Reality remains reality... no matter how much wishing, and hoping. and thinking, and praying we might choose to do.
If it looks, and walks, and talks, and swims like a duck.... any bets on whether it's duck?
We are responsible for ourselves. No one else. Our family and friends may love us us... any number of local, state, and federal institutions and social safety nets may cushion us, to help shield us from the sharper edges and harder surfaces that life itself presents.... but ultimately it's up to us and only us. It always has been.
We may indulge ourselves, immerse ourselves in the study of history and tally 100 generations of injustices (as we now measure them). We may debate economics and the role of government subsidies. We can point to schools and teachers and the technologies of countless 'learning systems' and measure where exactly we fall short, or exceed... but in the end it all comes down to ME. "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." As true for Copperfield in Dickensian England as it is for us today -- it is a question of choice, of hard work, of ambition, and drive, and unstinting effort...or not.
Mr. Roscoe's numbers and analyses are absolutely on-target
The fact that we might be uncomfortable with the story they tell should generate only a sad, 'So what?!'
As for DIE and it's intended demise, that should be greeted only with a Hallelujah! Ignore whether or not Bob or Steve or Denise or Mary might have benefited from a continued (unending) preference for their gender or color.... ignore, rightfully so, the fact that life is hard and none of us equal (save before God and the Law)... dismiss entirely the perverted notion that 'everyone's a winner' (because they're not).... and look instead at the horribly destructive impact upon the world, all of us, this society, this nation that DIE guarantees.
When we're lying on that hospital gurney, awaiting the doctors, hoping they can save our lives....do any of us want to hear: 'Good news, Mr. Smith, your surgical team is the most diverse & inclusive & equitable we could possibly find (let us count the ways we've shifted our standards)'.... or would we rather hear, 'Good news, Mr. Smith -- your surgical team is the best in the nation (and no one cares if they all look alike, sound alike, and went to the same school, with the same GPA)'?
We all know the answer.
Even the Chancellor for Diversity & Inclusivity who spends her days pushing Equity in Everything....even she knows the answer. But she'd prefer we didn't.
If the US Army limits entry to above 83 IQ, which translates to something like 15% of the US population ypu have a problem. My suggestion is to stop naval gazing about IQ and recruit this demographic to trade jobs without the limitation. Concenrate on jobs that can be done and which society needs. NOTHING CAN BE DONE WITH IQ, MOVE ON.
About 85% of the U.S. population has an IQ above 83. About 55% of the Black population has an IQ above 83. Trade jobs do not require a pre-employment IQ test but some -electrician, plumber, etc. do require good math skills and others require reading comprehension, ability to read blueprints, wiring diagrams, and instructions. Maybe Black people are doing the best they can with what they've got, just as Asians and everyone else is doing their best with what they've got.
This is a really thoughtful and well-researched piece, Mr. Roscoe. Thank you! I tend to think Ian Rowe has the best ideas on how to turn things around. It's a multi-faceted problem that requires a multi-faceted solution. The IQ question: man, I think nature vs. nurture is still not settled, but surely there's research that suggested early childhood education (not necessarily done by the state at all)- parents reading to their kids (high-quality books, not most of the garbage I see kids reading these days), parents talking with their kids, parents encouraging physical activity, healthy living, being part of a healthy community (faith-based or something similar), and so forth, certainly must have a small but positive effect on IQ.
As a 25-year homeschool veteran (even when we were a single-income, low-income family) and as someone who works with homeschoolers, I can see the benefit of spending quality time with one's children.
Yes, Asians are inherently smarter than Blacks. Asians have an average IQ of 106, Blacks are at 85. Whites have an average IQ of 100, and Hispanics-average IQ of 95 are also inherently smarter. It's time these IQ differences were accepted and we stop looking for who to blame. Maybe there are special techniques to teach low IQ children to read and do basic math. Or maybe it would help to have more vocational schools starting at a younger age. But there is no way that Blacks are going to be able to match the scholastic achievements of the other racial and ethnic groups that have higher IQs. Whites will never do as well as Asians, either and no one is wringing their hands about that or blaming white culture or the education system.
"Family structures are important as well... They determine the environments in which our children grow up and have huge impacts on how well prepared they are to compete for high-value work as adults."
I very much agree that it takes a village. As the child of a single mom (a teacher, who became an administrator), I attended mediocre Catholic schools, went to a prestigious college. My 2 kids, also raised by a single mom, were able to get scholarships to prestigious boarding schools and attended top college. One has a J.D. The other a PhD.
While raising my kids, MANY of my close friends were single moms. Their kids all did well. Got top notch educations and function in our current society.
More crucial, in my opinion, than conventional 2 parent families are the values. Hard work and education being high on the list. The financial aspects of one vs. two income households is certainly a challenge.
Another factor that can compensate for poor parenting and/or the lack of exposure and knowledge in a given family (single parent, or 2 parents) is a MENTOR.
I know someone raised by a single mom, in an edgy neighborhood, who really benefitted from the recognition of her intelligence and talents at a young age. It made all the difference. (Her mother wasn't able to give her much in the way of academic or financial support, but she didn't hold her back. She was also fortunate in that she didn't get sucked into the negative peer pressure that surrounded her.)
I've been listening to a compilation of podcasts by Malcolm Gladwell titled "I hate the Ivy League". It explores some interesting issues and notable failure of the American system to capitalize it's citizens. Capitalization as in assisting everyone to reach their maximum capacity as an individual and member of our society.
My point is that "Villages" can compensate SIGNIFICANTLY for gaps in family structure.
I put high value on counselors, which are generally lacking at all levels of education, including even elite colleges. It's really hard to know your options when you haven't been exposed to others. An example, in my middle class AA world, the common careers were, for women, Elementary school teacher (occasional administrator). The men were mostly mid level managers. The REALLY successful ones were MD.s, DDSs, J.D.s. SO, my generation mostly pursued the Doctor, Lawyer route ... regardless of where they went to school, public or private. I knew ONE mother who was a child psychologist. I had no clue of what a PhD was, who had them, or how you get one, or what you do with one.
I mention this because REPRESENTATION MATTERS. Exposure matters. Inside knowledge matters. MENTORSHIP matters. How does one know what career options there are unless you see them? Unless you know people in those careers?
I would advocate for EARLY exposure, early intervention, early acculturation. AND government can do a LOT top support these things. Take a look at Finland. Japan. Teachers are HIGHLY valued. In our country they are criticized and picked on and called losers for not being in 'higher level' professions. It's shameful.
Again, I post this as an example of what a healthy classroom can offer:
AND, if you are dealing with parents who are educationally deficient, supporting them could/should also be part of education.
Re: the discussion of HBCUs vs this college or that college, I would refer folks to the books of Loren Pope. "Colleges That Change Lives" or "Looking Beyond the Ivy League". I think he makes great arguments for schools that help CAPITALIZE the talents of an individual vs e.g. some of the most prestigious schools that rubber stamp the 'cream of the crop' with offering little to cultivate their gifts.
