Is the No Child Left Behind Act Increasing the Black School Dropout Rate?

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I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

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[re-post]

Reading Dropouts in America: Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis, edited by Gary Orfield, it is clear that many researchers who study high school dropouts are worried that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) will increase the high school dropout rate for blacks and other disadvantaged groups. NCLB is the most recent and wide-reaching initiative of the movement for high-stakes testing in schools. With high-stakes testing, students are prevented from progressing with their education if they fail to pass a specific test. Since NCLB only became law in 2002, adequate data on this policy is still being collected. The researchers in Dropouts in America have based their analyses largely on other older high-stakes testing policies.

Over the past two decades, many states have instituted state-level high-stakes testing as a basis of promoting students. Under these policies, students who fail to pass a high-stakes test are held back to repeat a grade. Examining data from the mid-1980s to 2001, researchers have shown than states with high-stakes testing have had higher dropout rates than states without these policies.

In the mid-1990s, Chicago instituted a high-stakes test for students to enter high school. Students who did not receive a minimum score on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills were not allowed to enter the ninth grade. This policy produced a dramatic increase in the retention of black students in the eight grade. While the policy did produce an increase in test scores, it also increased the black high school dropout rate.

This research and many prior studies suggest that the high-stakes testing of NCLB may increase the black school dropout rate. The Act has a provision to require schools to be assessed based on graduation rates in addition to test scores, but the graduation rate requirement has not been enforced. This means that schools would actually benefit from having lower-performing students dropout. Average test-scores will increase if there are fewer lower-performing students in a school.

While it is good to push schools to better educate black students, a policy that produces more black dropouts does more harm than good. It is possible to improve black students’ achievement without resorting to the drastic and punitive measures of NCLB that are likely to increase the dropout rate. Conveniently, many of the policies that would improve black student achievement would also reduce the black student dropout rate.

The fact about a third of black high school dropouts go on to obtain a GED credential shows that academic achievement is not the only reason students dropout of school. The GED is designed so that 40 percent of students who received a high school diploma could not pass it. Any black student who received a GED is academically capable of completing high school.

Students dropout of school for a variety of reasons. Some are doing poorly in school. Many are simply bored with school and do not see its relevance to life outside of school. Some have conflicts with other students or with teachers. Some decide to work instead of going to school. Some dropout because they have a child or need to take care of a family member.

Smaller classes, more motivated, knowledgeable, and creative teachers, and more experiential and applied curricula would both increase black student achievement and prevent black students from dropping out because of boredom. NCLB seems to be producing schools that emphasize repetitive drilling for the high-stakes tests. Both students and high quality teachers who need schools to be more interesting and creative are likely to leave under these circumstances.

Students who have fallen behind academically need extra support, not additional academic punishments. Many of the students who are being held back in the ninth grade, have had academic difficulties for much of their school career. Indeed, one of the best high school dropout prevention programs is a highly effective pre-school program. After consistently doing poorly in school, low-performing students choose to drop out rather than to be subjected to additional academic embarrassment.

More moderately low-performing students could benefit from tutors and summer school instead of retention. Good alternative schools can be effective for students with more serious academic needs or for students with other social or personal problems.

Although passing the GED test is not easy, the GED credential when held by nonwhites is not valued by employers. Since a large number of high school dropouts later regret not finishing high school, they should be encouraged to obtain a high school diploma as an adult. For dropouts who are not planning on using a GED as a stepping stone to college, it may be particularly useful for them to obtain their high school diploma through an adult high school program instead of a GED.

There are ways to improve black students’ academic achievement without increasing the black dropout rate. It is too early to know for certain whether NCLB is such a program. Based on the existing research, few educational researchers would bet that it is.

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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The Truth about “Acting White”

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, African American Literary Book Club

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

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For twenty years, black students have been chastised based on flawed research. Black leaders and black public intellectuals routinely claim that black students see academic achievement as “acting white.” The actual evidence for the “acting white” hypothesis, however, is meager and not at all convincing when examined carefully.

Among the flaws in the study that popularized the “acting white” hypothesis is the presumption that no white student has ever called another white student a nerd, geek or brainiac. This presumption is clearly false.

A study by the Girl Scout Research Institute shows that black and white girls experience equivalent levels of academically-oriented teasing. Forty-one percent of white girls reported that they worried about being teased for speaking or participating in class. Thirty-five percent of black girls felt the same. These results are statistically equal because the margin of error is plus or minus 7 percentage points.

