> Most of the achievement gap between black and white American students is in place by kindergarten. Meanwhile, dozens of studies of preschool programs since the 1960s have shown that early-childhood education can slash the black-white kindergarten achievement gap in half.
The common orthodoxy is that the achievement gap is caused by and solvable through the schools, but the reality is much different.
Interestingly, the achievement gap between black kids from two-parent households is almost non-existent, however since 70% of black kids are in single-parent homes, the effects of those homes is borne out in the statistics — but the cause is misattributed. “Black” students are treated as a homogeneous group, but really the gap is between “black students from single (or no) parent homes” and white students (of which the majority are from two-parent households.)
The destruction of the black family is what is really behind this so-called achievement gap. The origin of that destruction is a discussion for another time, but the Moynihan Report foretold this back in 1965. The Coleman Report from the same period, also described the achievement gap as being primarily originated from the family, rather than schools. [1]
I encourage healthy debate about controversial issues like this. When I opened up my New York Times today, I found this article, which questions how important two-parent households are for childhood success, especially among Afro-American youth:
“living in a two-parent family does not increase the chances of finishing high school as much for black students as for their white peers”
“Greater involvement in extended family networks may protect against some of the negative effects associated with parental absence from the home”
The conclusion of this New York Times opinion piece is that structural racism has more impact on the success of young Afro-American kids than single parent households.
If you follow Raj Chetty's work on income mobility it appears that single parents in the neighborhood matter a lot more than single parents themselves. Since single parenthood is much more common for black families and our cities tend to be segregated, black kids tend to grow up around single parented kids which is a disadvantage. Basically having two awesome parents doesn't make up for having your entire world be not that. And having a single parent doesn't ruin an upbringing surrounded by people with two parent families. I think it's as much about shared culture as anything, the social norms get established by majority rule basically.
The common orthodoxy is that the achievement gap is caused by and solvable through the schools, but the reality is much different.
Interestingly, the achievement gap between black kids from two-parent households is almost non-existent, however since 70% of black kids are in single-parent homes, the effects of those homes is borne out in the statistics — but the cause is misattributed. “Black” students are treated as a homogeneous group, but really the gap is between “black students from single (or no) parent homes” and white students (of which the majority are from two-parent households.)
The destruction of the black family is what is really behind this so-called achievement gap. The origin of that destruction is a discussion for another time, but the Moynihan Report foretold this back in 1965. The Coleman Report from the same period, also described the achievement gap as being primarily originated from the family, rather than schools. [1]
This article is long, but it relevant: https://www.city-journal.org/html/black-family-40-years-lies...
[1] https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2016/07/13/50-years-ago-t...