Comments on: Another parent’s take on the Achievement Gap Summit

By: teacher

teacher — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:27:55 +0000

Just to clarify point number two, above: Individuals facing blocks to progress must work harder than those who don’t to achieve similar success. My disadvantaged students can’t work as hard as a middle-class white kid and expect to get the same grade — they are going to have to work HARDER to overcome their deficiencies in vocabulary, home support, prior educational situation, the influence of their peers and even nutrition in order to succeed. No wonder so many of them despair when they realize this. “You mean I’m just a kid and I’m already way the hell behind? Screw it, I give up.”

Many of us were born on third and think we hit a triple! (Like our president.)

By: teacher

teacher — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:30:33 +0000

Bias exists. Why wouldn’t it? We live in a racist, sexist, xenophobic country. Maybe less than it used to be, but still.

Here’s the dealio, though: If students and their families passively accept this with nothing more than grumbling, they will continue to be shut out. There are two separate but equal (!) things that must happen:

1. Political action to take on the testing industry, Prop. 13, the death of affirmative action, and other setbacks to leveling the playing field.

2. Individuals working harder to OVERCOME the inherent disadvantages and biases. That’s what immigrants tend to do.

By: Alice

Alice — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:13:56 +0000

I for one, (and still do) had problems understanding math in school, years ago. Algebra specifically was a problem for me. If my parents had not gotten me tutors to help me in the subject, and pass with C’s, I might not have gotten admitted to college. It was also the same with chemistry. This was not cultural. Either you understand the theories or you do not. Now students need a chance to at least have the subject put to them where they can try to understand it, this is where the problem lies. If there is not a competent teacher to teach the subject, we have a problem. Math teachers are hard to hire here in Oakland.

By: Caroline

Caroline — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:52:04 +0000

My husband took the MCAT (is it Medical College Admission Test? Whatever it stands for — you get the idea) around 1970. He says it included these two questions (paraphrased);

What product does Steuben make?

If a menu item is labeled Florentine, what does that mean?

By: Steve Weinberg

Steve Weinberg — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:32:54 +0000

I can understand how people can be skeptical about “culural bias” be used as part of the explanation for the achievement gap, especially in math, but there is certainly economic bias. There are released items from the CST posted on the CDE website, and I found at least 7 items from the 64 6th grade released items where an understanding of some non-math concept that would be more common among higher income families than inner-city families would help a student answer the questions. Question 6 involves acres and harvests. 11 requires familiarity with tipping at a restaurant. 14 uses the expression “marked down.” 17 talks about hiking in an area that begins below sea level and then continues above sea level. 19 refers to temperatures below 0, and in California poorer students would be much less likely to be familiar with such temperatures. 21 involves the price of a share of stock. 59 compares the profits of 5 companies.
It is interesting that Doowhopper referred to a question about yachting from a test in the 1960s as a prime example of cultural bias. Unforunately, it is illegal to discuss any test item that has not been released, but if it is ever released I could show you exactly that kind of question still being used.
Cultural and economic bias is not the whole explanation for the achievement gap, but it clearly still exists, and even if it accounts for only a small part of the gap between social and ethnic groups we should not tolerate it.

By: Doowhopper

Doowhopper — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:46:15 +0000

I second you on that comment. I cannot see how Math problems contain cultural bias. I do recall when I was taking “achievement” tests in the Sixties, you would find questions about terms used in Yachting! Now THATS cultural bias! I really don’t believe that Asians are inherently better in Math than any other group. I think they WORK harder overall in the academic area but I refuse to adopt the popular myth that one group is intrinsically better in a subject because of some genetic reason. That opens the door for all kinds of racialist and eugenics theories that have been discredited-or SHOULD have been-decades ago.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:14:38 +0000

In my field (math) I would have to say that if there is a cultural bias in standardized testing, the bias would have to be towards Asians who consistently outscore whites, blacks and Latinos. It just seemed weird to me why the cultural bias in the math portion of testing would lean towards Asians -please would someone tell me how standardized testing in math is biased against whites, blacks and Latinos, as demonstrated through Asians dominance?