And, re: the H1B1 argument ... the reason that american kids don't do STEM ... is because the math kids are directed to I Banking and business because we value GREED and status and accumulation. Math and engineering are COOL in Asian countries.
(Forgive me for rambling)
Again, I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell's "I HATE THE IVY LEAGUE". Plenty of other countries educate their citizens better than we do. He uses his experience in Canada as an example.
Thanks for your comment. Have you read Melissa Kearney's book? Her argument is that the children of married parents have inherent advantages over children raised by single parents. While there may be examples of single mothers who've done a wonderful job with their children, their good work doesn't negate the differences that Kearney talked about in her book. Consider reading this interview she did with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond if you want a taste of her argument:
One of the points she makes is that college-educated women are more likely to be married when they have children, often to a college educated spouse. Those households have inherent advantages. Here's an excerpt:
EF: In The Two-Parent Privilege, you argue that the decline in marriage and the corresponding rise in the share of children being raised in one-parent homes has been widening economic gaps between haves and have-nots. In what way?
Kearney: The decline in marriage and the rise in the share of children being raised in a one-parent home has happened predominantly outside the college-educated class. Over the past 40 years, while college-educated men and women have experienced rising earnings, they continue to get married, often to one another, and to raise their children in a home with married parents. Meanwhile at the same time, the earnings among adults without a college degree have stagnated or risen only a bit. And these groups have become much less likely to marry and more likely to set up households by themselves.
So just mechanically, these divergent trends in marriage and family structure mean that household inequality has widened by more than it would have just from the rise in earnings inequality. You've got this double whammy of earnings inequality happening at the same time as the groups experiencing declining earnings and declining employment are also more likely to just have one adult in the household. So in a direct sense, that demographic trend has widened economic gaps.
More consequentially for children's outcomes and socioeconomic gaps, children born to college-educated parents are now much more likely to live in a household with married parents and have the associated benefits of that. To be specific, 84 percent of children whose mothers have a college degree live with married parents, compared to less than 60 percent of children whose mothers don't have a college degree.
This means that the kids born to college-educated mothers live in a household with much higher levels of income, not just because their mother has the potential to make more income, but because she's much more likely to have a working spouse in the home or to have a spouse in the home at all. But also, there are many more parental resources in general when there are two parents in the home — more parenting time for supervision, nurturing, and so on. To the extent that parenting inputs shape children's outcomes, this widens the gap in kids' behavioral and educational outcomes and exacerbates class gaps. This is why I referred to this phenomenon as the "two-parent privilege," because the two-parent home has now become another advantage of the college-educated class and their children.
These divergent trends in marriage and family structure mean that household inequality has widened by more than it would have just from the rise in earnings inequality. You've got this double whammy of earnings inequality happening at the same time as the groups experiencing declining earnings and declining employment are also more likely to just have one adult in the household.
My point is not to criticize single mothers as much as to point out that "two is better than one" most of the time when it comes to the well being of children.
I also wanted to acknowledge what you said about DEI and Affirmative Action favoring the ... talented tenth types of POC.
This is not as much a condemnation of those programs as need to focus on EARLY intervention. Reducing teen pregnancy is one example. (Birth control education.) Prenatal care. I suppose Head Start is along those lines. But I'd suggest we redirect the money that goes into prisons into aggressive early interventions. If kids need 1:1 education, give it to them when they are young. Small classes, well trained teachers and staff, quality food, LONG school days. Obviously the boarding schools that abused indigenous people is not what we want to see, but, my ex-husband was educated in Africa in Anglican missionary schools and he got an amazing, high quality education. That's the only way to change the cultural problems.
Obviously I haven't researched this in any way, but nothing else really comes to mind. Keep kids safe. Give them health role models and health care, quality food, exposure to books and language and arts ... as early as possible. How else can you break the cycle? It has to happen before gangs and foster care and normalization of bad behaviours in the environment.
Again, I'd look to other countries that do a better job. Where everything doesn't correlate to zip code.
I have no doubt that the financial advantages are solid, although the financial aid that I was able to get as a single parent allowed my kids to go to wonderful private schools from age 3 through college. I'm ever grateful for that. (Along with many wonderful summer programs that I was able to afford because of generous financial. Applying for financial aid was like an ongoing part time job.) Also there were a lot of decisions that I made, that would have been contentious if I'd stayed married. Also, because of what I was exposed to in college (e.g. african american kids who'd gone to elite boarding school) made an impression on me about the kinds of opportunities I wanted to give my kids. This goes back to what I said about role models and representation.
I realize there are many advantages to raising kids with a partner. When my parents divorced, we had to move into an apartment. (One of the reasons my parents split up was from the pressure of trying to maintain a house beyond their means.)
I just personally know so many single parents who did right by their kids. The common factor, more than anything, was a love of learning and a prioritization of quality education for our children. AND we were surrounded by people with similar values. I'm ever grateful for the fact that the private schools my children attended sought out diversity.
I think affordable quality housing would go a long way, by the way. There are ways that the government can intervene to improve markets. The failure of supply and demand is so obvious when it comes to housing in the counties near me. If we were actually a free market system, as demand increases, supply would increase, but supply is limited so prices increase with nimby-ism. Affordable housing was another stroke of luck that made a huge difference in our family. There were affordable apartments mixed into very nice, relatively safe neighborhoods of single family housing. Hard to impossible to find these days.
Anyway, I just think there are a lot of factors and targeting family structure, which is something that won't change overnight, can cause the discussion to end with finger pointing and blame.
It's complicated. And, I do think, as I mentioned, that there are other countries that do it better because they provide better safety nets to support different types of families. Single parents, same sex couples, those parents or children with disabilities, etc ...
I do appreciate you sharing your information and I love informatics. Thanks again!
Richard Reeves of Brookings wrote a book a couple of years ago (" Dream Hoarders -
How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It") that covered many of the issues you raised in your reply.
Here's a link that provides background information about the book:
Asking people to accept relaxed zoning laws in order to build more affordable housing and to fund more generous social safety net programs at a time when so many people feel that the American Dream is slipping away is a tough ask. Even if those things occurred, however, it's not clear that we could ever negate the advantages of two-parent households that Melissa Kearney outlined in her book (Reeves discusses them as well. There's a short video that shows the impacts of various family structures, race, and education on income inequality and income mobility).
"Assortative mating" (Intermarriage among people who belong to the same upper socioeconomic group) is a real thing. A Brookings analysis from a few years ago suggested that it contributes to income inequality:
It’s well established that college graduates in the United States tend to partner with other college graduates. In 2019, 81% of household heads with a bachelor’s degree or more education had a spouse or partner who was also a college graduate.