[click on image for a better view]Source: Adapted from Girl Scout Research Institute, Feeling Safe: What Girls Say, 2003, 41.

The proponents of the “acting white” hypothesis claim that black students experience much more academic teasing than white students, but they have never presented any direct evidence to support this assertion.

The educational researcher Ronald F. Ferguson has found that the key to popularity for black and for white students lies in having cool clothes and being funny. For both groups, scholastic achievement is not important to being popular. Black leaders and black public intellectuals have therefore been condemning black children for behaving like average American students.

Much of the concern with “acting white” has been based on a desire to address the very real achievement gap between black and white students. But while leaders have been fixated on the “acting white” hypothesis, they have neglected the real reasons for the gap.

Five Steps to Reducing the Black-White Achievement Gap
While misguided leaders have been calling for a cultural transformation to address the supposed “acting white” crisis, they have ignored far more important educational reforms:

1. Improving and expanding early childhood education. A large body of research shows that black students begin kindergarten behind white students. If we expand and improve the quality of the pre-kindergarten education received by black children we will significantly reduce the testing gap.

2. Improving teacher quality in black schools. A recent study by the Illinois Education Research Council found that 45 percent of black high school students in Illinois attended schools with the lowest teacher-quality ratings. Only 8 percent of white students attended such low teacher-quality schools. Until we eliminate the teacher-quality gap, we will have a test-score gap.

3. Providing small classes and creating small schools. Black students, who are often behind, benefit from the extra attention available in very small classes. Reductions in class size have been shown to boost black student achievement. Smaller schools have been shown to increase black students’ graduation rates.

4. Increasing school integration. While black leaders have been condemning black students based on flawed “acting white” research, America’s schools have been becoming increasingly segregated. Few black leaders have said a word about this issue. Yet historically, integration has been one means by which blacks have gained access to higher quality schools. Effective school integration can also help break down the racial stereotypes of whites and blacks.

5. Making college more affordable. Research suggests that if college were more affordable there would be higher black college enrollment and graduation rates.
It is time to address the real issues holding black students back.

For a detailed discussion of the flaws in the “acting white” research of Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu—the originators of the hypothesis—send a check or money order for $9 made out to “Thora Institute LLC” to “Flaws of ‘Acting White’,” Thora Institute LLC, P.O. Box 367, New Haven, CT 06513-0367.

To keep abreast of the latest high-quality social science research on black America, subscribe to the Black Directions newsletter. Send a check or money order for $36 (33% off) made out to “Thora Institute LLC” for a year’s Black Directions subscription (six issues) to Thora Institute LLC, P.O. Box 367, New Haven, CT 06513-0367. Only Black Directions separates the myths from the facts about black America.

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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Do IQ Tests Measure Intelligence?

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, African American Literary Book Club

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
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IQ scores have been rising, and although the average black IQ score is lower than the average white score, black scores have been rising at a faster rate than whites’. The rapid rate of increase shows that there are societal factors driving this change. Additionally, the fact that IQ scores correlate with the quantity and quality of schooling a person has received also points to nurture and not nature.

Ultimately, however, the nature-nurture dichotomy does not make sense. For humans, nature and nurture cannot exist without each other. Intelligence cannot be developed without biological capacity and biological capacity cannot be realized without a hospitable social environment. There is only nature and nurture. There is no nature or nurture.

A good argument can be made that standard intelligence tests measure, at best, only two of seven or more intelligences. Howard Gardner has developed a theory of multiple intelligences. He defines intelligence as

a biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture. … intelligences are not things that can be seen or counted. Instead, they are potentials—presumably, neural ones—that will or will not be activated depending upon the values of a particular culture, the opportunities available in that culture, and the personal decisions made by individuals and/or their families, schoolteachers, and others.

Gardner argues that there are at least 7 intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical; musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal. Linguistic intelligence and logical-mathematical intelligence are the ones emphasized in school and captured by IQ tests.

Just as formal education appears to improve linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence, all of the other intelligences can be improved with training.

Even people who seem gifted in a particular intelligence or domain will accomplish little if they are not exposed to materials that engage the intelligence. By the same token, as demonstrated vividly by such programs as the Suzuki Music Talent Education Program, shrewd environmental interventions can convert ordinary people into highly proficient performers or experts. Indeed, the ‘smarter’ the environment and the more powerful the interventions and the available resources, the more proficient people will become, and the less important will be their particular genetic inheritance.

