THE "DO BLACK KIDS ACTUALLY MATTER" FILE: Digest of reports!

MONDAY, APRIL 1, 2019

Wittgenstein held till next week:
We'd expected to start our award-winning treatment of the later Wittgenstein this week.

Plainly, we aren't able to have nice things, just as Paula said! Those reports have been postponed until the start of next week.

Our reason? The New York Times' treatment of the Stuyvesant matter is one of the most disingenuous journalistic episodes ever staged. This 19-minute taped discussion has a piece of misdirection to suit every taste. And Sunday's featured editorial may be the least helpful presentation of all time.

At the New York Times, it's no excuse left behind! The famous upper-class Hamptons-based newspaper just can't seem to come to terms with elementary facts about the challenges facing our schools today.

They spend their time sliming Gotham's Asian families and blaming it all on "test prep." They're also in thrall to an ugly idea:

The only black kids worth caring about are the kids who score near the top!

Our view? In a more humane society, Mara Gay and Slate's Mary Harris would be frog-marched into the countryside for years of good sound re-education. In our society, citizens are going to have to settle for this week's featured reports.

We couldn't get to it all last week. Our reports went exactly like this:
Tuesday, March 26: Black kids don't get into Stuyvesant High! The New York Times shows that it cares.

Wednesday, March 27: The basic data you'll never be shown—and the problem we all ignore!

Thursday, March 28: The "brilliant students" of tribal lore! At Vox, does anyone care?

Friday, March 29: What do those Naep data actually mean? Mara Gay doesn't seem to care!
We're forced to continue this topic this week. Starting next Tuesday, Wittgenstein helps us see how the most revered of us "rational animals" have typically tended to fail.

We plan to start with Professor Horwich. Next week, The Horwich Rules!

19 comments:

  1. "Our view? In a more humane society, Mara Gay and Slate's Mary Harris would be frog-marched into the countryside for years of good sound re-education"

    Agreed, except that it wouldn't take years. Only a few months. Reprogramming dembots is an easy task.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They spend their time sliming Gotham's Asian families and blaming it all on "test prep." They're also in thrall to an ugly idea:

    The only black kids worth caring about are the kids who score near the top!”

    Too bad none of this is true.

    There is no sliming of Asian students.

    No one said the “only black kids worth caring about are the kids who score near the top!” The specific issue is the specialized high schools, and the kids who get into them. That doesn’t mean that no one cares about the other kids. Who gets into elite schools is an issue worth caring about. If you lament a society that systematically prevented black kids from achieving at all academic levels, including the highest, and you do not believe blacks are inherently inferior, then that would seem to show concern for black kids.

    Now, you may disagree about the way to achieve the goal, but the implied idea is that you want there to be no achievement gap between whites and blacks or any other groups.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OK, listen up, April Fool @4:35P

      The claim isn’t that “no one cares about the other kids”; the claim is that the NYT doesn’t care.

      The student body of Stuyvesant comprises about 3,300 souls.

      Going by the 2017 statistics, there were about 1.1M students in NYC public schools, about 26% of them African-American. The NAEP results for 2017 math and reading for 4th and 8th graders were that about 72% of students tested failed to score at the proficient level or above.

      Let’s make the simplifying assumptions that the tested students’ scores are representative of the entire student population and that African-American students’ scores are representative of the tested students’ scores. That means that about 206K black students didn’t meet NEAP’s proficiency standard, about 60 times the capacity of Stuyvesant.

      What do you suppose the ratio of stories and editorials about Stuyvesant is compared to the stories and editorials about the lagging students?

      TDH’s claim isn’t that the Stuyvesant gap isn’t newsworthy but that the NYT doesn’t bother to report or opine about the bigger problem in a significant way. No one at the NYT says out loud that the only black kids worth caring about are the kids who score near the top, but that’s what their focus says.

      On the other hand, I don’t see anything that TDH quotes that constitutes “sliming.”