The piece goes on to say that the phenomenon is even more common among the children of college-educated parents.
To make a long story short, the advantages of strong family structures and education are compelling. That's not to say that people who make different choices can't be successful, but they should make those choices consciously and fully aware of the challenges ahead.
No basis for me to comment on HBCUs…I can note that Thomas Sowell and Ian Rowe have documented the need for both solid educators and schools along with a family structure that values education…rather than focus at the higher education levels, to change the dynamics you have to start way back in first grade..,once kids are behind by 3rd grade..very difficult for them to catch up…agree with the other writer you have to look at the degrees being obtained,..makes a huge difference in income generated…until parents demand excellence in education and emphasize this at home, nothing will change
I am a relatively new subscriber (I signed up after Glenn's discussion of Ta-Nehisi Coates' new book).
I disagree with the majority of Glenn (and John's) take on race and the Black American experience but I understand it. I was raised in the "better to be equal" segment of Black America and am roughly the same age as John.
With regards to the HBCU question, I am not only disagree but think that the analysis is WAY off. A few facts to take into account and some context. I added a couple of comparable liberal arts colleges (you really cannot compare Spelman to Georgi Tech, it's like comparing apples to automobiles).a
Let's look at the percentage of students on Pell Grants (a proxy for low income students) in the class that entered in 2017 (used to track 6 year graduation rates as of 2023 per the Federal Common Data Set)
Emory University - 18.7%
Georgia Tech - 12.9%
Spelman College - 44.9%
Bryn Mawr (1 of the 7 sisters liberal arts colleges) - 14.7%
Mount Holyoke (another of the 7 sisters) - 17.2% (2016 cohort)
Now let's look at comparative earnings (from the federal college scorecard) for the same majors
Emory University: English $62K / International Relations $80K
Georgia Tech engineering school, not comparable to a liberal arts college (no English majors)
Spelman College: English $64K / International Studies $73K
Bryn Mawr: English $50K / International Studies $51K
Mount Holyoke: English $43K / International Relations $74K
OK, how about endowment per student:
Emory University - $682K
Georgia Tech - $82K (as best as I could find)
Spelman College - $230K
Bryn Mawr - $664K
Mount Holyoke - $426K
So, perhaps I have convinced you that your analysis is incorrect as it relates to Spelman (the school I know best). What about HBCUs in general.
Have any of you read a book titled "The State Must Provide" by Atlantic writer Adam Harris? It documents how HBCU land grant colleges have been shorted billions of dollars that they were due based on the Morrill Land Grant Act. More recently, in September 2023 the White House calculated that, just over the past 3 decades, public HBCUs have been cheated out of $13 Billion that they should have received from their states.
HBCUs have a history of doing more with less, educating all comers, and serving our people when nobody else would.
By the way, I will stack up a Spelman education against ANY wealthy PWI that does not even attempt to educate low income students (an embarrassment given their immense resources) never mind Black students. HBCUs are not perfect, but they address a real need and will be even more crucial in the coming years as PWIs become less hospitable for Black students. Spelman's applications have hit new records by the way.
All of the data I mention above is publicly available.
Sorry, but you're missing the point when it comes to the HBCU ROI calculations. The 20-year values speak for themselves. Consider another Atlanta-based college - Georgia State University. Its 20-year ROI is $365,000 for in state students and $304,000 for out of state students. Four years at Georgia State costs $181,000 for an out of state student vs. $207,000 at Spelman and $198,000 at Morehouse. A typical student would get more bang for their bucks at Georgia State than Spelman.
Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) has a similar college HBCU calculator:
You won't find an HBCU near the top of their list or the one from Payscale. That's why I wrote that the impacts of HBCUs are modest. They're not creating large numbers of black graduates ready to compete for the highest value work. Part of the problem, as I mentioned in my post, is that black students tend to cluster in low-paying majors. Georgetown's CEW did an analysis of this several years ago:
The root of the problem begins upstream. Students who don't have strong STEM foundations when they graduate from high school, for example, rarely manage to become good STEM students in college. Doubling down on HBCUs doesn't address this issue.
Keep in mind that HBCUs only educate 9% of America's black college students. The remaining 91% are attending other schools. This is another indication of the modest impacts of HBCUs.
First, let's take a look at Georgia State vs Spelman (notwithstanding that they are completely different types of institutions).
Percent Pell Grant
Georgia State - 55%
Spelman - 45%
6 year graduation rate
GSU - 56%
Spelman 76%
ROI (keeping major constant) after accounting for the risk of non-completion of degree (from The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity)
GSU BA English - $133K
Spelman BA English - $308K
GSU BA Economics - $427K (GSU does not offer International Relations)
Spelman BA Economics - $826K
So, GSU has a modestly higher percentage of low income students but a lower graduation rate. Controlling for major, in some fields Spelman has a higher ROI. GSU is publicly funded.
I believe that comparing Spelman to its peer institutions (Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Kenyon, Lafayette, Bucknell, etc.) and controlling for major is a better comparison. Spelman is a selective liberal arts college, compare it to its peers.
More broadly speaking, if we are going to look at public colleges, we cannot ignore the $13 Billion (at a minimum) of Morrill Land Grant funding that was stolen from public HBCUs. I tell you what, restore ALL of that funding and then we can start to compare HBCUs to other colleges.
Regarding STEM majors, HBCUs disproportionately graduate Black students in these fields according to studies done by Higher Ed Today.
I do not claim that HBCUs are a cure-all for what ails the Black community, whether you think (as I do) that the cause is both ongoing and historic racism or (as Glenn & John do) cultural issues, the casual dismissal of HBCUs is unfortunate and does nothing to advance our plight in America.
If so, the numbers aren't comparable to the Payscale results because they're based upon lifetime results instead of 20 year results. It's not clear how the adjustment for risk of not graduating and not graduating on time are calculated. It's also not clear if financial aid is included in the calculations (Payscale provides both sets of figures. The numbers in my post that don't include financial aid because I wanted an apples to apples comparison). Caveats noted, the overall picture remains the same. Georgia State's graduating class, as a group, gets more value from their degrees than Spelman's graduating class. We can debate why that is, but the bottom line is the bottom line.
What you say is a "casual dismissal" of HBCUs is a realistic assessment of their limitations. They only educate 9% of America's black college students, many of whom earn degrees that don't allow them to compete for the highest value work.
