Some Sacramento-area students decline to state their race - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee
Quote from an Elk Grove principal:
"I'd love to look at individual kids and leave it at that, but we wouldn't even know there was an achievement gap if we didn't measure our kids," he said. "There must be a systemic reason and we need to figure out what causes it and how to fix it."
Does anyone else think part of the "systemic reason" might be making kids check a box in the first place?
That's an overly simplistic explanation. Achievement disparities do exist but tend to reflect culture not race. Yet liberals get sidetracked by the race issue, blaming discrimination wherever there is an achievement gap. If you're interested in this subject, I'd recommend taking a look at Thomas Sowell's works on race and ethnicity. See http://www.tsowell.com
ReplyDeleteOverly simplistic? do you mean me? I didn't say eliminating box checking would solve the problem...just that race identifying might be "part" of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for getting rid of the stupid boxes where they aren't truly helpful. But wouldn't you agree that cultural values, etc. drive academic performance? If so, then eliminating the boxes is more symbolic than substantive. It's not fair to argue that they are part of the "systemic reason," unless you are willing to argue we can make substantive progress by taking them away.
ReplyDeleteRace-identification is a much broader cultural phenomenon than mere check boxes. Is race identification of all kinds your real target? If so, how do you propose eliminating it? How much of the achievement gap would you expect to solve?
but the boxes don't speak to culture or values. only biology.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think we can make progress by recognizing that achievement has nothing to do with race and everything to do with EVERYTHING else.
Biology?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your second point and maintain that such a recognition requires a broad shift in cultural thinking, rather than mere elimination of check boxes.