This showed up in the Chronicle of Higher Education but I don't know if either participant has seen it. https://www.brookings.edu/2023/01/23/college-enrollment-gaps-how-academic-preparation-influences-opportunity/ In short these researchers found that 62% of Black students do go to college in some form and higher SES and academic preparation might make Black students more likely to attend college than equivalent white students. This suggests that differing school districts may spend exactly the same amount of money but have different expectations about how much of it is just to avoid the worst possible outcomes for the students. It feeds into Greg's point that even if the strengths in the Black community are not enough to save the community by themselves now, if they are not treated as something to build on then the worst-off members of the community may not thrive.
Thanks for your comment. I hadn't seen the Brooking analysis you referenced and haven't had a chance to read it carefully. I'm surprised they say 62% of black students go to college. That's inconsistent with data from the National Center for Education Statistics that says the overall college enrollment rate for 18 to 24 year-olds was 40% in 2020 and that the enrollment rate for blacks was 36%:
The overall college enrollment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds was 40 percent in 2020. The college enrollment rate in 2020 was higher for 18- to 24-year-olds who were Asian (64 percent) than for those who were White (41 percent), Hispanic (36 percent), Black (36 percent), of Two or more races (34 percent), Pacific Islander (34 percent), and American Indian/Alaska Native (22 percent).
College can be a pathway to a lucrative career, but only if you graduate. The college completion rates I quoted from the National Center for Education Statistics show graduation rates for black college students are lower than those of their peers. More recent analyses from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center and Third Way show a similar pattern:
A look at NAEP scores and ACT college readiness benchmarks shows that black students, as a group, enter college not as well prepared as their peers. Here's a link for ACT college readiness scores:
Download the 2022 National Profile Report and go to Figure 3.1 or Table 3.3 if you want to do a deep dive.
It stands to reason that students entering college who aren't as well prepared as their peers will struggle and that fewer of them will graduate.
I'm not sure how to interpret this part of your comment:
"This suggests that differing school districts may spend exactly the same amount of money but have different expectations about how much of it is just to avoid the worst possible outcomes for the students. It feeds into Greg's point that even if the strengths in the Black community are not enough to save the community by themselves now, if they are not treated as something to build on then the worst-off members of the community may not thrive."
The money spent per pupil on instruction by K-12 schools doesn't vary much by race according to the St. Louis Fed. That doesn't totally refute your point about schools potentially trying to "avoid the worst possible outcomes" for students, but I don't know how to measure this. Either way, the question is what can we do to boost the academic performance of black students? We have to take a hard look at things like chronic absenteeism and parental engagement if we want to close the gap.
That 62% a) includes 2-year colleges and b) was based on the High School Longitudinal Survey which is a representative sample of 2009-10 ninth graders, so the survey must have some way to track them.
I tried so hard to write that about expectations clearly; I am not sure I know how to measure it in an objective way either. But my fundamental position which I at least tried to email Glenn last year is that telling Black Americans to emulate Jews and some Asian groups is telling Black Americans to emulate groups where education is a value. These groups will elevate any school system they are in because they have a notion of the value of education and what education should be like independent of that school system. In St. Louis where I live, Sumner High School was by all accounts a wonderful school that after integration fell on such hard times that the school board was thinking about closing it, but in general segregation squelched the notion of education as a value in so many people because there could be only so many jobs for educated people and education was used to show Black people that they were inferior by such things as the Black schools obviously having fewer resources than the white schools. So education becomes a kind of good behavior that people believe in for utilitarian reasons. You need to study what the school system considers that their success means and that may need a deep study of what teachers and administrators actually say and do.
Thanks for your comments and your clarification of the Brookings analysis. I eventually figured it out after looking at the Appendix.
I agree with you about expectations at school, but I don't know how to measure it either. This is especially true at a time when teachers are often pressured to modify grades (e.g., No zeros allowed. Nobody gets less than a 50 even if they didn't turn in their assignment. Teachers are encouraged to give students second chances to do make up work to offset poor or missed assignments. Etc.) and to ignore disciplinary issues in order to minimize suspensions and expulsions. The overall message seems to be that kids need to move on to the next grade except in extraordinary circumstances. Teachers who give kids failing grades often open themselves up to harsh scrutiny.