As for the causes of what ails the black community, Glenn has proposed two narratives - the bias narrative and the development narrative. This City Journal essay provides an overview of both narratives:
There's no doubt that bias was a major hindrance to black progress before the civil rights era began and at least through much of the 1980s. The question is why did black progress stall out as most forms of bias began to recede? The development narrative is a more compelling answer to that question than the bias narrative. Derek Neal of the University of Chicago did a paper back in 2006 ("Why Did Has The Black-White Skill Convergence Stopped?") that explores this issue:
All data sources indicate that black-white skill gaps diminished over most of the 20th century, but black-white skill gaps as measured by test scores among youth and educational attainment among young adults have remained constant or increased in absolute value since the late 1980s. I examine the potential importance of discrimination against skilled black workers, changes in black family structures, changes in black household incomes, black-white differences in parenting norms, and education policy as factors that may contribute to the recent stability of black-white skill gaps. Absent changes in public policy or the economy that facilitate investment in black children, best case scenarios suggest that even approximate black-white skill parity is not possible before 2050, and equally plausible scenarios imply that the black-white skill gap will remain quite significant throughout the 21st century.
The people who believe in the bias narrative had held sway within Black America. They've convinced a majority of black people that almost all of America's institutions were designed to hold black people back according to Pew Research:
Some of us believe that the development narrative better explains the stagnation that plagues Black America today. We believe that stronger family structures, a renewed and sustained emphasis on education, and cultural shifts are needed in order to close the racial gaps (e.g. income wealth, education, life expectancy, etc.) that people talk about.
We will have to agree to disagree and yes I did use the FREEOP database. The Georgetown study provides a data point but without holding major constant, you really cannot determine the quality of the education or a true ROI.
3 other things though:
You never addressed the documented theft of funds allocated for public HBCUs under the Morrill Land Grant. This may have something to do with some of the challenges they face. Imagine what these schools could do with the $13 Billion that was stolen from them.
People do not attend a college "in general" they go and major in something. Comparing the ROI of a college "in general" does not really may sense. Would you, or most people, advise a student who wanted to attend Brown to study English (median earnings $55k) or Psychology ($63K) or Harvard to study English ($64K) vs Accounting at Baruch College CUNY ($114K)? While you may choose Baruch, I would bet that most would select Brown or Harvard. (all data from the federal College Scorecard)
It true that HBCUs enroll a very small percentage of Black students but they disproportionately produce Doctors, STEM professionals, and judges. From Forbes (Nov 7, 2024):
"According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have consistently produced over 25% of all African American STEM graduates despite representing only a small percentage of colleges and universities nationwide (3%)."
Why does the NAEP data for Illinois omit Asian scores? Usually, these kinds of matters are framed as whites versus blacks (plus, sometimes, Latinos) and Asian test scores, which tend to be the highest of all, are often conveniently (?) omitted. This has the effect of bolstering the claim that it is white racism that is the cause of all disparities — and that’s a harder argument to make when Asian scores are also included.
From a political perspective, the balance of power has traditionally been roughly one third white, one third black, and one third Latino. Wirepoints is based in Chicago, so they tend to report this kind of data in ways that are consistent with the political balance of power. They should include Asian results, but they don't.
You can access the Illinois figures with this link:
As usual, I am delighted to see Mr. Roscoe offer a thoughtful and well-organized contribution. If the education piece is the remaindered "villain" in these calculations, I am afraid we will be in for a bad time. Freddy de Boer and others have noted that educational attainment stabilizes early in a child's life and tends to be refractory to various interventions such as money investment per student, teacher training, class size, and organizational hierarchies. As far as I know, no demonstration projects have been successfully scaled. To that end, nothing much has changed since the Coleman Report in the 1960s, when I had a psychometrics professor point out that Coleman used some improper statistical methods that "softened" some of his results.
Good to read your writing again Clifton, thanks. While the connection between marriage and outcomes is obvious, it is a lagging indicator to the deterioration of values and opportunities of the underclass, and I don't see any programmatic way to materially affect that issue. Any improvement has to start within Glenn's observation that social capital is a prerequisite for human capital, and the failures of public education should make it a target. The only institution able to combine social capital and education in the inner city is the black church, and I think the Trump administration would support that effort if attempted.
Thanks for your comment and kind words. I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. G for indulging my prattles and Mark Sussman for polishing them.
I agree with your point about black churches, but it has to be noted that younger black people are less likely to attend church than their elders. A Pew Research analysis from 2021 said that only about 30% of Gen Z and Millennial blacks attend services at a black congregation compared to about half of black Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation (See Number 5):
"Zion’s shrinking attendance is in line with a recent Pew Research Center survey; it found a significant attendance drop among Black Protestants that is unmatched by any other major religious group. The number of Black Protestants who say they attend services monthly has fallen from 61% in 2019 to 46% now, said Pew, and they are the only group in which more than half (54%) attend services virtually." (a link to the Pew survey is embedded in the source article)
Both pieces suggest that the influence of the black church is waning.
Many Americans are struggling to make ends meet and to achieve their version of the American Dream. An economic message that emphasized the importance of education and strong family structures might resonate at a time when America has a higher percentage of children living with single parents than any country in the world:
I'll rephrase it as who else? And what other entity can inclucate values? And if not now, when Trump is taking a sledgehammer to the bureaucratic edifice, when? A message will not be sufficient if the recipient is mired in concentrated and generational poverty, so implementation is key. Perhaps we'll see a more general expansion of vouchers and charter schools and let the market decide.
I'm all for churches emphasizing the importance of education and strong family structures, but my sense is that other "influencers" (e.g., business leaders, economists, financial advisers, etc.) can play a role as well. An updated presentation about "The Success Sequence" would be a good place to start.
I agree the message is good but my point is that if you don't change the environment it overwhelms the message and nothing changes. I just don't see any other way for effective secondary education for a population lacking the necessary social capital. And then you have post-secondary...
We're mostly in agreement. Where we might disagree is that I sense an open lane for public intellectuals with new ideas to influence how people think about these things.
Reality remains reality... no matter how much wishing, and hoping. and thinking, and praying we might choose to do.
If it looks, and walks, and talks, and swims like a duck.... any bets on whether it's duck?
We are responsible for ourselves. No one else. Our family and friends may love us us... any number of local, state, and federal institutions and social safety nets may cushion us, to help shield us from the sharper edges and harder surfaces that life itself presents.... but ultimately it's up to us and only us. It always has been.
We may indulge ourselves, immerse ourselves in the study of history and tally 100 generations of injustices (as we now measure them). We may debate economics and the role of government subsidies. We can point to schools and teachers and the technologies of countless 'learning systems' and measure where exactly we fall short, or exceed... but in the end it all comes down to ME. "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." As true for Copperfield in Dickensian England as it is for us today -- it is a question of choice, of hard work, of ambition, and drive, and unstinting effort...or not.
Mr. Roscoe's numbers and analyses are absolutely on-target
The fact that we might be uncomfortable with the story they tell should generate only a sad, 'So what?!'
As for DIE and it's intended demise, that should be greeted only with a Hallelujah! Ignore whether or not Bob or Steve or Denise or Mary might have benefited from a continued (unending) preference for their gender or color.... ignore, rightfully so, the fact that life is hard and none of us equal (save before God and the Law)... dismiss entirely the perverted notion that 'everyone's a winner' (because they're not).... and look instead at the horribly destructive impact upon the world, all of us, this society, this nation that DIE guarantees.
