From: turnerbl@ucbeh.san.uc.edu
Newsgroups: misc.education,soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: What A White Person Learned in College About AfAm Culture
Date: 4 Jan 93 08:14:35 EST
Distribution: world
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati



In article <BETSYS.93Jan3210654@ra.cs.umb.edu>, betsys@cs.umb.edu ..


> Someone who is going to do college-level Calculus and
> computer science should be doing Algebra in 7th or 8th grade and
> should have mastered the basics in grade school. 
	
	Well, ya know, my understanding is that most schools indeed do try
	to do this, I think there are more than a few problems encountered
	along the way, drugs, guns, assult...


>  Maybe a few really dedicated exceptionnaly bright kids
> will fight their way out, but your average kid isn't going to make it.

	I tend to think this condition is true for all students, not just
	inner city schools though.  The same condition is true for
	poor rural schools as well as schools with mixed constituancies

>    Go out to the rich white suburbs, and every kid is sweating through
> research papers and enough math and science to meet admission
> standards of most colleges, whether the kid has an aptitude or not. 

	Not always the best thing either, as a lot of these students
	should have been moved out of college prep into something
	else.  I get them when they are in college, and my estimate
	is that about 1/3 should not even BE in college.  Remember
	attrition is 50% from the freshmen classes at colleges and
	universities nationwide.  What does that say about the prep
	of the so-called "admitted" students?

>    Go out to the rich white suburbs, and you won't find 1/3 of their
> kids labelled slow learners or "emotionally disturbed." You won't even
> find metal shops in the high schools, unless the art classes use them.

	Not true.  I came from one of the "schools of excellence" here
	in ohio.  Rich, white, suburban, we had it all (ver nice tax base,
	but too, homeowners who were willing to tax themselves to support
	schools that work, unlike a lot if innnercity districts that either
	have no base (no taxable income) or stoggy old coots who won't
	vote in a levy beccause their kids are out of schools and a 
	prperty tax hits em where it hurts.

> I think busing is hell on kids, but I'd like to see someone switch
> the kids in Roxbury with the kids in Lexington. Just take a week and
> ship all the city kids out and all the suburban kids in. Let the
> suburban kids play with the leaky radiators, and let the city kids at
> the fancy computer labs. No later than 5th grade, and for two weeks.
> I bet you'd get a few more scientists out of that bunch of kids.   
>
	Why make the kids pay?  It's not their fault that their
	parents live one place or another ( tho, I feeel bad for
	students who have two working parents who are stuck in a 
	system and deserve better.  I really don't feel bad for
	kids who bring guns to schools, assult their teachers,
	sell drugs and join gangs.)  A perception is going around
	that poor balck students can't learn because of the schools
	that they are in.  This has been disproved again and again
	by the waves of immigrant asian students from poor schools
	who still score in the top of their schools as well as top
	in the SAT/ACT tests.  Students, not schools, make these choices.
	It always comes back to the kid.


Brian Turner
Admissions
University of Cincinnati

	"opinions are all my own, and nasty remarks will be giggeled at"