It is clear that we value the intelligences not measured by IQ tests. For example, our politicians, salespeople, and therapists draw on interpersonal intelligence to inspire, persuade and guide others. We spend great amounts of money and time admiring exemplars of bodily-kinesthetic and musical intelligences—our athletes, dancers and musicians. Our pilots as well as architects draw on spatial intelligence. It seems that we would be better off if we officially acknowledged the value of these multiple intelligences and the benefits of having people who are multiply talented.

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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Are Black IQs Rising?

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, Dallasblack.com

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

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Intelligence or IQ tests are among the most controversial topics in social science. There are several reasons for this fact. One reason is that they have been used repeatedly to argue for the innate inferiority of racial minorities. Another reason is because there is disagreement among the specialists over the definition and measure of intelligence.

The racist IQ argument usually rests on claims that IQ tests measure individuals’ genetic endowments primarily and since these endowments are genetic they cannot be changed by social interventions. Average racial group differences are then used to argue for the superiority of one racial group over another.

The sign that an elitist is more interested in race than intelligence is the move from the individual to the racial group in his arguments of superiority. If one were simply an IQ elitist then race doesn’t matter. People with IQ scores above 130, for example, would be the 2.5 percent IQ elite of the population—regardless of their race—and everyone else would be inferior—irrespective of their race. Whites’ IQs cover the entire spread of the IQ distribution, so to be a true white IQ elitist one has to regard the majority of the white population as inferior. The same, of course, goes for IQ elitists of any racial group. Thus, it is really impossible to be an IQ elitist and a racial supremacist at the same time. Racial supremacists only use IQ to try to mask their racism.

Because of this history of misuse of intelligence tests and because of legitimate concerns about racial inequality, it is useful to have an understanding of issues of race and intelligence. First, IQ tests measure nurture at least as much as nature. Scores on IQ tests have been increasing across the globe. In the U.S., one sees an average increase of about 3 points each decade. The tests have to be re-adjusted every decade or so to compensate for this increase. If IQ tests were simply capturing people’s genetic endowment there could not be such a quick and steady rise in scores. Only environmental changes could produce this type of growth.

While it is clear that scores are rising, it is not clear what has caused this increase. Better nutrition is a strong candidate. More and better education is another. One test that is used as an intelligence test, the Armed Forces Qualifying Test , in part, measures the amount and quality of schooling one has had (Hout 2002: 333-339). People who receive more and better schooling tend to score better on IQ tests.

Until recently researchers have argued that the IQ gap between blacks and whites was about 15 points in the 1930s. Between the 1930s and the 1980s, they observed that black IQ scores increased by about 15 points. The 15-point gap remained because white scores also increased by about 15 points over the same period. The encouraging point here is that it is possible to produce what are very big increases in IQ scores in a relatively short period of time. There is no reason for anyone to assume that blacks cannot increase their score to equal the white score given this history of big rises.

The even better news is that this IQ score convergence has already begun. William T. Dickens and James R. Flynn (“Black Americans Reduce the Racial IQ Gap: Evidence from Standardization Samples”) have access to IQ data that provide better quality measurements of black and white IQ scores over time. Dickens and Flynn show that in 1972, the black-white average IQ difference was 16.5 points. They also show, like the prior research, that white IQ scores have been increasing at an average rate of 0.311 points a year since 1972 or about 3 points a decade. Since 1972, however, the black average score has been increasing at 0.45 points a year or about 4.5 points a decade. In 2002, the IQ gap had declined from 16.5 points to 11.8 points.

People who do not bother to examine black standardized test scores routinely claim that blacks are doing worse educationally. The truth is to the contrary. These critics of blacks not only fail to see black improvement, they also fail to realize that achievement gaps require significant amounts of time or significant investments in resources (i.e., large and rapid improvements in black health, nutrition and schooling) to eliminate. The problem is not that blacks are not improving but rather that whites are improving also. If white IQ scores remained at their 1930’s level, blacks IQ scores would be higher than whites' today. If white IQ scores remained at their 1972 level, the IQ gap would be 3 points instead of four times as much. (See Algernon Austin, Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals Are Failing Black America for a discussion of black and white trends on three other standardized tests.)

The good news is that blacks are reducing the IQ gap. The bad news is that, assuming past trends continue, it will still take a while to eliminate it completely.

Next week: Wait a Minute! Do IQ Tests Measure Intelligence?

