Wednesday, May 07, 2014

While Reading About The Stagnant Race Gap in Reading and Mathematics Scores


At MSNBC website, the right-hand column listed most recent comments attached to this topic.  The one I saw at the time of my reading was:

Liberals Scumbags get a job17 minutes ago
In reply to: Frank from Victoria #3
Thats becaus most liberals are like all commies...corporatist elitests that want a 2 class technocratic system ...,.
Where these people are the proletariat.
Platos Republic.

It diverted me from the article for a second or so and turned me into that favorite channel of wondering why comments are so stupid and why they exist at all.  But it also made me see an example of the failures of the US school system.

Returning to the actual topic:  The disparities in the achievement numbers by race and ethnicity are linked to lower incomes, less access to resources, racism and the way residential segregation follows both income and ethnic/racial lines. 

The best resource-based solution to this is to stop funding schools from just local taxes.  When the average incomes of areas differ the quality of the schools will, too, because some areas have a lot less money to spend per student.  I'd also like to see more resources steered into poorer areas and higher teacher pay in them.  Positive discrimination, to counteract the negative effects of poverty in early childhood.

Of course trying to affect the lower incomes and income inequality in general would work even better but that really is too radical a proposal in this country.  The next best thing is to focus on the schools, because everyone agrees that the children themselves are not to blame for their bad lottery results in life.