In cities and suburbs across America, the average black high school graduate possesses the same reading, writing and mathematical competence of an eighth-grader - with Hispanic students not too far behind. This gap in academic achievement between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian counterparts is the central civil rights issue of our time. If nothing is done to close it, true racial equality as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned it, will only be just that - a dream.
Such is the premise behind Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom's new book, "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning." The authors of "America in Black and White" rely primarily on data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often referred to as "the nation's report card," in analyzing the academic underachievement of black and Hispanic students. Although an alarming number of all American students are leaving high school with what the NAEP deems Below Basic skills, the Thernstroms show that the numbers for blacks and Latinos are abysmally frightening. In particular, a majority of black students perform Below Basic in five of the seven subjects tested: reading, mathematics, science, writing, U.S. history, civics, and geography.
The authors visited handful of what they call "break-the-mold" schools - schools that are doing wonders in providing inner-city black and Hispanic students with a quality education, and have the high test scores to prove it. These little pockets of superb education provide non-stop learning through longer school days, weeks and years, and share a common thread: they are free from the many bureaucratic constraints that stifle educational reform in today's big-city public schools. Furthermore, the teachers and administrators of these maverick schools inform students and parents at the outset that nothing less than high academic and behavioral standards will be accepted; in other words, "no excuses."
When it comes to academic success, the authors argue that culture is very important, and spend three chapters analyzing the cultural influences of Asians, Hispanics and African-Americans on educational achievement. The main reason that Asian students by and large are academic wunderkinds is because their parents expect nothing less. The Hispanic experience mirrors that of early 20th Italian immigrants, the authors point out. However, the cultural and demographic reasons for why Latino children academically underperform do not let schools off the hook. Black academic underachievement is discussed at length, and the authors have identified some apparent risk factors. (Although the Thernstroms do give plausible reasons for black underachievement, arguably the best analysis to date of the adverse effects of modern-day black American culture on academic achievement, particularly in middle-class suburban schools, is John McWhorter's "Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America.")
The Thernstroms take on conventional wisdom regarding the racial gap in learning; namely, that underperforming schools just need more money and smaller class sizes, should be more "racially balanced," and should hire more minority teachers. The authors show that these excuses do not explain the racial academic achievement gap, and pandering to them will neither improve public schools nor solve the problem of underachieving black and Hispanic students.
The authors also outline how Title I and Head Start have been a dismal failure since their inception. As education secretary Rod Paige aptly put it, "After spending $125 billion of Title I money over 25 years, we have virtually nothing to show for it." Also looked at is the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) signed by President Bush in 2001. The final chapter of the book analyzes the many bureaucratic obstacles that prevent true educational reform, not the least of which is how good teachers are (not) rewarded, the inability of superintendents to bring about change, and, of course, the teachers' unions.
For far too long, black and Hispanic academic underachievement has been a taboo subject, shamefully ignored by civil rights leaders, the media, and even academia. "No Excuses" forces us to not only examine this issue head on, but work to reverse this horrible trend before yet another generation of young blacks and Hispanics are crippled into a permanent underclass. The Thernstroms have shown that they care deeply about our children's future. For all others concerned, reading this book is a good first step in bringing about change.
