education

While the call for better education is a bi-partisan cry, the achievement gap remains unchanged. This is a touchy subject and those who discuss it are often called racist. The latest reason given is that minority students often go to school hungry and this adversely affects their mental prowess. Logic tells me there is something to this but there are other more important factors. One is the cultural aspects. One example is the feeling that getting good grades is being white. This is akin to days past when girls would dumb themselves down in order to be more attractive to boys. Other important factors are social in nature, things like single parent families, single parents who have little experience with school, do very little reading and have minimal math skills. Many minority students are trapped in poor performing schools where discipline is a daily problem and often that stems from no father in the house. These factors combine to cause lack of confidence and an underlying belief that they cannot learn like white kids. This whole process was aptly explained by President Bush when he said, “the soft bigotry of low expectations