I recently started reading the book, In Schools We Trust by Deborah Meier. I discovered that this book mainly focuses on the standardized tests that all students are required to take in order to pursue a college education and overall public education in general, but it does talk about African-American students in the public school system. Meier mentions that standardized tests "undermine the education we truly want". I was mainly focused in reading the chapter titled "The Achievement Gap" seeing as though she gets to the core of my topic.
Meier also has Boston roots in that she is the founder of the Mission Hill School in our very own Boston, Massachusetts.
Meier defines the achievement gap as, "The gap in achievement on almost all standard measures based on socioeconomic class and income, and also the gap that is evident when race is viewed as a separate category" (137). Meier talks a lot about family income as well as parental education. She claims that minority drop-out rates, college attendance and graduation from college remains high as compared to whites even after they correct for income and years of parental education (138). So according to Meier, family income and parental education aren't causes of the achievement gap - I disagree with this. I believe that family income and parental education are both two huge factors in the achievement gap. I don't believe in causation with this issue, as I don't believe that any ONE thing is a direct cause, but rather many things are potential factors. I'd like to see what data she used to make this conclusion.
Meier also talked about a book named The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. In this book, both authors make claims of African-Americans naturally having "low intelligence". They claim that blacks still deserve equal treatment, but knowing that blacks aren't as smart as whites should be taken into account. Hernstein and Murray say that the only plausible factor for the achievement gap is race alone - nothing else. Although this argument in no way could possibly be true, it hurts to see such racist words in actual literature. These authors must not have been familiar with the brilliant minds of WEB DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Ben Carson, etc. The list goes on and on in listing the thousands of educated black pioneers in American and WORLD history.
In Schools We Trust so far is a good book and I look forward to reading more into it.
Pages Read: 88-138
I'm glad you found this book. I've read other things she's written and always find that she gives me a lot to think about.
ReplyDeleteWhat DOES she think is the cause of the gap?
Have you come across any work by Dr. Ron Furgeson? He works at Harvard and was in the NYTimes today (2.14). He worked with BHS on achievement gap stuff several years ago and has a pretty interesting perspective. You might see what you can find about him on line.
Assignment complete = 15/15