I just got off the phone with a solicitor from NEPVA (New England Paralyzed Veterans of America).
Be wary of phone solicitors of this sort. Out here, most of these groups are scams which are simply in it for the money.

I have no idea whether you were more useful to society as a teacher or in your present employ, Scott. When one makes a broad statement on the principles of any ideology, trying to fit every "cog", as you put it, into place is a futile exercise.

I do know that observing math textbooks in which there are cartoon illustrations showing Jamal, Maria and Mei-lin dividing oranges (in middle school!) have less to do with math and more to do with inclusion and diversity. Especially when you can get partial credit for a wrong answer and can use a calculator.

In the 19th Century, the education was no doubt more focused than it is today. If you read the letters of Civil War soldiers, you'll be impressed with not only their literacy, but their penmanship.

As I've pointed out before, I have a nephew in San Jose who graduated from high school and can't read but has spectacular self esteem.

I believe that when Jimmy Carter paid off the teachers' unions for their support by giving them a cabinet post, that accelerated the down fall in the quality of public school education in the US. Suddenly, you had a vast bureaucracy filled with New Left ideologues pushing their unproven ideas on, basically, the whole country. At least in the old days, each state educated their kids in a way unique to that region. Suddenly, you had the potential for one-size-fits-all teaching, rather than 50 different experiments. Of which, the best results could be propagated.

Also on the local front: there is definitely a difference in familial educational devotion in the various cultural groups that comprise my fair city.

The African American and Hispanic children had a far higher drop out rate than the Asian American and white children. Even when they attended the same school. Of course, most of the white kids don't go to public school.

Our last Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District and formerly Superintendent of Washington, D.C. Public Schools, Arlene Ackerman, tried to level the field for black students by busing kids across town. She so alienated the Asian parents that she left under fire. Without, of course, helping the black students in any way.

Now we have a Hispanic superintendent.

Of course, this is San Francisco, where the color of your skin and/or who you are physically attracted to counts for more than the quality of your ideas. Kind of like the opposite of Martin Luther King's stated ideals...

The African American and Hispanic children had a far higher drop out rate than the Asian American and white children. Even when they attended the same school.

To really be interesting, numbers like these need to be corrected for family income. Correcting for home neighborhood (or crime rates near home) would also be interesting. I suspect that either correlation would be revealing.

I don't think there is much doubt that black and hispanic students face more pressure to join gangs and engage in certain types of criminal activity. (By "pressure" I mean "join our gang or we'll beat the bejeebers out of you on a regular basis.") This leads to the sorts of problems Odie pointed out, even for families where the parents are doing their level best.

I don't have a criminal law enforcement background, so I don't know what the right answer is. I don't think that the school district is necessarily the right place to address it, however. My knee-jerk reaction would be to send all the criminals to jail.

--Scott

Oh, also, one of the reasons that boys without fathers may tend to gravitate towards gangs is that is the only male role models they see.

Can it be real? Two in a row?

2001 College-bound Seniors' Average SAT Scores by Group
Total
Ethnic Group
American Indian 960
Asian American 1067
Black 859
Mexican American 909
Puerto Rican 908
Other Hispanic or Latino 925
White 1060
Other 1015

Family Income
Less than $10,000/year 864
$10,000 - $20,000/year 898
$20,000 - $30,000/year 942
$30,000 - $40,000/year 976
$40,000 - $50,000/year 1004
$50,000 - $60,000/year 1011
$60,000 - $70,000/year 1035
$70,000 - $80,000/year 1049
$80,000 - $100,000/year 1074
More than $100,000/year 1126
Gender
Female 1000
Male 1042

ALL TEST-TAKERS
1020

Source: College Board (maker of the SAT), College-Board Seniors Nat'l. Report, 2001

Sorry for the long post. Found this info from the report titled above. Kind of interesting. It seems Ted was right, but in a relative way. Parental income seems to be a much stronger predictor of SAT scores than parental skin color or eye-shape. But race seems to predict scores too. Very interesting reading out there in internet land...