Nearly Half Of Detroiters illiterate.

[Felch]

Us Irish have been driving down test scores ever since we swarmed over here on our potato boats and took all the jobs.

Boris, if you think that money is more important than parents who care about their kids education, then there's really no talking to you. The fact is that money can get you Promethean boards and field trips to wherever, but it won't make up for kids who just don't give a ****. I went to one of the best funded public school systems in the country, and some people just couldn't be reached. It wasn't racial, it was a matter of worthless parents who didn't raise their kids to respect learning. Money will fix a few problems, but the deciding factor is personal discipline and parenting.

[rah]

While I generally agree with you Felch, if the money is spent right, it can make a difference. Attracting better teachers never hurts, and having better equipped labs can be beneficial.
But yes, personal discipline and parenting can have a bigger impact.

[Hauldren Collider]

Then what we should have is more magnet schools, because that can weed out the kids who care from the kids who don't, and we can allocate resources to the people who will actually use them.

[Al B. Sure!]

That's just one scenario among many possible, but I've never seen any evidence of "Graduating is so WHITE, so I'm not gonna do it..."

Nah more like "going to school instead of sleeping in, sitting there and listening to some person talk, taking notes, trying to learn, reading books, doing homework, etc. is all wack and pointless so **** that ****. Rather do me and chill on the corner/stoop (or, for the slightly more responsible/legal ones: work)"

I don't think anyone really says I'm not doing that because it's white. However, the ones that do study/learn/etc. and make it a point to talk properly, etc. do get ostracized as being white so there is a relation.

[Al B. Sure!]

Nothing to do with kids but here's recent sports news that is sort of related. More oreo or Uncle Tom accusations:

According to Hopkins, McNabb had a privileged childhood in suburban Chicago and, as a result, is not black enough or tough enough, at least compared with, say, himself, Michael Vick and Terrell Owens.

"Forget this," Hopkins said, pointing to his own dark skin. "He's got a suntan. That's all."

Hopkins also implied that, while Vick and Owens remained true to their roots, McNabb did not, and that McNabb was rudely awakened when the Eagles traded him to the Redskins last year.

"Why do you think McNabb felt he was betrayed? Because McNabb is the guy in the house, while everybody else is on the field. He's the one who got the extra coat. The extra servings. 'You're our boy,' " Hopkins said, patting a reporter on the back in illustration. "He thought he was one of them."

I didn't realize Bernard Hopkins is such a ****ing idiot.

But yeah, privileged childhood so that makes him not Black... true Blackness must come from poverty and be forged through hard street life, is the implication.

Success within the white man's system/economy is suspicious because it means he's eating in the white man's house from the white man's table and is trying to be one of 'them', not in the fields struggling with the other slaves.

[Al B. Sure!]

You know what, I've talked about the malaise that afflicts you in places like this... it makes you glorify the 'struggle'. I have and continue to fall into that mental failing, such as when I post here. I see most of you being rich, growing up rich, having 8 bathrooms, and I'm like you're not real; you're not men; you're castrated by privilege. I feel as though there is something better in me because I come from a far rougher environment and I know what it is to not have.

It's like a psychology that should be helpful; that would motivate and inspire one to rise up... makes you feel like if you do, you have forgotten where you came from and you have lost your authenticity and manhood... and, for Blacks, their race.

[VetLegion]

I find the figure of 50% hard to believe. There are only 26 letters in the English alphabet...
come on. The high figure is probably due to the definition of "functional literacy" including
some other stuff beyond basic reading and writing. Comprehension tests or something.

BTW I'm constantly amazed how my handwriting has deteriorated over the years.
I can type, but I can barely write... I wonder how they'd classify me in Detroit

[Felch]

Being able to sound out a word is not the same thing as reading it, especially if you don't know what the word means.

[Boris Godunov]

Nah more like "going to school instead of sleeping in, sitting there and listening to some person talk, taking notes, trying to learn, reading books, doing homework, etc. is all wack and pointless so **** that ****. Rather do me and chill on the corner/stoop (or, for the slightly more responsible/legal ones: work)"

I would agree with this, but my point was this is an attitude that has nothing to do with race. White, Hispanic and, yes, Asian underachievers have this exact same attitude.

Felch, I did not say money solves all the problems, but the correlation of well-funded schools to performance is so strong as to make it ludicrous to deny that it's a huge factor in success rates. Obviously, *how* that funding is used is also a big part of it. No, throwing money at failing schools won't solve the problems. Neither will the No Child Left Behind, teach-to-the-tests garbage. And yes, having engaged parents is very important. But the attitudes that lead to disengaged parents are more about poverty than race. Again, poor white kids have the same issues. And I'm willing to bet having a ****hole for your child's school is not exactly motivating to a lot of parents, either. This makes the recent stories about the mothers being prosecuted for lying about their addresses to get their kids into better schools all the more sad.

[Tupac Shakur]

the correlation of well-funded schools to performance is so strong as to make it ludicrous to deny that it's a huge factor in success rates.

Correlation does not equal causation. In this case, there's at least one other plausible driver that could explain the correlation between well-funded schools and student performance.

[Kuciwalker]

the correlation of well-funded schools to performance is so strong as to make it ludicrous to deny that it's a huge factor in success rates.

This is a ridiculous claim.

[Kuciwalker]

Another large correlation: voting Republican and income.

[Tupac Shakur]

Clearly Republicans are smarter and more capable than Democrats.

[Kuciwalker]

Another large correlation: homosexuality and AIDS.

[giblets]

Well, it would be strange for rich parents to decide to spend a lot on schools if school funding didn't have much effect on outcomes. But then, maybe they're mistaken.