When we're lying on that hospital gurney, awaiting the doctors, hoping they can save our lives....do any of us want to hear: 'Good news, Mr. Smith, your surgical team is the most diverse & inclusive & equitable we could possibly find (let us count the ways we've shifted our standards)'.... or would we rather hear, 'Good news, Mr. Smith -- your surgical team is the best in the nation (and no one cares if they all look alike, sound alike, and went to the same school, with the same GPA)'?
We all know the answer.
Even the Chancellor for Diversity & Inclusivity who spends her days pushing Equity in Everything....even she knows the answer. But she'd prefer we didn't.
If the US Army limits entry to above 83 IQ, which translates to something like 15% of the US population ypu have a problem. My suggestion is to stop naval gazing about IQ and recruit this demographic to trade jobs without the limitation. Concenrate on jobs that can be done and which society needs. NOTHING CAN BE DONE WITH IQ, MOVE ON.
About 85% of the U.S. population has an IQ above 83. About 55% of the Black population has an IQ above 83. Trade jobs do not require a pre-employment IQ test but some -electrician, plumber, etc. do require good math skills and others require reading comprehension, ability to read blueprints, wiring diagrams, and instructions. Maybe Black people are doing the best they can with what they've got, just as Asians and everyone else is doing their best with what they've got.
I think Dr. Loury should have you as a regular commenter on his show.
Thanks for the kind words.
This is a really thoughtful and well-researched piece, Mr. Roscoe. Thank you! I tend to think Ian Rowe has the best ideas on how to turn things around. It's a multi-faceted problem that requires a multi-faceted solution. The IQ question: man, I think nature vs. nurture is still not settled, but surely there's research that suggested early childhood education (not necessarily done by the state at all)- parents reading to their kids (high-quality books, not most of the garbage I see kids reading these days), parents talking with their kids, parents encouraging physical activity, healthy living, being part of a healthy community (faith-based or something similar), and so forth, certainly must have a small but positive effect on IQ.
As a 25-year homeschool veteran (even when we were a single-income, low-income family) and as someone who works with homeschoolers, I can see the benefit of spending quality time with one's children.
Off topic, but I understand this a great essay...about to read it:
Response to Coates
"The Message" is more propaganda than history
Benny Morris
https://bennymorris.substack.com/p/response-to-coates
Yes, Asians are inherently smarter than Blacks. Asians have an average IQ of 106, Blacks are at 85. Whites have an average IQ of 100, and Hispanics-average IQ of 95 are also inherently smarter. It's time these IQ differences were accepted and we stop looking for who to blame. Maybe there are special techniques to teach low IQ children to read and do basic math. Or maybe it would help to have more vocational schools starting at a younger age. But there is no way that Blacks are going to be able to match the scholastic achievements of the other racial and ethnic groups that have higher IQs. Whites will never do as well as Asians, either and no one is wringing their hands about that or blaming white culture or the education system.
"Family structures are important as well... They determine the environments in which our children grow up and have huge impacts on how well prepared they are to compete for high-value work as adults."
I very much agree that it takes a village. As the child of a single mom (a teacher, who became an administrator), I attended mediocre Catholic schools, went to a prestigious college. My 2 kids, also raised by a single mom, were able to get scholarships to prestigious boarding schools and attended top college. One has a J.D. The other a PhD.
While raising my kids, MANY of my close friends were single moms. Their kids all did well. Got top notch educations and function in our current society.
More crucial, in my opinion, than conventional 2 parent families are the values. Hard work and education being high on the list. The financial aspects of one vs. two income households is certainly a challenge.
Another factor that can compensate for poor parenting and/or the lack of exposure and knowledge in a given family (single parent, or 2 parents) is a MENTOR.
I know someone raised by a single mom, in an edgy neighborhood, who really benefitted from the recognition of her intelligence and talents at a young age. It made all the difference. (Her mother wasn't able to give her much in the way of academic or financial support, but she didn't hold her back. She was also fortunate in that she didn't get sucked into the negative peer pressure that surrounded her.)
I've been listening to a compilation of podcasts by Malcolm Gladwell titled "I hate the Ivy League". It explores some interesting issues and notable failure of the American system to capitalize it's citizens. Capitalization as in assisting everyone to reach their maximum capacity as an individual and member of our society.
My point is that "Villages" can compensate SIGNIFICANTLY for gaps in family structure.
I put high value on counselors, which are generally lacking at all levels of education, including even elite colleges. It's really hard to know your options when you haven't been exposed to others. An example, in my middle class AA world, the common careers were, for women, Elementary school teacher (occasional administrator). The men were mostly mid level managers. The REALLY successful ones were MD.s, DDSs, J.D.s. SO, my generation mostly pursued the Doctor, Lawyer route ... regardless of where they went to school, public or private. I knew ONE mother who was a child psychologist. I had no clue of what a PhD was, who had them, or how you get one, or what you do with one.
I mention this because REPRESENTATION MATTERS. Exposure matters. Inside knowledge matters. MENTORSHIP matters. How does one know what career options there are unless you see them? Unless you know people in those careers?
I would advocate for EARLY exposure, early intervention, early acculturation. AND government can do a LOT top support these things. Take a look at Finland. Japan. Teachers are HIGHLY valued. In our country they are criticized and picked on and called losers for not being in 'higher level' professions. It's shameful.
Again, I post this as an example of what a healthy classroom can offer:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/opinion/japan-education-childhood.html?
AND, if you are dealing with parents who are educationally deficient, supporting them could/should also be part of education.
Re: the discussion of HBCUs vs this college or that college, I would refer folks to the books of Loren Pope. "Colleges That Change Lives" or "Looking Beyond the Ivy League". I think he makes great arguments for schools that help CAPITALIZE the talents of an individual vs e.g. some of the most prestigious schools that rubber stamp the 'cream of the crop' with offering little to cultivate their gifts.
Another Malcolm Gladwell discussion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J-wCHDJYmo
And, re: the H1B1 argument ... the reason that american kids don't do STEM ... is because the math kids are directed to I Banking and business because we value GREED and status and accumulation. Math and engineering are COOL in Asian countries.
(Forgive me for rambling)
Again, I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell's "I HATE THE IVY LEAGUE". Plenty of other countries educate their citizens better than we do. He uses his experience in Canada as an example.
Thanks for your comment. Have you read Melissa Kearney's book? Her argument is that the children of married parents have inherent advantages over children raised by single parents. While there may be examples of single mothers who've done a wonderful job with their children, their good work doesn't negate the differences that Kearney talked about in her book. Consider reading this interview she did with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond if you want a taste of her argument:
https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2023/q3_interview
One of the points she makes is that college-educated women are more likely to be married when they have children, often to a college educated spouse. Those households have inherent advantages. Here's an excerpt:
EF: In The Two-Parent Privilege, you argue that the decline in marriage and the corresponding rise in the share of children being raised in one-parent homes has been widening economic gaps between haves and have-nots. In what way?
