Interesting School Performance Study

[JPhillips]

This is from an op-ed in the Wasington Post. I can't find the study he is referencing, and anyone who can help would be appreciated.

What I find interesting is how white students in the US actually outperformed the rest of the world, and students in really wealthy districts did even better. Contrary to popular belief, it seems that public schools can work well if they are in districts with low poverty. I don't know if this is due to more funding or generally more interested, motivated parents.



Blaming public schools for social ills has a long and dishonorable history, of which the 1983 report is only one particularly egregious example. Yet in the international reading study released this month (and ignored by most media),
American students finished ninth among 35 nations. White American students outscored top-ranked Sweden 565 to 561. Americans attending schools with less than 10 percent of the students in poverty (13 percent of all students) scored a whopping 589, and only those attending schools with more than 75 percent of the students in poverty (20 percent of all students) scored below the international average.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I may be wrong since I haven't really dug my way through this one yet, but it looks like this might be it

http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/04-2003/04082003a.html

[Godzilla Blitz]

JonInMiddleGA's link in turn links to the page with a pdf download of the full survey:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2003073

Interesting stuff.

[sterlingice]

Is anyone really suprised that money not race, creed, or anything else determines how well you do in school? I'm not saying that a poor person cannot do as well, but they have a much tougher go of it because they just don't have the opportunities: parents work longer hours, older siblings might have to work, less access to technology, etc. By that same token, I see a lot of fucking stupid sorority and fraternity members on campus driving the car daddy bought them so wealth doesn't guarantee good education either and is frequently substituted for parenting.

SI

[Chief Rum]

Originally posted by sterlingice
Is anyone really suprised that money not race, creed, or anything else determines how well you do in school? I'm not saying that a poor person cannot do as well, but they have a much tougher go of it because they just don't have the opportunities: parents work longer hours, older siblings might have to work, less access to technology, etc. By that same token, I see a lot of fucking stupid sorority and fraternity members on campus driving the car daddy bought them so wealth doesn't guarantee good education either and is frequently substituted for parenting.

SI

Curious, but is there some reason why you focus on Greeks? I was a Phi Kappa Tau at Cal Poly Pomona, and I gotta tell ya, precious few of my brothers did anything but bust their ass for everything they had. Yes, there was a sprinkling of guys who got more than a handout from their parents, but this seemed to be generally in proportion with society as I saw it. I generally saw this breakdown in the other fraternities, and in the sororities, and among non-greek students as well.

I'm pretty sure your point can be made without ripping on one subset of people, especially if you're making wide-ranging generalizations.

Chief Rum

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by Chief Rum
Curious, but is there some reason why you focus on Greeks? I was a Phi Kappa Tau at Cal Poly Pomona, and I gotta tell ya, precious few of my brothers did anything but bust their ass for everything they had. Yes, there was a sprinkling of guys who got more than a handout from their parents, but this seemed to be generally in proportion with society as I saw it. I generally saw this breakdown in the other fraternities, and in the sororities, and among non-greek students as well.

I'm pretty sure your point can be made without ripping on one subset of people, especially if you're making wide-ranging generalizations.

Chief Rum

(forgive any horrible grammer, if you can- I'm half falling asleep writing this)

Every autumn here at KU, the leaves do their best to look different from the ones around them while droves of clones, blonde, brunette, and redhead, all do the same activities: acts of humiliating themselves and others in an attempt to join a group. A group made up of have like-minded friends with whom they can collectively look down their noses at the rest of us. The majority of these are wealthy and their months in said groups train them to become status seeking social climbers and then run for Student Senate in the spring to pad a resume.

Again, in the same vein of this thread, I'm not saying all of them are like this, but at KU this is the situation for most Greeks which is why I used it (I do have to use some segment of the population: it's not as if I can say "Bob Smith from somewhere" and you'd know who I'm talking about). I have classes with these people: they are typically rich, white (unless it's an African American fraternity/sorority), and assholes. I know this isn't limited to just KU- the people I really didn't like in high school were mostly going to end up Greeks at UT-Austin.

That said, lets go back to what I said: I don't think I'm really making a horribly uncharacteristic generalization here. You can pretty easily pick these people out on campus and I just threw in "fraternity and sorority" as one more compound adjective because it is characteristic of the people I was describing. And, I'll just fall back on set theory as my bedtime crutch: it's a case of "the average person I'm describing does fit into this category" not "every person in the category fits my description" (i.e. almost every one of these bastards is in a frat/soror but not every person in a frat/soror is a bastard).

SI

[Chief Rum]

Point taken. I'm just letting you know that your impression might be right on and it also might very much be off, and either way, you come off as very insulting to those of us who did choose to join a fraternity in our college days. And I didn't get shit from daddy except a handshake and a pat on the butt out the door.

Why don't you try that last sentence, but replace "sorority and fraternity members" with "white kids". Or you could try it with "black kids". It probably wouldn't sound all that good then, would it? Using "most" or "in my experience" does not excuse falling into a stereotype.

Rather than singling out fraternities and sororities, why don't you next time refer to "fucking stupid rich kids", which is really what you were getting at, weren't you? See, a way to state your point even more clearly, and with the added bonus of not insulting a subset of people as well.

Chief Rum

[sterlingice]

Aye, point taken- I'm tired and cranky and need some sleep [insert yawning smiley].

I know this *does* border on prejudice (hell, or is quite a few steps past the line) but I suppose of all the prejudices to have in the world, rich assholes isn't too bad of one. Sorry to take it out on the Greeks but I can't guarantee I won't slip in the future. Anyways, shower taken, it's definately time for sleep.

SI