No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning (Hardcover)

by Abigail Thernstrom (Author), Stephan Thernstrom (Author) "The student body of Cedarbrook Middle School in a Philadelphia suburb is one-third black, two-thirds white..." (more)
Key Phrases: racial gap, test score gap, prose literacy, African Americans, New York, North Star (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The Thernstroms, senior fellows at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, deliver "a tough message" about how "to close the racial gap in academic achievement." Although the 48 graphs and tables, 566 footnotes and statistics galore may muffle the work's polemical aspects, the Thernstroms produce a case for standards-based testing and charter schools. Despite caveats (e.g., "Not all Asian parents and their children fit the stereotype... and Asian Americans are not actually one `group' "), the authors' assessment of success and failure attributes much to ethnic cultural factors. Family expectations and hard work lead to success for Asian-Americans, who embrace "the American work ethic with life-or-death fervor," while "the limited education of many Hispanic parents" and "their propensity to work in unskilled jobs that don't require a knowledge of English" underlie the poor performance of Latino students. African-American failure rests in "the special role of television in the life of black children and the low expectations of their parents." "Conventional wisdom" about improving schools (more money, improved cleanliness, smaller classes, etc.) is inadequate, they say. Title I and Head Start appear to have accomplished little, they lament, but Bush's No Child Left Behind (and its mandatory testing program) gets high praise. For the Thernstroms, ideal schools break from tradition and are liberated from such "roadblocks to change" as "hands-tied administrators" and unions. Enter vouchers (implicitly) and charter schools (quite explicitly), where the Thernstroms seem particularly taken by students chanting "answers-with claps and stomps and fists held high" and reciting "rules in unison."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Authors of America in Black and White (1997), the Thernstroms take on the troubling and stubborn gap that persists in academic achievement between white students and black and Hispanic students, a gap that translates into a lifetime of uneven opportunities. They begin by citing statistics based on standardized test scores that verify the woeful achievement gap, which has become the burning issue in the continued struggle for racial justice. In separate chapters, the authors look at the historic and cultural factors at work in the low academic achievement of blacks and Hispanics and the high achievement of Asians, compared with white students. But the heart of the book focuses on several inner-city schools across the nation that have succeeded in educating minority children and provide models for educational reform. The success factors include independence from district control, discretionary budgetary power, and latitude in hiring nonunion teachers. Although it is sure to provoke some controversy, this book provides a thoughtful look at a pressing social problem. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743204468
• ISBN-13: 978-0743204460
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #255,319 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Black and Latino Parents Should Read This Book, November 5, 2003

By A Customer

This Christmas many family members and friends of this African-American will be receiving a copy of NO EXCUSES, an honest and necessary book. The authors write that the academic learning gap between the races is "the most important civil rights issue of our time." Amen. Across all age groups, urban and suburban, North and South, affluent and poor, Black and Latino boys and girls are lagging behind whites and far behind Asians. Why is this?

The Thernstroms examined the available research literature and data on the impact of family income, parental education levels, school funding, school segregation levels, television viewing (note: Asian teens watch more TV than Whites teens), among others, and found that none of these influences could explain the learning Gap. For instance, poor whites and Asians scored higher than poor blacks and Latinos. Affluent African-American kids performed worse than the rich white kids sitting next to them. The racial makeup of the teacher had no bearing: black children taught by black teachers faired no better than those taught by white teachers. The authors go on to dispel many of the conventional reasons given for inferior academic achievement.

Again, why the learning Gap? After reading the book and considering all sides, I must consider two possible reasons. First, the ongoing learning Gap exist because Asians and whites are naturally more intelligent than African-Americans and Latinos. I categorically (as do the authors) reject this notion. It's the argument of conservative and liberal racists and the excuse makers.

The second reason for the learning Gap is that Afican-American and Latino parents generally do not establish high enough academic expectations and standards for their children. As a black parent, this is a painful and too-frequent observation I've made, and one that the book's data confirm. Asian children, whose learning Gap over whites is larger than the white-black/Latino gap, the authors point out, are simply expected to work harder and are held accountable by their parents. They don't think they're smarter. They do believe in the time-honored path to success: hard work. Very high standards and high accountability. The Gap is a cultural thing! It must be or the racists and excuse makers are right.

Now, how do we close the learning gap? The Thernstroms offer some good advice to change some of the "systems": less bureaucracy, better teachers, school choice, consistent standards, etc. And they discuss in detail the characteristics of a few highly successful schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods. But I'm stuck on how do we make wholesale cultural (African-American and Latino) changes needed to close the Gap? Reading this book and being honest is a start.

For more on African-American culture and academic achievement read, Losing the Race by John McWhorter.

57 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If You Care About Our Kids, then READ THIS BOOK!, October 21, 2003

By	D. A. Martin "Avid Reader" (Morocco) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Seminal Work on the Achievement Gap, October 3, 2003

By	Rob Kremer (Portland, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews

The achievement gap is arguably the single biggest issue facing the public school system in America today. Failure to eliminate it calls into question the magnificent promise of public schools: that every child, regardless of birthright, will become productive citizens if given a free public education.

"No Excuses" is vital to understanding not just why the current public school system is unable to properly educate black and Hispanic children, but also how some people have succeeded in doing so.

The Thernstroms meticulously document the state of non-Asian minority achievement in American schools, and show that the conventional solutions to the problem will fail, as they have in the past.

The book explains why the current structure of the public school system - dominated by competing interest groups - can not and will not do what is necessary to educate black and Hispanic children.

Their message is not without hope, however. The Thernstroms chronicle the very real successes of some inner-city schools, and analyze the reasons that they have been able to educate the kids the other schools could not.

If you want to understand this issue you must read "No Excuses." The book's message won't be popular with defenders of the status-quo, but as the Thernstroms show, the status quo is the problem.

Only when Americans turn a deaf ear to their perpetual caterwauling will the public school system live up to its glorious promise.