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Re: Appeal For Intellectual Integrity
Posted:
Mar 23, 2012 1:25 PM
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On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 10:06 AM, Haim <hpipik@netzero.com> wrote:
> There are two parts to Paul's response. One part is an embarrassing exercise in shucking and jiving, to divert from the issue we are investigating (the loathsome racism of the Education Mafia), by bringing in wholly irrelevant topics. His transparent aim is to undermine the credibility of opposing argument by invented ad hominem attacks. For example,
>
> - ----------------------
> Paul A. Tanner, III Posted: Mar 23, 2012 5:55 AM
> Conservatism has a long tradition of racism, even white supremacy.
> - -------------------------
>
> The history of conservatism, whatever it may be, neither enhances nor diminishes the loathsome racism of the Education Mafia. I shall ignore this part.
>
> The second part of Paul's response, I must admit, does leave me stumped. He cites articles that make my case in every conceivable way. For example,
>
> - -------------------
> "Rethinking Parent Involvement: African American Mothers Construct their Roles in the Mathematics Education of their Children"
> http://www.adi.org/journal/ss05/Jackson%20&%20Remillard.pdf
> Quote: "Our findings offer evidence that traditional understandings of parent involvement may overlook ways that low-income parents deliberately involve themselves in their children's education."
> - -------------------------
>
> The key operating term is "traditional understanding". Since it is well established, and cannot be controverted by the authors, that black parents, as a statistical matter, tend to be less involved in their children's education---in ways that are "visible" to the schools---the authors conveniently change the definition of "involvement".
>
> Interested readers will find that socialists in general, and educationists in particular, are the most exuberant practitioners of Equivocation.
>
> And so, we come back to the original issue, which was grade inflation in the public schools. Paul asserted that grade inflation is due to parental pressure. However, grades are inflated most enthusiastically in predominantly black schools...
>
And now we have even another racist idea being promoted, which is that
grade inflation happens most in mostly black public schools. The fact
is that according to the scientific studies I cited many times, there
is more grade inflation in the private schools than the public
schools, and the private schools happen to be mostly white.
Will the promotion of racist ideas ever end here at math-teach?
Haim, you continue to double down on your until now most recent racist
affirmation, which is that there cannot be enough direct or indirect
parental contact with teachers from black parents over the years to
explain why there is grade inflation from teachers with respect to
black students even though you accept the notion that there could
easily be enough contact with teachers over the years from white
parents to explain grade inflation with respect to white students.
Speaking from experience as a teacher that has taught at mostly white,
mostly black, and mostly Hispanic schools, I know of many ways that a
parent can have direct or indirect contact with a teacher even though
in these studies that you would love to cite these parents would be
improperly labeled as not being involved in their kids' educations.
That is, these studies, as measures of involvement, include many
things that have nothing to do with contact with a teacher that could
exert pressure on grades over time, such as time-consuming involvement
in various school activities. A parent could easily be labeled as
completely uninvolved when though the parent has contact with a
teacher that does not become part of some record that some researcher
could access many years later.
That is, these measures of involvement do not include as measures of
involvement many and even most contacts that a teacher has with
parents, since there is no way to quantify every last little contact a
teacher has with a parent in-person or especially over the phone,
since many and even most such contacts do not necessarily get logged
and put into some database at some school that some researcher could
access many years later - the nature of many and even most such
contacts is that they would not be part of the measure of parental
involvement by a researcher. I'm thinking at this moment of such
contacts that result from the duty that teachers have of calling
parents regarding many things, including grades and behavior. At each
school I've been over the years, there would be many stretches of time
like close to end of grading periods where I would many days spend
hours on the phone with parents, and there is no way some researcher
years later could go to that school when I was long gone and know
about any of that and quantify it as "involvement" by these parents -
yet it was still parental contact with a teacher.
Not only that, by experience I know that even very few contacts per
year with a given parent of a given kid when multiplied many times
over most or all students creates a cumulative effect on the teacher.
And this effect exists even though some researcher could easily label
each such parent as uninvolved.
And not only that, here's a real kicker - here is a form of parental
pressure that is not covered in the measures of parental involvement
in the studies you would want to cite: Much parental contact with a
teacher is indirect in the form of parents calling administration and
then administration putting pressure on teachers. This could even be
in the form of any given parent calling just once, but where many
parents call just once, that has a cumulative effect that results in
administration putting pressure on the teacher - and this, in spite of
the researchers you would love to cite labeling every one of these
parents as uninvolved (one phone call from a given parent does not
make that parent involved in the measures used by the researchers that
you would love to cite).
In fact, this type of parental pressure just described over time can
easily result in the administration of a school coming up with grading
policies that prospective hires must agree to before being hired. Yes,
I've actually encountered this. This counts as massive parental
pressure even though just about every last parent at said schools
because of the racial demographic of the schools could be labeled by
your researchers as "uninvolved" - again, there are many measures of
"involvement" that they use that are time-consuming and have nothing
to do with ending up putting pressure on grading over time, and there
are many things that parents can do that are not time-consuming and
result in such pressure on grading over time yet do not get counted as
"involvement" in measures of involvement.
And so it simply is a fact that the studies that you would love to
cite do not actually imply that any difference between the races in
terms of direct or indirect teacher contact from parents is such that
contact with teachers by white parents but not black parents could
result in effects on grades. That is, grade inflation is not what they
were measuring or trying to measure. In fact, I have no doubt that all
the authors of these studies, if confronted with people using their
studies to try to argue that white parents but not black parents exert
effects on the school system resulting in effects on grades, would say
that this use of their research is an utter abuse of their research
and even a racist abuse of their research.
And so any such difference between the races being such that white
people but not black people have effects on the school system that
could over time influence grading is proved to be only in the minds of
those who believe in racist ideas about black people.
And so, yet again, I insist that you do what conscience demands
(especially in light of such horrible injustices against blacks as the
recent killing in Florida set against the historical backdrop of
lynchings of the past) and take into consideration what I wrote in my
last post
http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=7752430&tstart=0
about the racist attitudes in the US about blacks that people
contribute to with their promotions of racist ideas, and that you
recant and apologize for each and every one of the racist ideas that
you've promoted here at math-teach (including characterizing black and
brown children as rats in a rat hole and characterizing darker-skinned
people as lacking in hygiene and therefore should not be allowed into
the US, characterizations that you did not make about white children
and adults).
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