Even though I know you can lead a horse to water...

I'm just going to post this data again anyway.

From the NAEP Publication:

ACHIEVEMENT GAPS

How Black and White Students in Public Schools Perform in Mathematics and Reading On The National Assessment of Educational Progress.

This data is from pg. 8, Figures 7 and 8.

I've summarized the data for 2007 below (similar data is out there for other years as well).

4th Grade scores:

FL=Free Lunch
RL=Reduced Lunch
NE=Not Eligible for Free Lunch

White FL=235 RL=241 NE=252
Black FL=217 RL=228 NE=232

Note that in the 4th grade, the poorest whites (in the FL category) outperform blacks who do not even qualify (NE) for the FRL program.

Now onto the 8th grade:

White Fl=274 RL=280 NE=295
Black FL=253 RL=265 NE=274

Wow, we've made some "progress" here.

Note that the Non-Eligible blacks score exactly the same as the whites who receive Free Lunches.

Finally, we have "poor white redneck"=blacks...

Only it's the middle-class blacks the "poor white rednecks" are apparently equal to.

In these numbers you can see that while poverty does play a role in the scores, it is not enough to explain the gaps between the races.

Simply because the Free Lunch whites either score on par with (8th Grade) or above (4th Grade) the Non-Eligible blacks.

I hope those "courageous conversations" get to the bottom of this little puzzle.

January 3, 2013 at 8:17 AM