Kearney: The decline in marriage and the rise in the share of children being raised in a one-parent home has happened predominantly outside the college-educated class. Over the past 40 years, while college-educated men and women have experienced rising earnings, they continue to get married, often to one another, and to raise their children in a home with married parents. Meanwhile at the same time, the earnings among adults without a college degree have stagnated or risen only a bit. And these groups have become much less likely to marry and more likely to set up households by themselves.
So just mechanically, these divergent trends in marriage and family structure mean that household inequality has widened by more than it would have just from the rise in earnings inequality. You've got this double whammy of earnings inequality happening at the same time as the groups experiencing declining earnings and declining employment are also more likely to just have one adult in the household. So in a direct sense, that demographic trend has widened economic gaps.
More consequentially for children's outcomes and socioeconomic gaps, children born to college-educated parents are now much more likely to live in a household with married parents and have the associated benefits of that. To be specific, 84 percent of children whose mothers have a college degree live with married parents, compared to less than 60 percent of children whose mothers don't have a college degree.
This means that the kids born to college-educated mothers live in a household with much higher levels of income, not just because their mother has the potential to make more income, but because she's much more likely to have a working spouse in the home or to have a spouse in the home at all. But also, there are many more parental resources in general when there are two parents in the home — more parenting time for supervision, nurturing, and so on. To the extent that parenting inputs shape children's outcomes, this widens the gap in kids' behavioral and educational outcomes and exacerbates class gaps. This is why I referred to this phenomenon as the "two-parent privilege," because the two-parent home has now become another advantage of the college-educated class and their children.
These divergent trends in marriage and family structure mean that household inequality has widened by more than it would have just from the rise in earnings inequality. You've got this double whammy of earnings inequality happening at the same time as the groups experiencing declining earnings and declining employment are also more likely to just have one adult in the household.
My point is not to criticize single mothers as much as to point out that "two is better than one" most of the time when it comes to the well being of children.
I also wanted to acknowledge what you said about DEI and Affirmative Action favoring the ... talented tenth types of POC.
This is not as much a condemnation of those programs as need to focus on EARLY intervention. Reducing teen pregnancy is one example. (Birth control education.) Prenatal care. I suppose Head Start is along those lines. But I'd suggest we redirect the money that goes into prisons into aggressive early interventions. If kids need 1:1 education, give it to them when they are young. Small classes, well trained teachers and staff, quality food, LONG school days. Obviously the boarding schools that abused indigenous people is not what we want to see, but, my ex-husband was educated in Africa in Anglican missionary schools and he got an amazing, high quality education. That's the only way to change the cultural problems.
Obviously I haven't researched this in any way, but nothing else really comes to mind. Keep kids safe. Give them health role models and health care, quality food, exposure to books and language and arts ... as early as possible. How else can you break the cycle? It has to happen before gangs and foster care and normalization of bad behaviours in the environment.
Again, I'd look to other countries that do a better job. Where everything doesn't correlate to zip code.
Thanks I will check out what you've recommended.
I have no doubt that the financial advantages are solid, although the financial aid that I was able to get as a single parent allowed my kids to go to wonderful private schools from age 3 through college. I'm ever grateful for that. (Along with many wonderful summer programs that I was able to afford because of generous financial. Applying for financial aid was like an ongoing part time job.) Also there were a lot of decisions that I made, that would have been contentious if I'd stayed married. Also, because of what I was exposed to in college (e.g. african american kids who'd gone to elite boarding school) made an impression on me about the kinds of opportunities I wanted to give my kids. This goes back to what I said about role models and representation.
I realize there are many advantages to raising kids with a partner. When my parents divorced, we had to move into an apartment. (One of the reasons my parents split up was from the pressure of trying to maintain a house beyond their means.)
I just personally know so many single parents who did right by their kids. The common factor, more than anything, was a love of learning and a prioritization of quality education for our children. AND we were surrounded by people with similar values. I'm ever grateful for the fact that the private schools my children attended sought out diversity.
I think affordable quality housing would go a long way, by the way. There are ways that the government can intervene to improve markets. The failure of supply and demand is so obvious when it comes to housing in the counties near me. If we were actually a free market system, as demand increases, supply would increase, but supply is limited so prices increase with nimby-ism. Affordable housing was another stroke of luck that made a huge difference in our family. There were affordable apartments mixed into very nice, relatively safe neighborhoods of single family housing. Hard to impossible to find these days.
Anyway, I just think there are a lot of factors and targeting family structure, which is something that won't change overnight, can cause the discussion to end with finger pointing and blame.
It's complicated. And, I do think, as I mentioned, that there are other countries that do it better because they provide better safety nets to support different types of families. Single parents, same sex couples, those parents or children with disabilities, etc ...
I do appreciate you sharing your information and I love informatics. Thanks again!
Richard Reeves of Brookings wrote a book a couple of years ago (" Dream Hoarders -
How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It") that covered many of the issues you raised in your reply.
Here's a link that provides background information about the book:
https://www.brookings.edu/books/dream-hoarders/
Asking people to accept relaxed zoning laws in order to build more affordable housing and to fund more generous social safety net programs at a time when so many people feel that the American Dream is slipping away is a tough ask. Even if those things occurred, however, it's not clear that we could ever negate the advantages of two-parent households that Melissa Kearney outlined in her book (Reeves discusses them as well. There's a short video that shows the impacts of various family structures, race, and education on income inequality and income mobility).
"Assortative mating" (Intermarriage among people who belong to the same upper socioeconomic group) is a real thing. A Brookings analysis from a few years ago suggested that it contributes to income inequality:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/examining-variations-in-marriage-rates-across-colleges/
Pew Research quantified this a few years ago:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/07/college-grads-in-u-s-tend-to-partner-with-each-other-especially-if-their-parents-also-graduated-from-college/
Here's an excerpt:
It’s well established that college graduates in the United States tend to partner with other college graduates. In 2019, 81% of household heads with a bachelor’s degree or more education had a spouse or partner who was also a college graduate.
The piece goes on to say that the phenomenon is even more common among the children of college-educated parents.
To make a long story short, the advantages of strong family structures and education are compelling. That's not to say that people who make different choices can't be successful, but they should make those choices consciously and fully aware of the challenges ahead.
"And yet, between 1990 and 2022, the black teen birth rate fell by more than 80%, according to HHS."
That's a stunning stat.
Always a pleasure to read something from Mr. Roscoe.
Thanks for the kind words.
