Scholars Cite History’s Legacy, Rap Music for Achievement Gap
By Mark Baard
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
Dr. Glenn C. Loury is losing sleep over the achievement gap between Blacks and Whites in public schools. But it’s not merely low test scores in the nation’s elementary and middle schools that disturbs him. Loury is alarmed that America’s political leaders, are leaving the job of fixing the nation’s racial disparities to educators alone.
“I feel like a move is being made,” said Loury, “to change the definition of the problem to something that is not amenable to political treatment.”
Loury, a Brown University economics professor, made those remarks last month in an address to education experts at the Second Annual Conference of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University.
Harvard launched the Achievement Gap Initiative last year to study the differences among racial groups, which are greatest between Blacks and Whites, according to many of the statistics presented at the conference.
The causes of the gap — as reflected by standardized test scores and high school and college dropout rates — “are a legacy of a history,” said Loury, in an apparent reference to slavery, segregation and the redlining of school districts. “The achievement gap is a deeply rooted reflection of a thousand different forces, [including] the deeply entrenched segregation of our lives,” he said.
