Thank you for your well-considered writings, your engagement with reader comments, and your always excellent and to-the-point links, Mr. Roscoe. I look forward to more of your contributions.
I'm quite familiar, as you might guess, with the majority of Charles Murray's published works and public appearances over the last 5 decades. I highly recommend his "Real Education" for those, such as yourself, who fool themselves in thinking education reform can and will "close the gap." Murray is something of a hero to me, both for his courageous perseverance in the face of withering social and professional condemnation and isolation as well as the intellectual honesty evidenced in his relentless pursuit of the truth wherever it leads (see "conservative" Murray's "Coming Apart" bookended with "liberal" Robert Putnam's "Our Kids" as an example).
One small quibble. The persistence of achievement gaps suggest that there are limits to what can be accomplished through education reform. The most recent research I've seen says that achievement gaps are evident with children in kindergarten. Here's a link to a report titled "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Advanced Science and Mathematics Achievement During Elementary School:"
We analyzed a population-based cohort (N = 10,922) to investigate the onset and stability of racial and ethnic disparities in advanced (i.e., above the 90th percentile) science and mathematics achievement during elementary school as well as the antecedent, opportunity, and propensity factors that explained these disparities. About 13% to 16% of White students versus 3% to 4% of Black or Hispanic students displayed advanced science or mathematics achievement during kindergarten. The antecedent factor of family socioeconomic status and the propensity factors of student science, mathematics, and reading achievement by kindergarten consistently explained whether students displayed advanced science or mathematics achievement during first, second, third, fourth, or fifth grade. These and additional factors substantially or fully explained initially observed disparities between Black or Hispanic and White students in advanced science or mathematics achievement during elementary school. Economic and educational policies designed to increase racial and ethnic representation in STEM course taking, degree completion, and workforce participation may need to begin by elementary school.
All the above suggests that an accumulation of things that take place away from school may be more impactful than what happens at school. Derek Neal touched on some of these things in his analysis. I'll readily concede that I'm not aware of anybody who knows how to address these issues at scale. A good first step would be a rigorous, "no holds barred" analysis of why progress stalled out more than 30 years ago.
I suspect Brown vs. Board (school desegregation) had a great deal to do with the phenomenon you, Murray, and Neal point out. Prior to Brown, blacks students were largely educated by black teachers in either de jure or de facto segregated schools. Brown changed everything. More resources (facilities, instructional materials, and more capable teachers) were made available and eventually pushed through to reluctant, even rebellious, school districts specifically to improve the education of black kids. Additionally, the Cold War emphasis on education generally focused the nation on its schools, drawing even more resources and capable people into teaching—my mother was one, giving up her secretarial job to teach English while working toward her Master's degree at night school at Wayne State.
However, increasing black social dysfunction (think 1960s riots and 1970s school busing) drove whites (parents, kids, and teachers) from city schools to the suburbs. Chaos in the classrooms increased and learning cratered. Real estate values crashed as whites fled, significantly eroding the tax base to fund the schools. Looting of education budgets by cronies of the new political regime along with revolving-door superintendents begat decaying facilities, substandard teaching materials, and severely reduced extra-curricular clubs, field trips, and other educational and socialization activities. Eventually, the level of actual education hit rock bottom but the schools still produced "graduates", though ones largely unable to read, write, perform math, understand history and geography and all the other hallmarks of present day inner-city schools we all know so well in the USA.
I lived through this era and saw first-hand the destruction of our neighborhood elementary/middle school in Detroit in the 1960s. As "the line" of black expansion moved ever closer to our westside neighborhood, the number of black kids in our hitherto almost exclusively white school began to increase. Once the block-busting began in earnest and white flight hit its stride, the school went from less than 10% to 40% black in just two years in the late 1960s. The school grounds, hallways, and classrooms became a war zone with ritual humiliations, loud disruptive arguments, and dangerous fights between whites and blacks almost every day. I strongly resisted the predation of the black gangs (most whites gave up and gave in) and was suspended for fighting (back) multiple times in my final year there. When the principal showed my mother his collection of confiscated weapons (knives, sharpened screwdrivers, etc.) taken from students of both colors in recent months, my parents began planning our own family's escape from this nightmare. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late for me. A minor argument broke into a vicious fight between me and a black troublemaker. I disarmed him and left him bleeding and vowing revenge. The next day, he arranged for some black friends from a nearby high school to come to our school to settle things with me once and for all. By sheer luck, I saw them coming and hid in the school library which had a stout lockable door. The 2nd grade class there and the librarian were shocked, but I managed to ride things out until police arrived and school was cancelled for the afternoon. I never went back. I was whisked away to Florida to stay with my grandparents, and when the summer was over and I finally returned to Detroit, I found that our family had moved across the Detroit River to Windsor Ontario in Canada. After my searing experience in the Detroit school system over the last few years, being among the friendly Canadian kids (of all colors and origins) and experiencing the excellent education and extracurricular opportunities I received there was like I had died and gone to heaven.