No basis for me to comment on HBCUs…I can note that Thomas Sowell and Ian Rowe have documented the need for both solid educators and schools along with a family structure that values education…rather than focus at the higher education levels, to change the dynamics you have to start way back in first grade..,once kids are behind by 3rd grade..very difficult for them to catch up…agree with the other writer you have to look at the degrees being obtained,..makes a huge difference in income generated…until parents demand excellence in education and emphasize this at home, nothing will change
I am a relatively new subscriber (I signed up after Glenn's discussion of Ta-Nehisi Coates' new book).
I disagree with the majority of Glenn (and John's) take on race and the Black American experience but I understand it. I was raised in the "better to be equal" segment of Black America and am roughly the same age as John.
With regards to the HBCU question, I am not only disagree but think that the analysis is WAY off. A few facts to take into account and some context. I added a couple of comparable liberal arts colleges (you really cannot compare Spelman to Georgi Tech, it's like comparing apples to automobiles).a
Let's look at the percentage of students on Pell Grants (a proxy for low income students) in the class that entered in 2017 (used to track 6 year graduation rates as of 2023 per the Federal Common Data Set)
Emory University - 18.7%
Georgia Tech - 12.9%
Spelman College - 44.9%
Bryn Mawr (1 of the 7 sisters liberal arts colleges) - 14.7%
Mount Holyoke (another of the 7 sisters) - 17.2% (2016 cohort)
Now let's look at comparative earnings (from the federal college scorecard) for the same majors
Emory University: English $62K / International Relations $80K
Georgia Tech engineering school, not comparable to a liberal arts college (no English majors)
Spelman College: English $64K / International Studies $73K
Bryn Mawr: English $50K / International Studies $51K
Mount Holyoke: English $43K / International Relations $74K
OK, how about endowment per student:
Emory University - $682K
Georgia Tech - $82K (as best as I could find)
Spelman College - $230K
Bryn Mawr - $664K
Mount Holyoke - $426K
So, perhaps I have convinced you that your analysis is incorrect as it relates to Spelman (the school I know best). What about HBCUs in general.
Have any of you read a book titled "The State Must Provide" by Atlantic writer Adam Harris? It documents how HBCU land grant colleges have been shorted billions of dollars that they were due based on the Morrill Land Grant Act. More recently, in September 2023 the White House calculated that, just over the past 3 decades, public HBCUs have been cheated out of $13 Billion that they should have received from their states.
HBCUs have a history of doing more with less, educating all comers, and serving our people when nobody else would.
By the way, I will stack up a Spelman education against ANY wealthy PWI that does not even attempt to educate low income students (an embarrassment given their immense resources) never mind Black students. HBCUs are not perfect, but they address a real need and will be even more crucial in the coming years as PWIs become less hospitable for Black students. Spelman's applications have hit new records by the way.
All of the data I mention above is publicly available.
Sorry, but you're missing the point when it comes to the HBCU ROI calculations. The 20-year values speak for themselves. Consider another Atlanta-based college - Georgia State University. Its 20-year ROI is $365,000 for in state students and $304,000 for out of state students. Four years at Georgia State costs $181,000 for an out of state student vs. $207,000 at Spelman and $198,000 at Morehouse. A typical student would get more bang for their bucks at Georgia State than Spelman.
Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) has a similar college HBCU calculator:
https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/roi2022/
You won't find an HBCU near the top of their list or the one from Payscale. That's why I wrote that the impacts of HBCUs are modest. They're not creating large numbers of black graduates ready to compete for the highest value work. Part of the problem, as I mentioned in my post, is that black students tend to cluster in low-paying majors. Georgetown's CEW did an analysis of this several years ago:
https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/african-american-majors/
The root of the problem begins upstream. Students who don't have strong STEM foundations when they graduate from high school, for example, rarely manage to become good STEM students in college. Doubling down on HBCUs doesn't address this issue.
Keep in mind that HBCUs only educate 9% of America's black college students. The remaining 91% are attending other schools. This is another indication of the modest impacts of HBCUs.
First, let's take a look at Georgia State vs Spelman (notwithstanding that they are completely different types of institutions).
Percent Pell Grant
Georgia State - 55%
Spelman - 45%
6 year graduation rate
GSU - 56%
Spelman 76%
ROI (keeping major constant) after accounting for the risk of non-completion of degree (from The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity)
GSU BA English - $133K
Spelman BA English - $308K
GSU BA Economics - $427K (GSU does not offer International Relations)
Spelman BA Economics - $826K
So, GSU has a modestly higher percentage of low income students but a lower graduation rate. Controlling for major, in some fields Spelman has a higher ROI. GSU is publicly funded.
I believe that comparing Spelman to its peer institutions (Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Kenyon, Lafayette, Bucknell, etc.) and controlling for major is a better comparison. Spelman is a selective liberal arts college, compare it to its peers.
More broadly speaking, if we are going to look at public colleges, we cannot ignore the $13 Billion (at a minimum) of Morrill Land Grant funding that was stolen from public HBCUs. I tell you what, restore ALL of that funding and then we can start to compare HBCUs to other colleges.
Regarding STEM majors, HBCUs disproportionately graduate Black students in these fields according to studies done by Higher Ed Today.
I do not claim that HBCUs are a cure-all for what ails the Black community, whether you think (as I do) that the cause is both ongoing and historic racism or (as Glenn & John do) cultural issues, the casual dismissal of HBCUs is unfortunate and does nothing to advance our plight in America.
Is this the source you used?
https://freopp.org/roi-landing/
https://freopp.org/roi-undergraduate/
If so, the numbers aren't comparable to the Payscale results because they're based upon lifetime results instead of 20 year results. It's not clear how the adjustment for risk of not graduating and not graduating on time are calculated. It's also not clear if financial aid is included in the calculations (Payscale provides both sets of figures. The numbers in my post that don't include financial aid because I wanted an apples to apples comparison). Caveats noted, the overall picture remains the same. Georgia State's graduating class, as a group, gets more value from their degrees than Spelman's graduating class. We can debate why that is, but the bottom line is the bottom line.
What you say is a "casual dismissal" of HBCUs is a realistic assessment of their limitations. They only educate 9% of America's black college students, many of whom earn degrees that don't allow them to compete for the highest value work.
As for the causes of what ails the black community, Glenn has proposed two narratives - the bias narrative and the development narrative. This City Journal essay provides an overview of both narratives:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-bias-narrative-v-the-development-narrative
There's no doubt that bias was a major hindrance to black progress before the civil rights era began and at least through much of the 1980s. The question is why did black progress stall out as most forms of bias began to recede? The development narrative is a more compelling answer to that question than the bias narrative. Derek Neal of the University of Chicago did a paper back in 2006 ("Why Did Has The Black-White Skill Convergence Stopped?") that explores this issue:
https://www.nber.org/papers/w11090
Here's the abstract:
All data sources indicate that black-white skill gaps diminished over most of the 20th century, but black-white skill gaps as measured by test scores among youth and educational attainment among young adults have remained constant or increased in absolute value since the late 1980s. I examine the potential importance of discrimination against skilled black workers, changes in black family structures, changes in black household incomes, black-white differences in parenting norms, and education policy as factors that may contribute to the recent stability of black-white skill gaps. Absent changes in public policy or the economy that facilitate investment in black children, best case scenarios suggest that even approximate black-white skill parity is not possible before 2050, and equally plausible scenarios imply that the black-white skill gap will remain quite significant throughout the 21st century.