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Additional References
Hout, Michael. 2002. “Test Scores, Education, and Poverty.” Pp. 329-354 in Race and Intelligence: Separating Science From Myth, ed. Jefferson M. Fish. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Neisser, Ulric, ed. 1998. The Rising Curve: Long-Term Gains in IQ and Related Measures. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.


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Inequality Updates: Skin Color, Race, Income

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, Dallasblack.com

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
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Skin Color Discrimination in the U.S.

Light-skinned immigrants in the United States make more money on average than those with darker complexions, and the chief reason appears to be discrimination, a researcher says.

Joni Hersch, a law and economics professor at Vanderbilt University, looked at a government survey of 2,084 legal immigrants to the United States from around the world and found that those with the lightest skin earned an average of 8 percent to 15 percent more than similar immigrants with much darker skin.

“On average, being one shade lighter has about the same effect as having an additional year of education,” Hersch said.

Hersch took into consideration other factors that could affect wages, such as English-language proficiency, education, occupation, race or country of origin, and found that skin tone still seemed to make a difference in earnings.

That means that if two similar immigrants from Bangladesh, for example, came to the United States at the same time, with the same occupation and ability to speak English, the lighter-skinned immigrant would make more money on average.

Although many cultures show a bias toward lighter skin, Hersch said her analysis shows that the skin-color advantage was not due to preferential treatment for light-skinned people in their country of origin. The bias, she said, occurs in the U.S.
Excerpts from Associated Press, “Study Says Skin Tone Affects Earnings,” New York Times, January 26, 2007

Black Cherokees Kicked Out of Cherokee Nation

A Letter from 26 members of the Congressional Black Caucus to the Bureau of Indian Affairs

The undersigned members of the Congressional Black Caucus are shocked and outraged at the March 3 vote by Cherokee Nation members to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 black descendants of the Cherokee Nation.

The black descendants are of mixed African-Cherokee heritage. Their lineage extends back for well over a century when they accompanied other tribal members to new settlements in Oklahoma after the Cherokee Nation had been expelled from its traditional lands in North Carolina and Georgia. Many African descendant Cherokees died during the forced migration, which has become known as the "Trail of Tears."

The Cherokee Nation fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. After the war it signed a federal treaty, in 1866, committing that its African-Cherokee descendants would be absorbed as citizens of the Cherokee Nation. In 1983, the Cherokee Nation expelled many African descendants by requiring them to show a degree of Indian blood through the Dawes rolls. A tribal court reinstated them in March 2006. The most recent March 3 vote is an apparent attempt to override the March 2006 court decision.

We question the validity, legality, as well as the morality of the Cherokee Nation's March 3 vote to disenfranchise its African descendants. A sizeable number of persons throughout the United States who can rightfully lay claim to Native American tribal citizenship and lineage are of mixed ancestry. The tribal lineage of black Native
American descendants is rich in history and precedent that equals, if not surpasses, that of other racially and ethnically mixed Native Americans who have sought and been granted full tribal status.

We respectfully request an interpretation from the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the March 3 vote, particularly the legality of the vote, as well as what actions can be taken by the Bureau to correct this egregious violation of the rights of Cherokee Nation members of African descent.

We are resolute in our efforts to undo this outrage.

Income Inequality Grows

Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 — receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows.

The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.

Prof. Emmanuel Saez, the University of California, Berkeley, economist who analyzed the Internal Revenue Service data with Prof. Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics, said such growing disparities were significant in terms of social and political stability.

“If the economy is growing but only a few are enjoying the benefits, it goes to our sense of fairness,” Professor Saez said. “It can have important political consequences.”

Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an advocacy group for the poor, said that the data understates the widening disparity between the top 1 percent and the rest of the country.

He said that in addition to rising incomes and reduced taxes, the equation should take into account cuts in fringe benefits to workers and in government services that middle-class and poor Americans rely on more than the affluent. These include health care, child care and education spending.

“The nation faces some very tough choices in coming years,” he said. “That such a large share of the income gains are going to the very top, at a minimum, raises serious questions about continuing to provide tax cuts averaging over $150,000 a year to people making more than a million dollars a year, while saying we do not have enough money” to provide health insurance to 47 million Americans and cutting education benefits.