      Delete
    2. Somerby has stated it much more generally in the past, as has been pointed out to you many times. Examples:

      “We liberals don't care about these kids!”

      (LOS ANGELES STORY: Data concerning loser kids!

      http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2018/08/los-angeles-story-warning-data.html)

      “white liberals don’t care about black kids.”

      (A BASIC LACK OF SKILL: Rachel and Lawrence hate black kids!

      FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2011


      http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2011/11/basic-lack-of-skill-rachel-and-lawrence.html)

      Even if he here restricts his “don’t care” meme to Mara Gay or the New York Times, (possibly a result of the constant and legitimate complaining of his readers?), who gets into elite schools is still a legitimate concern and reflects the overall problem with the education of black students in NYC. If there are hardly any getting into elite high schools, then there is an overall problem with the culture and/or the educational system. It is two sides of the same coin.(Put it this way, if there were no achievement gap, one would assume more proportional representation of different groups in the elite schools.) Also, graduates of elite schools have a greater influence on society than their relatively small numbers would otherwise suggest, so getting into those schools is important for providing access to the important components of society, ie finance, government, etc. Being locked out of hose schools represents a powerlessness for the locked-out groups.

      As to the Times’ coverage, it’s probably best not to trust Somerby to accurately report on stories that don’t illustrate his point, but if he would restrict himself in future to saying the NYT doesn't care, that is at least less egregious.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous @11:14,

      Just in case your comment wasn’t an April Fools joke, I’ll spell it out. Again.

      You can say you care all you want, but if your actions don’t match your words, then I don’t believe you. Squawk all you want about how much you care for others, but if you habitually drive drunk, I’m gonna say you don’t really care at all.

      This is evident when we talk about the other tribe. You can proclaim your piety and morality to the world, but if you support someone who’s a cheat, a grifter, an adulterer, and an abuser of children, then I’m gonna dismiss your proclamations.

      When liberals and progressive care, they act. You can ask Randy Boehning (Fasicst-ND), the primary sponsor of a bill in the North Dakota legislature to disenfranchise native Americans. He’s now former-representative Randy Boehning. Or you can ask Rush Limbaugh how many sponsors left him after his prurient attack on a woman who expressed her opinion that birth control was a medical issue to be covered by health insurance. Hint: they didn’t do it on their own; they were prompted.

      If you don’t really care, then you remain silent and inactive.

      The NYT malfeasance in reporting on education has no bottom. By their actions, they show they don’t care. Liberals don’t mind, otherwise they would have said something. By this measure, they don’t care either. I think hate is too strong a word, but at least I can tell when I’m reading a provocateur.

      As to the Times’ coverage, it’s probably best not to trust Somerby to accurately report on stories that don’t illustrate his point,….

      For my sins, I take that piece of shit paper, and I read it. TDH is accurate when he describes the reporting on education. If they’ve ever published a decent education story, then I missed it. Perhaps you could point out my oversight.

      who gets into elite schools is still a legitimate concern

      Yup. So what?

      possibly a result of the constant and legitimate complaining of his readers?

      Was that a question or an April Fools joke? Why would you think TDH reads his commentariat? I wouldn’t. Would you?

      Delete
    4. Why do you take Somerby's word for the quality of education stories in the NYT? He has no training, no qualifications to criticize the word of professionals, and he usually just picks some tangential point and harps on something else he thinks they should have said. He rarely points out anything that could be considered an error or poor coverage/reporting.

      TDH is limited, single-minded, incompetent when he discusses the reporting on education. But you are ready to take his word for things. You are being misled.

      Delete
    5. Er, Sparky? I don't take TDH's word for the quality of the NYT's reporting. I actually subscribe to that piece-of-shit newspaper. Maybe TDH doesn't have the training to criticize the "word of professionals," but he's certainly got the chops to criticize the amateurs that the NYT puts on the education beat. And yeah, he "harps" on things they should have said, like writing things that aren't misleading. And he's always pointing out errors and wrong-headed approaches.

      I don't have to take his word for it that the NYT is crap. I read it for myself.

