History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Why the Black-White gap was closing when it was
- 05-03-2011
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Blog by James Gee/Huffington Post
In my last post I gave a test. I pointed out that from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, the black-white gap in reading tests, IQ test scores and other sorts of test scores was fast closing. This progress ceased in the 1980s. The questions were: Why was the gap closing when it was? Why did such significant progress cease in the 1980s? These questions have really not been researched and debated enough to have definitive answers. Nonetheless, I believe we know pretty well, in a "big picture" way, what the answers are. But before I give my answers, consider two salient (but not all that well-known) facts. First, we all know that being poor puts a child "at risk" for reading failure. But the correlation between being poor and failing at early reading is not all that large. What is really large is the correlation between pooling poor kids in school and early reading failure and a subsequent lack of school success (see: Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 1998). If you are one of a few poor kids in a classroom, chances are that you will be all right. If you are one of many, you're in big trouble. (more...)
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