No Child Left Behind: Unwelcome Messinger

No Child Left Behind, Unwelcome Messenger

There is an ugly fact that we have been trying to hide in every way we can. Because it concerns race, the most painful subject and the most searing division in American society, we usually don't talk about it at all, and when it can't be avoided, we quickly brush it aside with an excuse. Scientists are strongly dissuaded from studying the subject, but a few have braved the wrath of the public and many now know the truth, but because public utterance of it is not allowed, they talk about it only among themselves. Not only do academics and the media denounce this truth as false, but also the truth teller is branded as racist and despicable. Even a casual reference to it can mean loss of a professorship or the end of a journalism career. In this way, the comfortable fiction of racial equality is preserved and the ugly fact of large racial differences is suppressed.

Racial differences were once accepted as obvious. When Muslim Arabs entered sub-Saharan Africa in the 700s, they were shocked by the poverty, promiscuity, and cannibalism of the natives, and when Europeans visited Africa somewhat later, they wrote of the poverty and low intelligence of the Africans. You might think their reaction was simply cultural chauvinism, but consider that when Europeans first visited China, they were very impressed by the advanced form of government and elegant culture they found there. Marco Polo wrote that the Chinese must be the most intelligent race on earth. For almost two and half millennia, racial differences were non-controversial. Aristotle, Plato, Voltaire, Hume, Darwin, Freud, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, Truman, and almost everyone else whose opinions are known believed that the races differ in mental ability. The 1914 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica stated it as a matter of fact.

It was not until the 1920s that a few psychologists began to spread the doctrine that all racial and gender differences are superficial, imposed upon people by culture and environment. Some writers went so far as to question the very concept of race. These beliefs came to dominate public discourse, but a counter-current was building at the same time: IQ testing. These tests showed significant differences in the average scores of the major races. The average IQ of Sub-Saharan Africans was found to be 70, African-Americans, 85, Native Americans and Latinos with little European blood, 89, Whites, 100, and northeast Asians, 106. These scores represent real and stable differences; they have not changed substantially from the time large-scale testing began, in about 1914, to the present. The early European visitors to Africa and China were correct; the differences in the people were evident in their cultures. Testing only confirmed the obvious.

There is some disagreement about what IQ tests measure; whether it is intelligence or merely test-taking skill, but there is no doubt that measured IQ is a good predictor of academic success, and to a large degree, success in life. For example, children with an IQ below 90 have only a ten percent chance of finishing high school and little chance of graduating from college. Unfortunately, almost two-thirds of African-Americans and over half of Latinos fall into that group. These facts represent a human tragedy of enormous proportions.

American society could probably have ignored reality for another century, but the No Child Left Behind Act has now put us on a collision course with the truth. This was not done intentionally. It came about because of demanding accountability, which requires rigorous testing of student achievement; while at the same time setting goals based upon the idea that race is only a matter of skin color. Most damaging will be the core goal of NCLB, which is to close the achievement gap between racial minorities and white students by 2014.

Collecting and analyzing the data over a period of years, as the law requires, will be equivalent to a scientific test of the hypothesis that all races have the same ability to learn, e.g.,

Hypothesis: Children of all races have equal ability to learn.

Testable deduction from hypothesis: Increased effort and strict accountability will produce equal academic achievement for all races.

Procedure: Use the best teaching methods available. Use testing to measure academic progress of every student, disaggregated by race. Hold schools and teachers accountable for achieving equal learning in all racial groups.

Results: ??

No Child Left Behind has been in effect for four years and early results are in. They show that only about half of the Latino, Native American,