Thank you for your well-considered writings, your engagement with reader comments, and your always excellent and to-the-point links, Mr. Roscoe. I look forward to more of your contributions.
I'm quite familiar, as you might guess, with the majority of Charles Murray's published works and public appearances over the last 5 decades. I highly recommend his "Real Education" for those, such as yourself, who fool themselves in thinking education reform can and will "close the gap." Murray is something of a hero to me, both for his courageous perseverance in the face of withering social and professional condemnation and isolation as well as the intellectual honesty evidenced in his relentless pursuit of the truth wherever it leads (see "conservative" Murray's "Coming Apart" bookended with "liberal" Robert Putnam's "Our Kids" as an example).
Thanks for your comments.
One small quibble. The persistence of achievement gaps suggest that there are limits to what can be accomplished through education reform. The most recent research I've seen says that achievement gaps are evident with children in kindergarten. Here's a link to a report titled "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Advanced Science and Mathematics Achievement During Elementary School:"
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00169862221128299?af=R&ai=1gvoi&mi=3ricys
Here's the Abstract:
Abstract
We analyzed a population-based cohort (N = 10,922) to investigate the onset and stability of racial and ethnic disparities in advanced (i.e., above the 90th percentile) science and mathematics achievement during elementary school as well as the antecedent, opportunity, and propensity factors that explained these disparities. About 13% to 16% of White students versus 3% to 4% of Black or Hispanic students displayed advanced science or mathematics achievement during kindergarten. The antecedent factor of family socioeconomic status and the propensity factors of student science, mathematics, and reading achievement by kindergarten consistently explained whether students displayed advanced science or mathematics achievement during first, second, third, fourth, or fifth grade. These and additional factors substantially or fully explained initially observed disparities between Black or Hispanic and White students in advanced science or mathematics achievement during elementary school. Economic and educational policies designed to increase racial and ethnic representation in STEM course taking, degree completion, and workforce participation may need to begin by elementary school.
All the above suggests that an accumulation of things that take place away from school may be more impactful than what happens at school. Derek Neal touched on some of these things in his analysis. I'll readily concede that I'm not aware of anybody who knows how to address these issues at scale. A good first step would be a rigorous, "no holds barred" analysis of why progress stalled out more than 30 years ago.
I suspect Brown vs. Board (school desegregation) had a great deal to do with the phenomenon you, Murray, and Neal point out. Prior to Brown, blacks students were largely educated by black teachers in either de jure or de facto segregated schools. Brown changed everything. More resources (facilities, instructional materials, and more capable teachers) were made available and eventually pushed through to reluctant, even rebellious, school districts specifically to improve the education of black kids. Additionally, the Cold War emphasis on education generally focused the nation on its schools, drawing even more resources and capable people into teaching—my mother was one, giving up her secretarial job to teach English while working toward her Master's degree at night school at Wayne State.
However, increasing black social dysfunction (think 1960s riots and 1970s school busing) drove whites (parents, kids, and teachers) from city schools to the suburbs. Chaos in the classrooms increased and learning cratered. Real estate values crashed as whites fled, significantly eroding the tax base to fund the schools. Looting of education budgets by cronies of the new political regime along with revolving-door superintendents begat decaying facilities, substandard teaching materials, and severely reduced extra-curricular clubs, field trips, and other educational and socialization activities. Eventually, the level of actual education hit rock bottom but the schools still produced "graduates", though ones largely unable to read, write, perform math, understand history and geography and all the other hallmarks of present day inner-city schools we all know so well in the USA.
I lived through this era and saw first-hand the destruction of our neighborhood elementary/middle school in Detroit in the 1960s. As "the line" of black expansion moved ever closer to our westside neighborhood, the number of black kids in our hitherto almost exclusively white school began to increase. Once the block-busting began in earnest and white flight hit its stride, the school went from less than 10% to 40% black in just two years in the late 1960s. The school grounds, hallways, and classrooms became a war zone with ritual humiliations, loud disruptive arguments, and dangerous fights between whites and blacks almost every day. I strongly resisted the predation of the black gangs (most whites gave up and gave in) and was suspended for fighting (back) multiple times in my final year there. When the principal showed my mother his collection of confiscated weapons (knives, sharpened screwdrivers, etc.) taken from students of both colors in recent months, my parents began planning our own family's escape from this nightmare. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late for me. A minor argument broke into a vicious fight between me and a black troublemaker. I disarmed him and left him bleeding and vowing revenge. The next day, he arranged for some black friends from a nearby high school to come to our school to settle things with me once and for all. By sheer luck, I saw them coming and hid in the school library which had a stout lockable door. The 2nd grade class there and the librarian were shocked, but I managed to ride things out until police arrived and school was cancelled for the afternoon. I never went back. I was whisked away to Florida to stay with my grandparents, and when the summer was over and I finally returned to Detroit, I found that our family had moved across the Detroit River to Windsor Ontario in Canada. After my searing experience in the Detroit school system over the last few years, being among the friendly Canadian kids (of all colors and origins) and experiencing the excellent education and extracurricular opportunities I received there was like I had died and gone to heaven.