied. A few weeks later, he got his chance. A group of parents   
   hungry for solutions convinced the school district to join with them   
   and formally invite the black anthropologist to visit Shaker Heights.   
   Their discussions prompted Ogbu to propose a research project to   
   figure out just what was happening. The district agreed to finance the   
   study, and parents offered him unlimited access to their children and   
   their homes.   
      
   The professor and his research assistant moved to Shaker Heights for   
   nine months in mid-1997. They reviewed data and test scores. The team   
   observed 110 different classes, from kindergarten all the way through   
   high school. They conducted exhaustive interviews with school   
   personnel, black parents, and students. Their project yielded an   
   unexpected conclusion: It wasn't socioeconomics, school funding, or   
   racism, that accounted for the students' poor academic performance; it   
   was their own attitudes, and those of their parents.   
      
      
      
      
   >   
   >"Way Back Cracker"  wrote in message   
   >news:4900caf6.26883812@news.newsguy.com...   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> Are you an underprivileged 12-year-old homey living in the 'hood?   
   >   
   >Are you an ignorant inbred racist cracker?  You might just be a republican.   
   >   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)