"Finally, the Thernstroms conclude, `The employer hiring the typical
black high school graduate (or the college that admits the average
black student) is, in effect, choosing a youngster who has made it
only through the eighth grade.`"
....................................................................................................................
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040428.shtml
Poor education prognosis
Walter E. Williams (archive)
April 28, 2004 | Print | Send
Drs. Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom's new book "No Excuses: Closing
the Racial Gap in Learning" shows that the government education whites
receive is nothing to write home about, but for blacks, it's no less
than a disgraceful disaster.
According to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
findings, only in writing do less than 40 percent of black high school
students test "below basic." NAEP defines below basic as being unable
to demonstrate even "partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and
skills that are fundamental for proficient work" at their grade. In
math, 70 percent and, in science, 75 percent of black students score
below basic.
Black high school graduates perform a little worse than white
eighth-graders in both reading and U.S. history, and a lot worse in
math and geography. The Thernstroms report, "In math and geography,
indeed, they know no more than whites in the seventh grade." Finally,
the Thernstroms conclude, "The employer hiring the typical black high
school graduate (or the college that admits the average black student)
is, in effect, choosing a youngster who has made it only through the
eighth grade."
University of Dayton Law School Professor Vernellia R. Randall has an
essay on her Web site titled "LSAT Discrimination and Minorities." The
LSAT is an admissions test used at most law schools; a student can
score between 120 and 180. Criticizing the use of the LSAT as an
admissions criteria, Professor Randall says, "For example, based on a
LSAT cut-off of 145, over 60 percent of black applicants will be
presumptively denied, but only 20 percent of white applicants will be
presumptively denied." This, according to Professor Randall, is racial
discrimination. It turns out that at top law schools such as
University of Chicago, Yale and Harvard, even if a student scored 165
(better than 85 percent of test-takers) and had a GPA of 3.9, there's
no guarantee of admission. At these law schools, the lowest LSAT
scores and GPAs are 168 and 3.5, and their highs are 174 and 3.9
respectively.
Let's connect the dots between the Thernstroms' evidence and
Randall's complaint. The typical black student enters college well
behind the typical white student. This is partially evidenced by the
2002 average SAT scores of black students (857) compared to white
students (1060), a 200-point difference. The grossly poor 12 years of
primary and secondary education that black students receive is not
likely to be made up in four or five years of college, if ever.
Therefore, no one should be surprised by poor black performance on
graduate admissions tests such as LSAT, GRE and MCAT.
What makes the catch-up even more unlikely is the soft bigotry of low
expectations and affirmative-action grading by white liberal
professors and the selection by black students of touchy-feely
curricula such as black studies, women's studies, multicultural
studies, education, and other curricula of little academic content and
challenge.
There's no question that black students can compete academically, but
they face a perverse set of incentives. First, racial preferences in
college admissions reduce the incentive to work as hard as they might
in high school. The fact that colleges have race preferences in
admissions helps conceal fraud at the government schools that confer
diplomas attesting that a student is proficient at the 12th grade when
in fact he might not be proficient at the eighth, ninth or 10th grade.
The irony and tragedy of this story is that the primary victims of
fraudulent education give their allegiance to politicians and civil
rights organizations who've become handmaidens of the education
establishment and fight against any measure that threatens
accountability, competition and alternatives to government schools.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
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