Mr. Greenstein’s organization will release a report today showing that for Americans in the middle, the share of income taken by federal taxes has been essentially unchanged across four decades. By comparison, it has fallen by half for those at the very top of the income ladder.
Excerpts from David Cay Johnston, “Income Gap is Widening, Data Shows,” New York Times, March 29, 2007.

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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U.S. Worst in Developed World in Health and Safety of Children; Mediocre in Education

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, Dallasblack.com

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
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Many Americans would assume that in world comparisons the U.S. ranks highly in health and does terribly in education. UNICEF’s Innocenti Research Centre, however, finds the U.S. the worst of 25 OECD countries in children’s health and safety and just a little below the average of 24 OECD countries in education. But there may be some “grade inflation” on the U.S. educational score.

“By almost any available measure, the great majority of children born into today’s developed societies enjoy unprecedented levels of health and safety,” begins the Innocenti discussion (p. 13).

Almost within living memory, one child in every five in the cities of Europe could be expected to die before his or her fifth birthday; today that risk is less than one in a hundred. Loss of life among older children is even more uncommon; fewer than one in every 10,000 young people die before the age of 19 as a result of accident, murder, suicide or violence. This, too, represents an historically unheard of level of safety. (p. 13)

Developed nations, including the U.S. have and continue to make advances in improving child health and safety. But still, given the wealth of the U.S., it should not be last among 25 OECD countries.

Source: UNICEF, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries, Innocenti Report Card 7, 2007.

The Heath and Safety index is a composite measure of infant mortality, low birth weight, immunization rates and children’s mortality rate from accidents. When these elements are combined, Sweden is far ahead of the pack, followed by Iceland. The Netherlands, Finland and Denmark are clustered relatively close together in third, forth and fifth position.

American Students: Low Ability, High Aspirations

Source: UNICEF, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries, Innocenti Report Card 7, 2007.

Overall, the U.S. is 14th out of 24 in the educational well-being of children—just a bit below average. Belgium is number one and a good bit ahead of the rest. Canada is second. Poland and Finland are clustered in third and fourth place.



Source: UNICEF, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries, Innocenti Report Card 7, 2007.

On item making up the index inflates the U.S. score the most: American students’ career aspirations. The U.S. leads in students’ aspiring to higher skilled occupations. Surprisingly, Japan has the highest percentage of students expecting to do low-skilled work. To fully understand these responses requires deeper cultural analysis.

The American students’ answers are particularly surprising when one considers that in the reading, math and science exams U.S. students placed 21st out of 25. Somehow U.S. students manage to combine relatively low achievement with high aspirations.

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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U.S. Has Highest Child Poverty Rate in Developed World

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, Dallasblack.com

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
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The U.S. has the highest child poverty rate among 24 OECD countries, indicates UNICEF in its latest Innocenti Research Centre Report Card. The Report Card was issued in February of this year, and it rates many different aspects of child well-being in OECD countries. This week and in coming weeks, I will review some of the findings.


Source: UNICEF, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries, Innocenti Report Card 7, 2007.

When child poverty is defined as the percent of 0 to 17 year-olds in households with earnings of less than 50 percent of the national median income, the United States scores worst among developed nations. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have the lowest child poverty rates.

The U.S. is not only last, it is far behind the second-to-last country, New Zealand. New Zealand beats the U.S. by more than 5 percentage points. This is the largest difference between two adjacent countries in the entire ranking.

We cannot blame the last place ranking of the U.S. on that favorite target—single parents. The Report Card states,

Variations between countries in the proportion of children growing up in lone-parent families do not explain national poverty rates. Sweden, for example, has a higher proportion of children living in lone-parent families than the United States or the United Kingdom but a much lower child poverty rate than either. (p. 7)

Poverty is still fundamentally an issue of low income, not family structure.

This measure of poverty, as less than 50 percent of the national median, is really a measure of income inequality. It is a relative measure, not an absolute one. In terms of the absolute value of income, a household defined as in poverty in the U.S. could have higher earnings than a household that is not in relative income poverty in a poorer developed nation.

This point is an important one to keep in mind. On the other hand, Americans judge their well-being relative to other Americans, not relative to the living standards of people in countries like Greece, Poland and the Czech Republic.

On the broader measure of the material well-being of children, the U.S. places 17th out of the 21 countries with complete data. This placement is better, but not much better.

The Report Card defines material well-being as an average of measures of relative income poverty, households without jobs and reported deprivation.

