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> The USA is special, when it comes to demographic statistics. I've heard the US is often bimodal - there's one distribution for people who live in reasonable a

> The USA is special, when it comes to demographic statistics. I've heard the US is often bimodal - there's one distribution for people who live in reasonable areas, and people who live in places where there is generational poverty, gang violence, drug dealers everywhere, no jobs, and so on. > OK, immigrants also do a little poorer, especially informal immigrants. And some states are wealthier than others. But this is all stuff that other countries deal with as well. Just stop beating around the bush with PC euphemisms and say what you mean - "blacks and Hispanics are much worse off than whites, to the point that they have their own set of statistics. The states that have lots of them are significantly worse off than ones who don't." > The US seems to allow large areas of their cities to become extremely poor. Maybe it's a hold-over from the semi-apartheid days before the civil rights act, when there were black areas and white areas; I don't know. > Maybe the solution is for local councils to try and mix up the communities more, encouraging low-income housing to be dispersed throughout the city. Yeah, it sucks to have a few poor families in the neighbourhood, but it's better than having whole neighbourhoods of poor people. Yeah, that doesn't work in America. Unlike those "other countries" you mentioned, we have virtually unlimited space, and the minute (poor) blacks or Hispanics move into a neighborhood, you get white flight all over again.

Alex3917 15y ago
Race doesn't really correlate much with literacy beyond SES. The reason why it's important is that the children being born in the U.S. today are over half 'minority', so it's important in terms of being able to easily understand the longterm trend.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  On the contrary, SES (or at least income, which is easy to measure) explains very little of racial gaps in education. http://www.umich.edu/~rdytolrn/pathwaysconference/presentations/craig.pdf http://www.umich.edu/~rdytolrn/pathwaysconference/presentati... http://www.jstor.org/pss/2963200 http://www.jstor.org/pss/2963200
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    "Together these research sources demonstrated that although SES exerted statistically significant direct and indirect effects on reading, oral language skills – especially oral language comprehension skills – were a much stronger influence on reading achievement outcomes." In other words, you want to choose a definition of SES that predicts how the parents interact with the children before age five, as it's not (mostly) income or race that creates the achievement gap. E.g. just separate the parents into welfare, working class, or professional, like Hart & Risley do in Meaningful Differences. I think in order to understand how SES effects the achievement gap, you need to choose a definition of SES that is broad and qualitative rather than quantitative and limited.
- wisty 15y ago
  It's not just SES. Race correlates with the SES of school peers, as well. If you go to a poor (black) school in a poor (black) neighbourhood, then your own SES isn't your biggest problem. And race does correlate with peer SES, as whites (and asians, and most hispanics, and well-off blacks) flee schools once there are too many low-SES blacks. The question is - how big a problem is "white flight" / segregation. If it is seen as a huge cause of inequality, then there are ways to reduce it.
mbreese 15y ago
You know, race isn't the only factor... economics plays a big role as well. For example, look at Appalachia. There are many predominantly white areas there that are very poor and as a result also have poor literacy. Race and urban vs. suburbia aren't the only factors here.

Alex3917 15y ago

Race doesn't really correlate much with literacy beyond SES. The reason why it's important is that the children being born in the U.S. today are over half 'minority', so it's important in terms of being able to easily understand the longterm trend.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
On the contrary, SES (or at least income, which is easy to measure) explains very little of racial gaps in education. http://www.umich.edu/~rdytolrn/pathwaysconference/presentations/craig.pdf http://www.umich.edu/~rdytolrn/pathwaysconference/presentati... http://www.jstor.org/pss/2963200 http://www.jstor.org/pss/2963200
- Alex3917 15y ago
  "Together these research sources demonstrated that although SES exerted statistically significant direct and indirect effects on reading, oral language skills – especially oral language comprehension skills – were a much stronger influence on reading achievement outcomes." In other words, you want to choose a definition of SES that predicts how the parents interact with the children before age five, as it's not (mostly) income or race that creates the achievement gap. E.g. just separate the parents into welfare, working class, or professional, like Hart & Risley do in Meaningful Differences. I think in order to understand how SES effects the achievement gap, you need to choose a definition of SES that is broad and qualitative rather than quantitative and limited.
wisty 15y ago
It's not just SES. Race correlates with the SES of school peers, as well. If you go to a poor (black) school in a poor (black) neighbourhood, then your own SES isn't your biggest problem. And race does correlate with peer SES, as whites (and asians, and most hispanics, and well-off blacks) flee schools once there are too many low-SES blacks. The question is - how big a problem is "white flight" / segregation. If it is seen as a huge cause of inequality, then there are ways to reduce it.

mbreese 15y ago

You know, race isn't the only factor... economics plays a big role as well. For example, look at Appalachia. There are many predominantly white areas there that are very poor and as a result also have poor literacy. Race and urban vs. suburbia aren't the only factors here.