Some "soul searching" by Raspberry. At least he is doing it. And you know he is catching hell for it.
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An Attitude Gap
By William Raspberry
Monday, October 13, 2003; Page A19
Speaking frankly and helpfully about the academic achievement gap between black and white students is a lot harder than it ought to be.
It is particularly hard if it is true -- as I believe -- that the gap has less and less to do with racism and more and more to do with the habits and attitudes we inculcate among our children.
I can almost feel the resistance from black Americans to the notion that there is something cultural about the underachievement of black students. Almost as palpable is the easy conclusion on the part of many whites (and I'm not talking about racists) that if black people would just buckle down as other disadvantaged groups have done, many of their problems would evaporate.
And yet -- how hard this is! -- the buckle-down crowd may be closer to the mark. That is not to say that the academic gap (as much as four years by the time of high school graduation) is merely the aggregate result of individual black laziness. It isn't.
But as Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom make clear in their new book, "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning," a significant source of the gap is in the attitudes toward academic achievement that are prevalent in black America, even among the economically successful, college-trained middle class.
For instance, there is the notion that academic success is something almost unnatural -- or at least not a particularly high priority -- for black people. Black students and their parents understand the importance of an academic credential, but often primarily as a ticket to college and good careers. But if that's what it is, then one might as well purchase the ticket at the lowest possible cost: avoidance of challenging courses and performance that is "good enough" rather than the commitment to excellence that eats into social time.
And the differences begin early. One study found that the home of the average white kindergartner had 93 books, the average black less than half as many. The point isn't that the white children score higher because they read all those books but that the differential presence of books reflects a differential interest and investment in learning. (Asian American parents, for instance, may have fewer books but a stronger commitment to learning.)
The Thernstroms' examination of the reasons for the gap both in effort and achievement -- including disproportionate TV-watching, uneven public expenditures, disparate teacher quality and an interesting look at the differences between voluntary and involuntary (slave-descendant) immigrants -- occupies the bulk of their book. But in some ways, their most important message is in the introduction.
Economic success -- even a decent job -- will depend increasingly on solid academic skills. But "too few black and Hispanic youngsters -- particularly those in urban public schools -- have acquired the skills to choose their own path."
Are the politically conservative Thernstroms reluctant to attribute the dysfunctional habits and attitudes of black students to still-existing racism?
In a word, yes. They don't argue that racism has disappeared, but they do argue that it has less effect than ever on what black people can achieve.
That racism significantly limits academic opportunity, they say, is "a familiar but misguided and dangerous claim -- particularly dangerous when delivered to school-age kids making often irrevocable decisions about who they are and where they're going. Pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Does giving voice to this message amount to "giving racists a stick to beat us with"? It's an interesting question. Here's a better one: How do we best use our intellectual, political and moral capital -- priming our children for success, or merely supplying them with excuses for failure?
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