The U.S. is 17th in well-being but places highly—5th (out of 24)—in the percentage of children living in households without an employed parent. Many of the countries with lower rates of relative income poverty among children have higher unemployment rates than the U.S. It is easier to find a job in the U.S. and also easier to be impoverished. This situation occurs because in most developed nations, the public sees poverty as harmful to the nation. In the U.S., we see people not working as the greater threat. The end result is that we have many families that can be described as working poor.

The reported deprivation scale is an average of three items: affluence, educational resources, and books.

The affluence measure asks children if their family owns an automobile, if they have their own bedroom, if they have traveled on vacation with their family and how many computers their family owns. This measure allows the high standard of living in the U.S. to be factored in.

The U.S. scores highly on affluence—6th (out of 20)—but still some distance from number one. Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Canada and Switzerland all score higher. Denmark is immediately behind the U.S.

The U.S. is 13th (out of 24) in the percentage of children reporting less than six educational possessions, and a depressing 22nd (out of 24) on the percentage of children reporting less than 10 books in the home. The low score for the U.S. in these areas cannot be simply because children are using the worldwide web for their information. Countries with equal or higher technological development (e.g., Japan, Germany and Canada) outscore the U.S. in children with books.

“Variation in government policy appears to account for most of the variation in child poverty levels between OECD countries,” states the Innocenti Centre. In others words, the U.S. could have lower child poverty rates, we just have to want it.

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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No to Giuliani

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, Dallasblack.com

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
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Algernon Austin speaks on Challenging the Bill Cosby Consensus, Connecticut College, Blaustein 210, February 27, 4pm.
________________________________________________________________________


Rudolph W. Giuliani is not fit to be president of the United States. As mayor of New York City, Giuliani revealed himself to be a callous man with little respect for civil liberties. In an America already suffering from the Bush Administration’s weakening of constitutional rights, he will only worsen the situation. In an increasingly racially diverse America, we need someone who can defuse racial conflict, not incite it. The Republican Party should say no to Giuliani for president.

Selections from “A Legacy of Giuliani Years: Civil Rights Suits Against City,” New York Times, December 24, 2004.

In the three years since Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Mr. Giuliani, the city has spent close to $2 million to settle lawsuits brought by residents and city workers who accused the Giuliani administration of retaliating against them for exercising free speech or other constitutional rights.

Among them is a limousine driver, James Schillaci, who had complained in a newspaper article about a red-light sting set up by the police in the Bronx. The same day, police came to his home to arrest him for a 13-year-old unpaid ticket. The next day, the mayor obtained -- illegally, Mr. Schillaci said -- the record of his arrests from decades earlier and discussed it, inaccurately, at a news conference. The city settled with him for $290,000 in 2002.

Dantae Johnson of the Bronx has charged in a lawsuit that after he was shot by a police officer in May 1999, Mr. Giuliani and the police commissioner, Howard Safir, falsely described him as a criminal to justify the shooting. The officer was convicted of assault. The city has denied responsibility.

A former member of the police Street Crime Unit, Yvette Walton, was fired in 1999 after publicly criticizing the unit's operations. The police commissioner, Mr. Safir, said she was dismissed for abuse of sick leave, but testimony showed that her commander had planned to punish her for that infraction simply by docking one day's vacation. When she began speaking out, the matter was abruptly transferred to the commissioner's office.

Mr. Safir "removed Walton's case from the jurisdiction of her commanding officer, and, without hearing or trial or consideration of her overall performance, dismissed Walton as a police officer," Federal District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled. "I find that Walton's dismissal was in retaliation for the exercise of her First Amendment rights."

Mr. Safir disputed that finding, but in November 2002, the city paid Ms. Walton $327,000 and allowed her to retire with her pension, according to Chris Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represented Ms. Walton.

In March 2000, after Patrick Dorismond, a Times Square security guard, was shot to death in a confrontation with an undercover police officer, Mr. Giuliani responded to criticism of the shooting by releasing Mr. Dorismond's sealed juvenile record. In a wrongful-death suit against the city, his family cited Mr. Giuliani's release of the criminal records as part of a pattern of smearing people hurt by the police. The city paid $2.25 million to settle the suit in 2002.

Derek Sells, the lawyer who represented the family, could not say precisely what role Mr. Giuliani's release of the juvenile records played in the settlement. "It was an embarrassing issue for the city," Mr. Sells said. "It was very clear that it was a breach in the law."

People assign Giuliani responsibility for reducing crime in New York City, but most, if not all, of the crime decline in New York was the result of factors that produced a decline in crime in cities across the country in the 1990s.