The people who believe in the bias narrative had held sway within Black America. They've convinced a majority of black people that almost all of America's institutions were designed to hold black people back according to Pew Research:
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/06/15/most-black-americans-believe-u-s-institutions-were-designed-to-hold-black-people-back/
Some of us believe that the development narrative better explains the stagnation that plagues Black America today. We believe that stronger family structures, a renewed and sustained emphasis on education, and cultural shifts are needed in order to close the racial gaps (e.g. income wealth, education, life expectancy, etc.) that people talk about.
We will have to agree to disagree and yes I did use the FREEOP database. The Georgetown study provides a data point but without holding major constant, you really cannot determine the quality of the education or a true ROI.
3 other things though:
You never addressed the documented theft of funds allocated for public HBCUs under the Morrill Land Grant. This may have something to do with some of the challenges they face. Imagine what these schools could do with the $13 Billion that was stolen from them.
People do not attend a college "in general" they go and major in something. Comparing the ROI of a college "in general" does not really may sense. Would you, or most people, advise a student who wanted to attend Brown to study English (median earnings $55k) or Psychology ($63K) or Harvard to study English ($64K) vs Accounting at Baruch College CUNY ($114K)? While you may choose Baruch, I would bet that most would select Brown or Harvard. (all data from the federal College Scorecard)
It true that HBCUs enroll a very small percentage of Black students but they disproportionately produce Doctors, STEM professionals, and judges. From Forbes (Nov 7, 2024):
"According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have consistently produced over 25% of all African American STEM graduates despite representing only a small percentage of colleges and universities nationwide (3%)."
Why does the NAEP data for Illinois omit Asian scores? Usually, these kinds of matters are framed as whites versus blacks (plus, sometimes, Latinos) and Asian test scores, which tend to be the highest of all, are often conveniently (?) omitted. This has the effect of bolstering the claim that it is white racism that is the cause of all disparities — and that’s a harder argument to make when Asian scores are also included.
You raise a good point. Chicago's racial composition is 32% white, 28% black, 30% Latino, and 7% Asian according to the US Census Bureau:
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/chicagocityillinois/PST045224
From a political perspective, the balance of power has traditionally been roughly one third white, one third black, and one third Latino. Wirepoints is based in Chicago, so they tend to report this kind of data in ways that are consistent with the political balance of power. They should include Asian results, but they don't.
You can access the Illinois figures with this link:
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile/overview/IL?sfj=NP&chort=1&sub=MAT&sj=IL&st=MN&year=2024R3&cti=PgTab_OT
Here's a sample of some of the results, including scores for Asians:
4th Grade Math, percent proficient:
Asian - 62%
Black - 18%
Hispanic - 20%
White - 53%
4th Grade Math, percent advanced:
Asian - 26%
Black 1%
Hispanic - 3%
White - 13%
Here are the comparable numbers for reading:
4th Grade Reading, percent proficient:
Asian - 57%
Black - 18%
Hispanic - 21%
White - 37%
4th Grade Reading, percent advanced:
Asian - 22%
Black - 5%
Hispanic - 4%
White - 12%
As usual, I am delighted to see Mr. Roscoe offer a thoughtful and well-organized contribution. If the education piece is the remaindered "villain" in these calculations, I am afraid we will be in for a bad time. Freddy de Boer and others have noted that educational attainment stabilizes early in a child's life and tends to be refractory to various interventions such as money investment per student, teacher training, class size, and organizational hierarchies. As far as I know, no demonstration projects have been successfully scaled. To that end, nothing much has changed since the Coleman Report in the 1960s, when I had a psychometrics professor point out that Coleman used some improper statistical methods that "softened" some of his results.
Thanks for the kind words.
Good to read your writing again Clifton, thanks. While the connection between marriage and outcomes is obvious, it is a lagging indicator to the deterioration of values and opportunities of the underclass, and I don't see any programmatic way to materially affect that issue. Any improvement has to start within Glenn's observation that social capital is a prerequisite for human capital, and the failures of public education should make it a target. The only institution able to combine social capital and education in the inner city is the black church, and I think the Trump administration would support that effort if attempted.
Thanks for your comment and kind words. I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. G for indulging my prattles and Mark Sussman for polishing them.
I agree with your point about black churches, but it has to be noted that younger black people are less likely to attend church than their elders. A Pew Research analysis from 2021 said that only about 30% of Gen Z and Millennial blacks attend services at a black congregation compared to about half of black Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation (See Number 5):
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/02/16/10-new-findings-about-faith-among-black-americans/
An Associated Press piece from 2023 highlighted another Pew analysis that said black Protestant church attendance has fallen in recent years:
https://apnews.com/article/black-protestant-church-attendance-youth-covid-pandemic-5d854b4db73e118cb22767220573455f
Here's an excerpt:
"Zion’s shrinking attendance is in line with a recent Pew Research Center survey; it found a significant attendance drop among Black Protestants that is unmatched by any other major religious group. The number of Black Protestants who say they attend services monthly has fallen from 61% in 2019 to 46% now, said Pew, and they are the only group in which more than half (54%) attend services virtually." (a link to the Pew survey is embedded in the source article)
Both pieces suggest that the influence of the black church is waning.
Many Americans are struggling to make ends meet and to achieve their version of the American Dream. An economic message that emphasized the importance of education and strong family structures might resonate at a time when America has a higher percentage of children living with single parents than any country in the world:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/
I'll rephrase it as who else? And what other entity can inclucate values? And if not now, when Trump is taking a sledgehammer to the bureaucratic edifice, when? A message will not be sufficient if the recipient is mired in concentrated and generational poverty, so implementation is key. Perhaps we'll see a more general expansion of vouchers and charter schools and let the market decide.
I'm all for churches emphasizing the importance of education and strong family structures, but my sense is that other "influencers" (e.g., business leaders, economists, financial advisers, etc.) can play a role as well. An updated presentation about "The Success Sequence" would be a good place to start.
I agree the message is good but my point is that if you don't change the environment it overwhelms the message and nothing changes. I just don't see any other way for effective secondary education for a population lacking the necessary social capital. And then you have post-secondary...
We're mostly in agreement. Where we might disagree is that I sense an open lane for public intellectuals with new ideas to influence how people think about these things.
inculcate