Does Bad Behavior + Poor Test Scores = African American Students
 

African-American students=Bad behavior + poor test scores?
Teacher Put on Leave Over Letter About Black Students
By Jose Cardenas


A Pasadena, CA high school teacher has been placed on administrative leave for disseminating a letter stating that, at his campus, most students who misbehave and are low academic achievers are African American.

Scott Phelps, a 12-year science teacher at John Muir High School, denied in an interview that his comments in the letter he placed in teachers' mailboxes were meant as racial insults.

Phelps, 39, said he was trying to predict that bad student behavior -- which, in this case, he said applies to many in Muir's large African American population -- will be responsible for the school's low Academic Performance Index scores next year.

The letter was also meant as a counterattack to the bad rap he said teachers in his district get from administrators about low student achievement.

"My intent was to get the district to stop blaming teachers or holding them solely responsible for performance," he said. "Different ethnicities are radically different.... I'm saying the behaviors are radically different, so we need to look at that. Nothing I said is false."

Phelps was put on administrative leave with pay and benefits, pending the results of an internal investigation, said Erik Nasarenko, a Pasadena Unified School District spokesman.

"Essentially, what the district will do is look at the material ... in the context of district policy and state law, to make a determination to what other action might be necessary, or whether Mr. Phelps should return to the classroom," Nasarenko said.

The inquiry -- which the district aims to complete within a week -- will, among other things, consider whether the letter created an offensive and hostile environment for the students.

Phelps, a Caltech graduate and outspoken teacher, first posted the letter in an Internet chat room where the school district is frequently criticized.

On Friday he also placed copies of it in his colleagues' boxes.

The somewhat rambling letter touches on several points.


It states that this year the school's improvements in its API scores were aided by two "good cohorts": the sophomore and senior classes.

But then it warns that next year the school won't meet its goal because two "bad cohorts" -- this year's freshmen and juniors -- will hold back the scores.

The reason why the two classes are bad cohorts, the letter says, is bad behavior.
"But overwhelmingly," part of the letter reads, "the students whose behavior makes the hallways deafening, who yell out for the teacher and demand immediate attention in class, who cannot seem to stop chatting and are fascinated by each other and relationships but not with academics, in short, whose behavior saps the strength and energy of us that are at the front lines, are African American."

"Eventually," the letter continues, "someone in power will have the courage to say this publicly."

The letter also says many African American students, those whose parents are involved with school, are well-behaved. It says that because Muir is almost half African American, most of the badly behaved students are African American.

The district acted after some teachers who received the letter complained, Nasarenko said.

Some in the community, rejecting Phelps' correlation of bad behavior and learning, took offense to what they saw as a racial sideswipe.

"If you're an African American student in Mr. Phelp's class and you read this, are [you] going to go up or down?" asked Bert Voorhees, a civil rights attorney and past president of the NAACP's Pasadena chapter. "Mr. Phelps contributes with his racism to some of the problems he says he wants to tackle."

This story was originally published Oct. 23, 2002 in the Los Angeles Times. Jose Cardenas is a Times staff writer. Visit www.latimes.com.


What do you think?

Well, for a while I have noticed that my African American students are the most disruptive. But, that's not really true. They are just more verbal. I teach in LA County and the statistics at his school are not the same as mine. I have found that student success is based on expectations. If you expect your students to work hard and learn, for the most part they will. If you expect the very best of them behavior wise and follow up with it, they will behave. I have noticed that many teachers fell this way when they have low expectaions for their studnts. If you don't believe in them, why should they believe in themselves? By the tone of his letter, he has proved that he falls in that category. In this case, it may be the teacher.

No, that is not true. All African American Students are not the same. One of my white classmates said, he would only teach in rural area. A black classmate nodded in agreement. I asked why. My professor replied, African American students from rural area are well-manner and respectful. They have strong religious value.

All African Americans are not the same. People need to stop placing us in the same category. Just because we share the same race does not mean we share the same culture. A lot of people would be surprise how many multi-cultures are in the African American community.

My experiences have been reflective of this article
 

I really hate to say this, but I find truth in the article.

I teach in a urban environment. I have observed that minority students (African American and Latinos) are often very disrespectful and aggressive to each other and those in any sort of authority. :eek: Some of the things that come out of thier mouths make me cringe.:eek: They are quick to resort to violence to resolve problems and rarely take the blame for thier actions (or lack thereof). Its like having 5-6 of that chick "Pocahantas" from P-Diddy's, Making The Band II, in your class all the time.

And while I know this occurs, I hate that caucausian teachers come in, see this mess and, think that they can explain away their ineffectiveness with articles like this and THE BELL CURVE.

True, and many studies have been done to prove your point exactly. Sometimes it is about what expectations one has for children.

I think
 

I can only speak for the people that I know and have seen and to an extent the part about African Americans being the most disruptive is true (at least where I went to school), but then having bad/low test is not true. I think that depends on the individual who is acting out.

