Nope, not pissed off at all. What can we do, though?

- Change attitudes of kids. We can't continue on this trend where being smart is considered "acting white." Surprisingly, I never got much of that back in grade school because for some reason or another being smart was respectable (and no, I've never been to a private school). That's always been weird in seeing it, though, because I've seen it in little kids. What the heck is a 7 year old supposed to know about "acting white"? In that same vein, we should talk about parents (that kind of thought process had to start somewhere).

- Change attitudes of parents. A lot of parents need to be more involved. I've seen parents who didn't do so much as to even make sure their kid did his/her homework because the parent didn't know how to do it (among other reasons that are less easy to alleviate such as work schedules). The kids at the elementary school that day confirmed it. There's a big difference between knowing how to do your kid's homework and making sure they at least attempt it. No, my parents had no clue how to do my calculus homework when I was in high school, but they made sure I was doing it, though.

- Make mincemeat of self-fulfilling prophecies. I think a lot of what happens with black kids and other minorities (some friends have been walking examples of this) is more of a cyclic self-fulfilling prophecy kind of thing. Nobody around you is doing all that well, nobody around you is really perceived as being all that smart, and so hey, why try to prove anybody wrong? Yes, as crazy as that sounds, years ago I could have listed numerous people who had that exact self-defeating attitude. Obviously, that's not the case for everybody, but it's an attitude more common than a lot of people like to acknowledge. :(

In mentioning the self-fulfilling prophecy idea, that means you' d have to get parents more interested in what their kids were doing at school (and immediately afterschool in a lot of instances); teachers who don't give up easily on minority students (or any student for that matter); and finally, minority students who see education less as a burden of some sort and more of a ticket to a better standard of living.

- Flat out expect more. Indeed this does go the @wsprague route, but there's a ring of truth to what s/he is saying. I look at what Steve Perry up in Connecticut is doing. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/07/22/bia.education.success/i...) He expects more out of his students (and teachers) and they rise to the occasion. The school has a "near-zero dropout rate" and all the graduates go to college. I don't have any stats on what they end up majoring in, but at least they're set up to go to college.

- Show kids they have options, keep kids informed of them, and encourage them to pursue them. The article with Steve Perry mentions it and I saw it firsthand in high school--minority students getting shuffled into less demanding classes (no AP!) thanks to stereotypes and not having the wherewithal to set themselves up for a more demanding schedule. A lot of kids don't know about the kinds of classes that would set them up to go to college and pursue anything of rigor. Having a guidance counselor offer you a culinary arts course instead of an AP Biology course makes a big difference if you don't know what you could be missing by not taking that AP class.

- Educational parity. I witnessed my calculus teacher from high school leave my high school for a more affluent high school. Yes, she has more students at that high school, but if you've got a brain drain on a school level, you're going to have it at some point on a county then state then national level. If all the great teachers are clustered at certain schools (and school systems allow this), what happens to the other schools?

I seriously don't have all the answers, but changing the attitudes (about a lot of things) of parents, teachers, and students seems to be a big part of it all. If I'd had a crappy attitude about anything I'd encountered intellectually for the last 5-10 years, I doubt I'd be here.