No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning

386 Pages·2009·3.84 MB·English

by  Stephan Thernstrom

ALSO BY ABIGAIL THERNSTROM AND STEPHAN THERNSTROM
America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible
Beyond the Color Line: New Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity
in America(editors) BOOKS BY ABIGAIL THERNSTROM
Whose Votes Count?: Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights
A Democracy Reader: Classic and Modern Speeches, Essays, Poems,
Declarations and Documents on Freedom and Human Rights Worldwide
(with Diane Ravitch)
School Choice in Massachusetts
BOOKS BY STEPHAN THERNSTROM
Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a 19th-Century City
Nineteenth-Century Cities: Essays in the New Urban History
(edited with Richard Sennett)
Poverty, Politics, and Planning in the New Boston: The Origins of ABCD
The Other Bostonians:
Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis 1880-1970
Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (editor)
A History of the American People
Our Changing Population (with Richard Gill and Nathan Glazer)
No Excuses
Closing the Racial Gap
in Learning
Abigail Themstrom
and Stephan Themstrom
SIMON & SCHUSTER
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright ® 2003 by Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom
All rights reserved,
including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON & SCHUSTER AND COLOPHON ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS
of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Designed by Karolina Hanis
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thernstrom, Abigail M., 1936-
No excuses : closing the racial gap in learning /
Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstom.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Minority students—United States. 2. Academic
achievement—United States. 3. Educational equalization—
United States. 4. Education—Social aspects—United States.
I. Thernstrom, Stephan. II. Title.
LC3731.T45S 2003
371.829V0973—dc21 20030S4439
ISBN 0-7432-0446-8
eISBN-13: 978-1-4391-2704-9
For information regarding special discounts for bulk purchases,
please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at
1-800-456-6798 or [email protected]
Acknowledgments
We don’t know any authors who write books alone. In our case, we are deeply
indebted to the institutions and foundations that supported us, to a great
collection of research assistants, to a handful of friends and colleagues who read
the final manuscript, and to educators and educational scholars too numerous to
name who were willing to talk and keep talking as we struggled with ideas.
Abigail Thernstrom has been a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for
Policy Research since 1993, and MPs support has been indispensable in writing
this book. Lawrence Mone, Manhattan Institute’s president, has turned a small
organization into a large and thriving home for scholars working on public
policy, and we are enormously grateful for his unwavering commitment to this
project. We thank, as well, the generosity of the John M. Olin Foundation and
the Earhart Foundation, both of which contributed substantially to the funding of
the book.
Since 1999, Stephan Thernstrom has also been a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute, and that association has meant support for both research
assistants and research-related travel. He took sabbatical leave from Harvard in
1998-1999, and Harvard University and the John M. Olin foundation made that
break from teaching possible.
Cornelia Davidson was a gift to us from the Earhart Foundation. Twice a
week for three and a half years, she kept the almost overwhelming flow of
information on education in order, chased down stories and facts on the Web and
elsewhere, and served as a wonderful sounding board and critic, prompting us on
many occasions to revise arguments. Kevin Amer, Thomas Koelbl, Michael
Shumsky, and David Weinfeld—all of them either undergraduates or taking time
out between college and law school—were splendid research assistants at one
time or another. They, too, not only worked on substantive issues but gave us
terrific feedback. Michael Dotsikas of the Manhattan Institute provided
invaluable help with the preparation of the graphs.
At the point at which we had a complete draft of the manuscript, Norman
Atkins, Douglas Besharov, Rafe Esquith, Michael Feinberg, Tom Fortmann, Bill
Guenther, David Levin, Brett Peiser, James Peyser, Diane Ravitch, Ricky
Silberman, and Grant Ujifusa read some or all of it carefully. For his detailed
critique of many substantive points, we are particularly indebted to Bill
Guenther, who as president of Mass Insight has been deeply involved in
education in Massachusetts for many years. Our son, Sam, read the manuscript
once for substance, prompting important revisions, and then, in a break between
jobs, provided extraordinary line editing. Our daughter, Melanie, doesn’t edit our
books, but she enriches our life in a multitude of other ways.
Finally, Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu, Writers’ Representatives, have been our
long-standing, wonderful literary agents, and Bob Bender is the perfect Simon &
Schuster editor. We thank all three profusely.
Abigail Thernstrom
Stephan Thernstrom
Lexington, Massachusetts
To Thomas Sowell
for his pioneering scholarship and unflagging courage
Contents
List of Figures
Introduction
1 The Problem
One: Left Behind
Two: Tests Matter
2 Great Teaching
Three: Building Academic Skills
Four: Not by Math Alone
3 Culture Matters
Five: Asians
Six: Hispanics
Seven: Blacks
4 The Conventional Wisdom
Eight: Send Money
Nine: Racial Isolation
Ten: Teacher Quality
5 Serious Effort, Limited Results
Eleven: Congress Strikes Out
Twelve: Raising the Bar
Thirteen: Roadblocks to Change
Conclusion
Notes
Index
List of Figures
One: Left Behind
Figure 1-1. The Four-Year Gap: How Black and Hispanic High School
Seniors Perform Compared to Whites and Asians in the 8th Grade
Figure 1-2. Percentage of 12th-Graders Scoring “Below Basic” on the Most
Recent NAEP Assessments
Figure 1-3. Percentage of 12th-Graders Rated as “Proficient” or
“Advanced” on the Most Recent NAEP Assessment
Figure 1-4. Trends in the Reading Gap: Percentile Rank of the Average
Black and Hispanic 17-Year-Old, 1975-1999
Figure 1-5. Trends in the Mathematics Gap: Percentile Rank of the Average
Black and Hispanic 17-Year-Old, 1978-1999
Figure 1-6. Trends in the Science Gap: Percentile Rank of the Average
Black and Hispanic 17-Year-Old, 1977-1999
Two: Tests Matter
Figure 2-1. Education Attained by the 1988 8th-Graders in the National
Education Longitudinal Study Sample, 2000
Figure 2-2. Adult Prose Literacy by Years of Education Completed, 1992
Figure 2-3. Adult Quantitative Literacy by Years of Education Completed,
1992
Figure 2-4. Median Annual Income by Years of School Completed, 1999
Five: Asians