      Delete
  3. "The only black kids worth caring about are the kids who score near the top!"

    Why do black kids who score elsewhere in the bell curve have to be played off against those who score at the top?

    It is hard enough for black kids to succeed without implying that if they do well, they are throwing their friends under the bus.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bob is right that they don't care about black kids who are not at the top. If they cared, they'd be running lots of articles about the problems of all the black kid who graduate from high school but whose academic skills are 8th grade or lower. Today's society is complex. It's hard to cope with inadequate math and reading skills

    The media deals with these kids by ignoring them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Plenty of white kids graduate from high school with inadequate skills too. If you run stories about the black kids who do so, you strengthen negative stereotypes about African Americans and make it harder to overcome prejudice, especially in hiring. The media considers its responsibility not to make life harder for people. Educators take the performance gap very seriously and work hard to help kids who are struggling. Somerby's daily insistence that no one cares also perpetuates some stereotypes about education and teachers that are grossly unfair to the many caring people who work with black and white kids in our schools.

      Delete
    2. Too bad that RIF program doesn’t seem to be working.

      TDH doesn’t insist that no one cares about struggling school kids. He says that the NYT doesn’t care. If they did, then their education reporting wouldn’t be so incompetent.

      Delete
    3. @David in Cal
      When you say "the media", that is not supported by Somerby's post. He is only looking at the NYTimes coverage; other times, MSNBC. That is not the entirety of "the media."

      Delete
    4. AnonymousApril 1, 2019 at 7:55 PM - you make a good point, and no doubt many people agree with you, but I'm not so sure. The trouble with ignoring the education gap is that it leads to a mistaken diagnosis and wrong-headed policies. IMHO the right way to try to solve the low % of blacks at special high schools is to encourage black students to study more or find other ways for them to become better students. But, those approaches are not on Mayor DeBlasio's mind. What makes it worse is that people who fail
      generally prefer to believe that they were treated unfairly. So, it's easy for a politician to get a lot of mileage out of attributing the problem to discrimination.

      Delete
    5. But, those approaches are not on Mayor DeBlasio's mind.

      In case anyone doesn't know by now, David is a ginormous bullshit artist and now apparently a mind reader. Tell us, Kreskin, when did you first realize you had these powers to read minds?


      ******
      David in CalMarch 23, 2019 at 10:07 PM

      This is the new Democratic talking point, but it won't last long. First of all, just about nobody opposes releasing the Mueller Report - not even Trump.
      *****

      Democrats to authorize subpoena for full Mueller report
      https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/01/politics/house-judiciary-subpoena-full-muller-report/index.html

      Delete
    6. ******
      David in CalMarch 23, 2019 at 10:07 PM

      This is the new Democratic talking point, but it won't last long. First of all, just about nobody opposes releasing the Mueller Report - not even Trump.
      *****

      ***

      Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump


      In 1998, Rep.Jerry Nadler strongly opposed the release of the Starr Report on Bill Clinton. No information whatsoever would or could be legally released. But with the NO COLLUSION Mueller Report, which the Dems hate, he wants it all. NOTHING WILL EVER SATISFY THEM! @foxandfriends

      4:58 AM - 2 Apr 2019


      ***

      Delete
    7. ******
      David in CalMarch 23, 2019 at 10:07 PM

      This is the new Democratic talking point, but it won't last long. First of all, just about nobody opposes releasing the Mueller Report - not even Trump.
      *****

      Trump changes tune on public release of Mueller report

      By ANDREW DESIDERIO and KYLE CHENEY
      | 04/02/2019 04:35 PM EDT

      Delete
  5. "The NYT doesn't care about black kids!"

    Is that supposed to be some great revelation?

    Is that the sum total of Somerby's contribution to the discussion about the education of black kids?

    He can continue to discover, or pretend to discover, with disgust, that the Times doesn't care, and say it, over and over and over again, but it isn't much of a contribution to the discussion. It is also having no effect on the Times.

    ReplyDelete
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