Times inadvertently admits that as America becomes less white, it becomes less competent

Jonathan W. writes:

I read through the New York Times article on the failure of the NCLB to close the gap, and agree with you that it doesn’t make any coherent arguments or suggestions. However, the most striking part to me was:

Despite gains that both whites and minorities did make, the overall scores of the United States’ 17-year-old students, averaged across all groups, were the same as those of teenagers who took the test in the early 1970s. This was largely due to a shift in demographics; there are now far more lower-scoring minorities in relation to whites. In 1971, the proportion of white 17-year-olds who took the reading test was 87 percent, while minorities were 12 percent. Last year, whites had declined to 59 percent while minorities had increased to 40 percent.

This cogently demonstrates the deep straits our country is in. I doubt that the author intended it to be interpreted that way, but even if you accept the liberal argument that the achievement gap between whites/Asians and blacks/Hispanics is due to culture, lack of funding, poor schools, or any combination of these, as long as this gap persists, we will not have a recognizable America in 20 or 30 years time. In other words, even if the racial gap is white America’s fault, that doesn’t change the fact that there is a persistent gap that will make an increasing percentage of the young population unable to function well in society. This is why I think our immigration disaster will be noticed by white America far earlier than the 2042 year when the Census projects that whites will become minorities. When a disproportionate share of our white population is retired, the unsustainability of mass immigration will become very apparent. Simply put, there’s only so much an educated, working white populace can subsidize everyone else, including not only a large percentage of our black and Hispanic population but also the retired white population.

LA replies:

Thank you. You’re right to have noticed that paragraph. As you point out, the problem is much bigger than a decline in government revenues—that is only the symptom of the problem, the symptom which, as you say, will wake up whites to what is happening. The larger problem is the massive decline in our overall competence and functionality as a society.

But returning to my point about the incoherence of the article, the passage you quote doesn’t make sense. If the low scoring groups are a much larger percentage of the 17 year old population now than in the 1971, how can the “the overall scores of the United States’ 17-year-old students, averaged across all groups,” be the same now as in 1971? Evidently the reporter, Sam Dillon, meant “averaged within each group,” not “across all groups.”

And this also makes no sense:

“This [the fact that the scores are the same as in 1971] was largely due to a shift in demographics; there are now far more lower-scoring minorities in relation to whites.”

The scores are the same because there are MORE lower scoring minorities?

Jonathan W. replies:

Thank you. I reread the portion you quoted, and I think I understand what Dillon means. Suppose for argument’s sake that the tests to which they refer are out of 100. Now let’s say that in 1971, the average white scored an 80 out of 100 while the average non-white scored a 60. If white composed 90% of the 17-year-old population, while non-whites composed 10%, the average score would be 78 ((80 * .9) + (60 * .1)).

The article also suggests that while black/Hispanic scores have increased, white scores have increased by a similar number, leaving the gap intact. If when measured today, whites now score 85 while being 70% of the population, while non-whites score 65 and compose 30% of the population, you’d see a similar overall score of 79 ((85 * .7) + (65 * .3)). Both whites and non-whites saw an increase in performance, but non-whites’ higher proportional representation within the overall population caused scores to remain roughly the same.

I could be wrong, as Dillon’s article was very unclear.

LA replies:

Thanks for clarification.

Jonathan continues:

I’d also like to address your point about our overall competence as a society decreasing with an anecdote. A few months ago, I was on an uptown 5 train in the North Bronx, near the line’s terminus. The train stopped between the second to last station and the last station and sat there for over 15 minutes. When the train finally reached Dyre Avenue, I exited the train and asked one of the employees on the platform why the train I was on was stuck between stations for so long. She answered that there were already two trains in the station (the station’s capacity) and that the train which was due to head back south had to be mopped before it could be released from the station. The MTA employees were unable to conceptualize that it is better to keep the train system running on schedule and not strand passengers between stations than to ensure that every train’s floors are mopped when they reach the end of a line. As you point out, even if as a society we had an infinite amount of money, basic things like the orderly operation of our mass transit systems suffer, and will only get worse.

