Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site kontron.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!pesnta!pertec!kontron!cramer
From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: AA/Quota's, etc, why I don't like them...
Message-ID: <332@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Jul-85 13:46:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: kontron.332
Posted: Fri Jul  5 13:46:09 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jul-85 11:11:54 EDT
References: <3890@alice.UUCP> <234@ubvax.UUCP> <> <513@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA
Lines: 36

> >> [Gobs of discussion on improving education]
>    [T. WUERSCH]
> >
> > [Amusing, but not terribly relevant comments on above]
> > [B. TANENBAUM]
> 
> Let's beware of setting up straw men in this very complex area.
> First, what did the Coleman Report (1965) conclude?  (quoting C.
> Jencks):
> 
>      -- The physical facilities, the formal curriculums, and most of
> 	the measurable characteristics of teachers in black and white
> 	schools were quite similar.
> 
>      -- Measured differences in schools' physical facilities, formal
> 	curriculums, and teacher characteristics had very little
> 	effect on either black or white students' performance on
> 	standardized tests.
> 
>      -- The one school characteristic that showed a consistent
> 	relationship to test performance was the one school
> 	characteristic to which most poor black children had been
> 	denied access:  classmates from affluent homes.
> 
> 
> Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes

I have since read that Coleman, the guy largely responsible for the
Coleman report, has backed away from support for busing to provide
the sort of access discussed above, largely because his more recent
studies seem to suggest that putting poor black kids into white middle
class schools hasn't been terribly effective at improving the performance
of the black kids on standardized tests.

While not an authoritative statement of Truth on this matter, I thought
this minor detail might be of interest.