I wish Oakland Tech was still operating all this today – maybe they are, I don’t know. I doubt it. I will remember those summer school classes as being what a large Urban School should be.

If the lower IQ students aren’t given needed training at the high school level the difference in standard of living by the 10 year reunion is stark indeed. The dull kids can’t “make up” the training deficits after they leave high school. This is why I feel schools such as OUSD are killing the black kids with kindness (if you call this “kind”). With schools such as OUSD neglecting the deportment and basic skill indoctrination of the larger black population this group is ready made for being supplanted by the 3rd world immigrants the government is importing as fast as it can.

This was not true several generations ago where OUSD graduates went to service work and to the military upon leaving school. They were largely acceptable candidates then. Now they are unwelcome job applicants (“bilingual preferred” is code for “we don’t use colored people” and military rejects (due to failing the math/verbal computer-administered/time pressure tests).

I was talking to a law grad today about some of this. When I was at Oakland Tech for the summer programs they had a basement cafeteria where large black women baked fresh hot cinnamon rolls doused with butter in the morning and cafeteria lunches – Mac & Cheese & Burgers and whatever else Cooked from Scratch with hot fresh cornbread, etc. (Cheap, too!) We went upstairs to Typing classrooms outfitted with 50 or so huge electric typewriters, Chemistry Classes with individual bunsen burners and sinks, biology classrooms with microscopes for every student… And NO ONE ever talked back to a teacher. Classroom doors were locked at the tardy bell. No one was in the halls during class. Miss class 3 days and you’re out. We got to school on time in the AM for the cinnamon rolls.

Now I don’t know any urban school with that kind of food, that kind of equipment, and that kind of discipline. Maybe the kids would do better if we had this again.

There is research supporting Debora’s observations that are not easily dismissed.

Its important not to dismiss facts or hard research just because we don’t like the results.

How do you account for black students adopted into white middle-class to upper middle class families at birth who are still struggling and are performing at below basic and far below basic? I happen to personally know four such families.

None of these children were born with drug or alcohol addicted. Some birth mothers had good nutrition and medical care throughout pregnancy, some did not.

I struggle with this question often as these children are all in hills schools and three of four are now using IEPs to manage their public education.

About the OUSD black-white achievement gap: apples and oranges. OUSD’s white students are a tiny affluent elite living in the hills. Of course they score higher than the poor majority. The relevant gap is between black and white student performance under relatively similar circumstances. Even affluent black students perform lower than their white peers. No, black OUSD students for the most part are not going to top colleges like white OUSD students do. But there is no reason why a majority of black and brown Oakland students couldn’t attend community college or state school and make it to graduation. Except low expectations, poor investments in teaching, etc. Three consecutive years with an excellent teacher can erase racial achievement gaps in elementary school, acc to some research.
Finally, it is true that these tests do not measure everything and are not necessarily predictive of success. Persistence (“resilience”) is more highly correlated with college success than SAT scores. We need to teach the whole student, but we need test scores to ensure that basic educational needs are being met. Without them, schools pass along illiterate kids and there is no way to prove it and do something about it. The old school way.