My brother, who is 12 years old is, on the honor roll, however, his behavior in school is horrible. He is sent home almost once a week like clock work because he constantly runs his mouth and tells the teacher what he will and wont do.

The reason his grades are so good is because he stays on top of his work at home, which is where he is most of the time.

So, its not a matter of having low grades its a matter of doing what you have to do, which in his case, is keeping his homework done and on point.

Q

I agree.

And some of these lowered expectations can be subconscious, but the students can pick up on them. I am not a teacher, myself, but I used to mentor and tutor @ an afterschool program. I found that kids will certainly push your buttons. And, if you already see them as people who will never amount to anything, it is much easier to ignore the underlying causes of their behavior, and its easier to give up when the tasks become difficult. In poorer districts where students don't even have enough textbooks, it is clear to them that no one really cares how they spend the next 12 years of their lives.

And, if adults who are paid to at least try, can dismiss them so easily, then what type of behavior can be expected? I hope they investigate not only how this teacher conducts his classroom, but also, if by design, these kids are destined to failed. Because I guarantee you, the kids already know.

I'm not a teacher (hats off to those of you who are..) but I think the problem is more environmental than anything. If you take ANY child that grows up constantly exposed to drugs and violence, they most likely are going to be more aggressive and not as well behaved.

I DON'T THINK RACE HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!!!

AA children are not pre-destined to fail, nor are white kids predestined to succeed. It has a lot to do with what goes on with the child outside of the classroom IMO.

I think some people expect teachers to work miracles. Teachers can't undo what that child sees at night and on the weekends!!!

Just another article to chew on. I agree more with Ogbu, but he takes his theory too far. His reasoning is but an aspect of low achievement, not the whole thing. Ronald Ross is right to some degree, but I would not call it "racism" that is the root of low test scores. Interesting opinions.


Posted on Tue, Dec. 10, 2002

Weighing two views on why some middle-class blacks lagging in school?

John U. Ogbu's book hasn't been published yet, but Ronald Ross hates it already.

Ogbu's Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb is based on a study undertaken at the behest of African American parents in Shaker Heights, Ohio, who wanted to know why their solidly middle-class children were lagging academically behind their white counterparts.

"What amazed me is that these kids who come from homes of doctors and lawyers are not thinking like their parents," Ogbu - who helped popularize the notion that hard-working black students are often put down by their peers for "acting white"- told the New York Times. "They don't know how their parents made it. They are looking at rappers in ghettos as their role models, they are looking at entertainers. The parents work two jobs, three jobs, to give their children everything, but they are not guiding their children."

Ross saw the Times piece - and hit the ceiling.

"Anyone foolish enough to write some foolishness like that..." he sputtered during a long telephone interview. "How can he be so deliberately naive? You can bet the white conservatives will jump on that as an excuse for not addressing the real problem."

Well, what does Ross think the real problem might be?

"Racism," he says without hesitation.

Ross is worth listening to. Now a "distinguished fellow for urban education reform" at the New York office of the National Urban League, he is credited with turning around the school system of Mount Vernon, N.Y., in the few years of his recent superintendency.

Really turning it around. At Longfellow Elementary, for instance, only 12 percent of the fourth-graders passed the state-prescribed achievement test the year he arrived. The following year, 94 percent did. The citywide pass rate rose in a single year from 33 percent to 50 percent-then to 75 percent and up.

He insists he found no particular evidence of the "acting white" syndrome. "Of course there are kids who don't want to study, or who put down their peers who do, but there's nothing about that that's endemic to the black race. This is everybody." The real problems, he insists, are money and racism.

Since by his own account he wasn't able to do much about the money, how did Ross root out the racism that was holding black kids back?

What he did, he told me, was to accuse white teachers and administrators of not really caring about the education of black children. "I'm bestowing an Oscar on all of you," he told one gathering in a speech that landed him in political trouble, "because every time I come here, you make me believe you care about these children."

And that ended the racism and made the turn-around possible?

"I can't tell you how many racists retired or moved on," he said, "and I don't care." What he does care about are the administrative, curriculum and pedagogical changes he ushered in. "I worked with the unions to move teachers and principals who weren't performing. We tore apart the curriculum and developed a new one based on the New York state exams, then took a careful look at our best practices. It just made sense to me that what's taught should be what's tested."

In short, he did what Ogbu, the Berkeley anthropologist, might have done: He set about changing the culture in which his youngsters operated.

If there's a critical difference between these two bright and thoughtful men, it is that Ross sees it as of greater importance than Ogbu that white people confront their racism.

My own vantage point is Washington, D.C., where the superintendent, the school board majority, and the overwhelming majority of principals and teachers are black. And yet, the academic outcomes here - the achievement gap - seem no different than in Cleveland or Shaker Heights or Mount Vernon or the affluent and predominantly black Prince George's County, Md. Surely unacknowledged racism can't explain them all.

Can Ogbu?

I guess I'll have to wait for his book.


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William Raspberry is a columnist for the Washington Post.