This showed up in the Chronicle of Higher Education but I don't know if either participant has seen it. https://www.brookings.edu/2023/01/23/college-enrollment-gaps-how-academic-preparation-influences-opportunity/ In short these researchers found that 62% of Black students do go to college in some form and higher SES and academic preparation might make Black students more likely to attend college than equivalent white students. This suggests that differing school districts may spend exactly the same amount of money but have different expectations about how much of it is just to avoid the worst possible outcomes for the students. It feeds into Greg's point that even if the strengths in the Black community are not enough to save the community by themselves now, if they are not treated as something to build on then the worst-off members of the community may not thrive.
Thanks for your comment. I hadn't seen the Brooking analysis you referenced and haven't had a chance to read it carefully. I'm surprised they say 62% of black students go to college. That's inconsistent with data from the National Center for Education Statistics that says the overall college enrollment rate for 18 to 24 year-olds was 40% in 2020 and that the enrollment rate for blacks was 36%:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cpb
Here's an excerpt:
The overall college enrollment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds was 40 percent in 2020. The college enrollment rate in 2020 was higher for 18- to 24-year-olds who were Asian (64 percent) than for those who were White (41 percent), Hispanic (36 percent), Black (36 percent), of Two or more races (34 percent), Pacific Islander (34 percent), and American Indian/Alaska Native (22 percent).
College can be a pathway to a lucrative career, but only if you graduate. The college completion rates I quoted from the National Center for Education Statistics show graduation rates for black college students are lower than those of their peers. More recent analyses from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center and Third Way show a similar pattern:
https://nscresearchcenter.org/completing-college/
https://www.thirdway.org/graphic/sticky-facts-on-college-completion
A look at NAEP scores and ACT college readiness benchmarks shows that black students, as a group, enter college not as well prepared as their peers. Here's a link for ACT college readiness scores:
https://www.act.org/content/act/en/research/services-and-resources/data-and-visualization/grad-class-database-2022.html
Download the 2022 National Profile Report and go to Figure 3.1 or Table 3.3 if you want to do a deep dive.
It stands to reason that students entering college who aren't as well prepared as their peers will struggle and that fewer of them will graduate.
I'm not sure how to interpret this part of your comment:
"This suggests that differing school districts may spend exactly the same amount of money but have different expectations about how much of it is just to avoid the worst possible outcomes for the students. It feeds into Greg's point that even if the strengths in the Black community are not enough to save the community by themselves now, if they are not treated as something to build on then the worst-off members of the community may not thrive."
The money spent per pupil on instruction by K-12 schools doesn't vary much by race according to the St. Louis Fed. That doesn't totally refute your point about schools potentially trying to "avoid the worst possible outcomes" for students, but I don't know how to measure this. Either way, the question is what can we do to boost the academic performance of black students? We have to take a hard look at things like chronic absenteeism and parental engagement if we want to close the gap.
That 62% a) includes 2-year colleges and b) was based on the High School Longitudinal Survey which is a representative sample of 2009-10 ninth graders, so the survey must have some way to track them.
I tried so hard to write that about expectations clearly; I am not sure I know how to measure it in an objective way either. But my fundamental position which I at least tried to email Glenn last year is that telling Black Americans to emulate Jews and some Asian groups is telling Black Americans to emulate groups where education is a value. These groups will elevate any school system they are in because they have a notion of the value of education and what education should be like independent of that school system. In St. Louis where I live, Sumner High School was by all accounts a wonderful school that after integration fell on such hard times that the school board was thinking about closing it, but in general segregation squelched the notion of education as a value in so many people because there could be only so many jobs for educated people and education was used to show Black people that they were inferior by such things as the Black schools obviously having fewer resources than the white schools. So education becomes a kind of good behavior that people believe in for utilitarian reasons. You need to study what the school system considers that their success means and that may need a deep study of what teachers and administrators actually say and do.
Thanks for your comments and your clarification of the Brookings analysis. I eventually figured it out after looking at the Appendix.
I agree with you about expectations at school, but I don't know how to measure it either. This is especially true at a time when teachers are often pressured to modify grades (e.g., No zeros allowed. Nobody gets less than a 50 even if they didn't turn in their assignment. Teachers are encouraged to give students second chances to do make up work to offset poor or missed assignments. Etc.) and to ignore disciplinary issues in order to minimize suspensions and expulsions. The overall message seems to be that kids need to move on to the next grade except in extraordinary circumstances. Teachers who give kids failing grades often open themselves up to harsh scrutiny.
(nods intently)