People were impressed by Giuliani’s leadership ability after 9/11, but they were also impressed by George W. Bush’s leadership skills at the time. The emotions around 9/11 distorted perceptions.

The best measure of Giuliani is his record as mayor, and it not a good one if one values civil liberties and racial harmony.


--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.


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End the War on Drugs

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, Dallasblack.com

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin

Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com

Algernon Austin speaks on The Covenant with Black America for The New Haven Black History Coalition’s Annual Black History Celebration, February 24th, 10am, Gateway Community College, Long Wharf Campus
________________________________________________________________________

The War on Drugs has been a 35-year long disaster. It has not significantly reduced the availability any drug, and it has been a cancer slowly eating away at the health and strength of black America. We desperately need a new approach.

A great amount of resources has been spent trying to reduce the availability of drugs, and, yet, it has been an utter failure. The Monitoring the Future Study of student drug use clearly reveals this fact. In 1975, 88 percent of twelfth graders said that it was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to obtain marijuana. In 2005, after thirty years and billions of dollars waging a War on Drugs, 86 percent of twelfth graders still reported that it was easy to obtain marijuana—essentially no change. (Monitoring the Future, Vol. 1, Table 9-8, 423-4.)

What about for other drugs? The numbers of high school seniors saying that cocaine is easy to get went from 37 percent in 1975 to 45 percent in 2005—an increase! For heroin, in 1975, 24 percent of seniors said that it was easy to get. In 2005, 27 percent said the same—basically no change. For the more recent drug on the scene, methamphetamine, in 1990, 24 percent of seniors said that it was easy to get. In 2005, 27 percent said the same—again, basically no change. What positive can we say that the War on Drugs has accomplished?

While the War on Drugs has done nothing about the availability of drugs, it has succeeded in producing a very large increase in the prison population. This increase in incarceration has been borne disproportionately by black communities. Young, black males with little education have very few job options. They are more likely to be unemployed in comparison to similar white males, and when employed, they tend to earn less than similar whites. The drug trade lures these young men in precisely because of their inferior legal job opportunities.

To address the problem of drug use in America, we need to focus much more on the demand for drugs and much less on the supply. Drug use has fluctuated over time and it varies by region and social characteristics. We need to better understand what causes these fluctuations and apply this knowledge to drug prevention. We need to more effectively market healthy living. The reduction in the rates of smoking over time shows that these messages can be effective. And we need to make sure that treatment for drug addiction is readily available and easily accessible.

A reduction in drug use prevents the harm caused by drug addiction, and it also reduces the harm caused by the violence around struggles over drug-dealing territory. The crack wars of the late 1980s and early 1990s ended not because of better policing and increasing incarceration, but because the demand for crack dropped and with it the price. By the mid-1990s, the crack trade was no longer worth fighting over.

Steven Levitt and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh show us how we can effectively reduce young, black male involvement in the drug trade: jobs. Young men, like the drug dealers Levitt and Venkatesh studied, have an unemployment rate of about 50 percent. Levitt and Venkatesh show that most young, black men in the drug trade earn about minimum wage and that their “labor market participation responds to changing wages in the drug trade.” If low drug wages increase their participation in the legal workforce then more legal job opportunities with higher wages will likely reduce their involvement with the drug trade. Venkatesh’s interviews answer the question of what kind of job it would take to accomplish this result: being a janitor at the University of Chicago.

We can reduce the damage caused by drug addiction and by the violence around the drug trade in black communities by acknowledging that the War on Drugs has been a failure and that we need to do something different. After three decades of failure with an aggressive war on the supply of drugs, we need to try smarter and more intensive approaches to reduce the demand for drugs. We could significantly reduce black involvement in the drug trade by increasing the legal job opportunities and wages of less-educated young, black men. This approach would lead to an increase in the numbers of black males who are tax-paying, productive citizens as opposed to the current practices which have produced very large numbers of black males who waste their lives and billions of our tax dollars in America’s prisons.

--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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Drug Dealing as a Low-Wage Occupation

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, Dallasblack.com

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com

Algernon Austin speaks on The Covenant with Black America for The New Haven Black History Coalition’s Annual Black History Celebration, February 24th, 10am, Gateway Community College, Long Wharf Campus
________________________________________________________________________

Before we can address the problem of drug dealing in black communities and craft a sensible criminal justice policy, we need be able to see it from its least discussed angle—as a low-wage occupation. The following is an excerpt from “Myths about Blacks and Crime” in Getting It Wrong. The footnotes have been deleted.

