I should feel free to check my privilege, but this actually seems like an even-handed discussion. Scroll down to "Other Explanations for the Racial Scoring Gap on the SAT."
""" Clearly, one of the main factors in explaining the SAT racial gap is that black students almost across the board are not being adequately schooled to perform well on the SAT and similar tests. Public schools in many neighborhoods with large black populations are underfunded, inadequately staffed, and ill equipped to provide the same quality of secondary education that is offered in predominantly white suburban school districts. """
""" In many cases black schoolchildren are taught by white teachers who have low opinions of the abilities of black kids from the moment they enter the classroom. These teachers immediately write off black students as academic inferiors and do not challenge them sufficiently to achieve the skills necessary to perform well on standardized tests. """
The thing is, we're nerds. We ought to think more critically than "black people are disproportionately poor and perform less well academically, oh well, that's that." Pre-chewed explanations like that ought to be anathema, especially when they're deployed in the service of a cultural agenda.
But there's a disturbing tendency to ignore the US' complex and problematic history with racism. It's lazy. It's a cop-out.
There's a disturbing issue not to think seriously about the causes of educational inequalities at all, at least not to the point where people weigh more than one hypothesis.
I've found the writings of a high school teacher under the name "education realist" to be thought-provoking. That's where I got this link from. He may be a Voldemort[1], but he's an honest one.
Yes, I've noticed that as well. Yet no matter how much you try to convince them that this stuff is complicated and many different factors are at work, some people just keep coming back to race as if it was the only thing that matters.
""" Clearly, one of the main factors in explaining the SAT racial gap is that black students almost across the board are not being adequately schooled to perform well on the SAT and similar tests. Public schools in many neighborhoods with large black populations are underfunded, inadequately staffed, and ill equipped to provide the same quality of secondary education that is offered in predominantly white suburban school districts. """
""" In many cases black schoolchildren are taught by white teachers who have low opinions of the abilities of black kids from the moment they enter the classroom. These teachers immediately write off black students as academic inferiors and do not challenge them sufficiently to achieve the skills necessary to perform well on standardized tests. """
The thing is, we're nerds. We ought to think more critically than "black people are disproportionately poor and perform less well academically, oh well, that's that." Pre-chewed explanations like that ought to be anathema, especially when they're deployed in the service of a cultural agenda.
But there's a disturbing tendency to ignore the US' complex and problematic history with racism. It's lazy. It's a cop-out.