Bill in Maryland writes:

You ask: “But returning to my point about the incoherence of the article, the passage you quote doesn’t make sense. If the low scoring groups are a much larger percentage of the 17 year old population now than in the 1971, how can the “the overall scores of the United States’ 17-year-old students, averaged across all groups,” be the same now as in 1971?”

According to the article, in 1971 white 17-year-olds were 87 percent of test takers, non-whites were 12 percent. This is of course impossible, since the total must be 100 percent. It is probably a rounding error, so suppose the non-white fraction is 13 percent. Suppose whites averaged 100 points, non-whites 85. The average would be 98.05. Last year, whites were 59 percent and so non-whites were 41 percent. According to the article, both whites and minorities have increased their scores. Suppose both groups’ scores were up about 4.5 percent from 1971. This would have whites with 104.5 points, non-whites 88.8. The average is now 98.06. The point is that the average is pushed up by the better scores, but pulled down by the greater proportion of inferior non-white scores

LA replies:

Prior to reading and posting Bill’s comment, which makes a similar point to Jonathan’s, I carefully re-read the entire article (earlier I had half-read, half-skimmed it). Jonathan’s and Bill’s explanation is probably correct, but it is not at all evident in the article and has to be teased out of it. On a careful reading of the article I can report that it is even more of a mess than I thought from a rapid reading. Ultimately, with the help fo the charts that accompany the article, some sort of sense can be gleaned from it, but it should n’t be this difficult. It’s almost as if the Times has adopted the plot techniques of contemporary movies—rapid cutting, jumping back and forth in time, key details muttered inaudibly in the background, so that you only have the vagues idea of what is happening—and applied them to journalism.

May 3

Bill in Maryland writes:

Since the proportion of 17 year old whites will continue to decline, and absent any dramatic improvement in test scores, as seems likely, the 17 year average must itself decline. Much is made in the article about improvements in the scores of nine and 13 year olds, but these are meaningless unless they translate into improvements for 17 year olds. Since the writer of the article is concerned about the lack of increase in the average for 17 year olds in the last 37 years, how much more concerned will he be if the average actually declines, and blacks and Hispanics are to blame?

But the writing is already on the wall: the gap that NCLB cannot close in poorer neighborhoods is found even in happily integrated affluent suburbs with high-quality schools. How can any government initiative significantly close the gap for low or average income blacks if it is wide open for the most privileged? Who or what can liberals blame in order to retain their belief in racial equality?

The answer is hinted at in the article:

[University of Maryland president Freeman A. Hrabowski III] said that educators and parents pushing children to higher achievement often find themselves swimming against a tide of popular culture. “Even middle-class students are unfortunately influenced by the culture that says it’s simply not cool for students to be smart,” he said. “And that is a factor here in these math and reading scores.”

Of course, he is talking about popular black culture, the “acting white” disdain for educational achievement. It seems pretty obvious that the “acting white” charge has been invented by black kids to rationalize their low performance, but liberals must believe in it because it is the one of the last lines of defense against the genetic explanation. But this poses a problem: historically liberals have sought to bring blacks into the mainstream by external manipulation of education and employment and by depicting blacks favorably in movies and TV shows. They have never tried to manipulate black culture directly, believing, since the sixties, that with the establishment of a large black middle class its pathological features will wither away. So, are they now going to tell blacks that their culture is to blame for their low academic performance? Isn’t that the sort of thing a conservative would say?

LA replies:

I don’t understand how liberals feel about the “black culture” argument. It’s not new. The Times has made it for the last ten or 15 years in the surprisingly frank articles on the still unclosed academic racial gap they’re been publishing during that period. It’s surprising because, unlike the “blacks perform poorly because of negative cultural stereotypes” explanation, which can be blamed on whites, the “black culture is anti-intellectual” explanation cannot, without intellectual gyrations, be blamed on whites.

But it has been done. i.e.: “Blacks have anti-intellectual culture, but this is because the cultural stereotypes that the general culture, i.e., whites, have imposed on them.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 02, 2009 04:36 PM | Send