A study of a Chicago gang in the mid-1990s by Steven D. Levitt and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh found that the leader made $100,000 a year, the three officers below him made $12,000 a year, and the 50 “foot solders” earned approximately minimum wage. Additionally, there were about 130 “rank and file” members who earned nothing for their gang affiliation but paid dues to the gang to be a member for protection, status or the rights to buy and sell drugs independently. In other words, only one man out of nearly two hundred became relatively rich from being in a street gang. Most of the rest remained in poverty or close to it. Many of the foot soldiers and rank and file actually did legal minimum-wage work to supplement their drug earnings; or, one could argue, they were drug dealers to supplement their meager or nonexistent legal earnings.

The wages earned dealing drugs for a street gang are particularly bad when one considers the dangers of the job. In the 1990s, gang members had a good chance of being injured, a very good chance of being arrested and an excellent chance of being killed. Their chance of being killed over a four-year period was 1-in-4. This risk of being killed made being a street-gang drug dealer 50 times more dangerous than the most dangerous legal occupation.

If street gang drug-dealing is so bad, why do many young black men do this miserable work? While the dream of winning the “tournament” and making it to the number one spot and earning $100,000 a year is no doubt part of the answer, it is likely only a small part. There are more immediate and realistic economic motivations.

The work options for a young, black, male, high-school dropout from a poor, urban community are not good. Street-gang drug dealers tend to be young, black, male high school dropouts from poor urban communities. In the mid-1990s, the employment rate for 16 to 24-year-old black men with a high school diploma or less was less than 50 percent while for comparable whites and Hispanics it was about 75 percent. Only about 45 percent of the foot soldiers in the Chicago gang were able to obtain legal work. Most likely those jobs paid roughly minimum wage.

For at least half of the young men in the Chicago gang, there are no visible options for legal work. For the half that have legal work, they can barely make more than minimum wage. We should also realize that a drug-dealing minimum wage may yield 10 to 20 percent more take-home money than a legal minimum wage because taxes and benefits are not withheld from illegal wages. There are clear financial incentives for these young men to earn some money or additional money in a drug-dealing gang.

The economist Steven D. Levitt emphasizes the “tournament” and “glamour profession” aspect of being a street-gang drug dealer, but he does not seem to fully appreciate how few options these young black men have. He argues:

Earning big money in the crack gang wasn’t much more likely than the Wisconsin farm girl becoming a movie star or the high-school quarterback playing in the NFL. But criminals, like everyone else, respond to incentives. So if the prize is big enough, they will form a line down the block just hoping for a chance.

But farm girls who are dreaming of becoming movie stars and high school quarterbacks dreaming of the NFL do not inquire about how they can become janitors.

When Venkatesh conducted his ethnographic research with the Chicago gang, gang members repeatedly asked him about how to obtain what they called a “good job”: working as a janitor at the University of Chicago. If they were truly focused on winning the drug-dealing “tournament,” they would not be so eager to become a janitor. One gang member stated plainly:

. . . everyday people struggling just to survive, so you know, we just do what we can. We ain’t got no choice, and if it means getting killed, well s---, it’s what n----- do around here to feed their family.

For this gang member, drug dealing feels like his only option, not a “glamour profession.”

Levitt and Venkatesh present other evidence that the foot soldiers are responding to their opportunities for earning money in the present, not in the distant future when they imagine they will win the “tournament.” Levitt and Venkatesh find evidence that the foot soldiers’ “labor market participation responds to changing wages in the drug trade.” In other words, when foot soldiers are making enough money dealing drugs, they leave their legal jobs, and when they are earning too little dealing drugs, they look for legal work.

These young men in street gangs are choosing working over not working or making extra money to supplement their legal low-wage work to try to lift themselves out of poverty rather that being complacent about being poor. It is a perverse type of work ethic, but it is still a work ethic. American society needs to provide these young men with better options. Certainly, they should have graduated from high school, but it is still the case that even with a high school diploma their unemployment rate would be higher than for white men with a high school diploma. The American labor market prefers white men over black men. Even white male high school dropouts are more likely to find a job and a better paying job than black male high school dropouts. This is part of the reason for the high rates of black street crime.

--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Next Week: Putting It All Together for a Just Criminal Justice Policy


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