Do you agree with James Heckman, a Nobel prize-winning economist, that the low test scores of Blacks is due to poverty during their preschool years?

[Kelley1]

At ages five and six, the average black student is behind 85 percent of whites on test scores.

That pattern convinced James Heckman that traditional methods of school reform came too late in a child’s life to make much difference. He concluded that “schools and school quality contribute little to the emergence of test-score gaps among children.” He therefore urged reformers to “catch ‘em young,” and focus on the pre-kindergarten years when children are three- and four-years-old, and even on children from birth to age three.

Prof. Heckman based this approach on studies of enrichment programs for children in poverty who were followed until they were adults. The most influential of these programs was at the Perry Preschool in Ypsilanti, Michigan. From 1962 to 1967, Perry provided three-year-old poor black children with two and a half hours of daily preschool. Perry also placed teachers with advanced degrees in the children’s homes, where they spent 90 minutes each week instructing the Perry parents on child rearing. The Perry students were then compared with a control group at ages 14, 15, 19, 27, and 40.

The follow-up studies suggested that the children who attended Perry and whose parents received home visits were more likely to graduate from high school and less likely to go to jail. The Perry girls were less likely to become pregnant as teenagers, and the Perry boys earned more money than boys in the control group. After comparing the Perry students’ outcomes with those of the control group, Heckman calculated that the economic benefits of early childhood education yielded “rates of return are [from] 15% to 17%. The benefit-cost ratio is eight to one.”

[DrPepper12]

It's almost as if you invest in children & families society as a whole improves!

MAGAs:

No universal health care

No pre natal care

No paid parental leave

No free food at school

No UPK

No subsidized child care

No teacher certification

No after school care

No vaxs

No breast feed breaks

No contraceptives

No sex education

No housing support

No unemployment benes

No public transport

No career training

Make it make sense!!

[SeekerOfTruth007]

No. The low test scores of blacks are due to the fact blacks were literally born and bred as slaves to be stupid, but to be superior athletes. Unfortunately that's the truth.

[Kelley1]

Blacks were not bred to be stupid, but the first part of your statement would be accurate if "and bred as slaves to be" was omitted. The second part would be accurate if you had replaced "superior athletes" with big, healthy, and strong or at least strong as just like in breeding cattle, black women were bred to the strongest, most fit males.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

By the way, I come from a family that was in poverty for several years at a time during my kindergarten through middle school years, and I graduated with honors and scored 99th percentile on assessment tests. In fact, on my 3rd grade assessment tests I was found to have an IQ of 145 and an 8th grade reading level.

The secret? Visit the public library twice per week every week of your life. Stop trying to get by doing the bare minimum possible. Get off earned income credit and try working for a living.

[Kelley1]

Your suggestions will help, but pale into insignificance compared to having a high IQ.

[exitseven]

Did he use a group of poor white students to ace as a control group?

[Kelley1]

CHARACTER SKILLS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN IQ IN DRIVING BETTER LIFE OUTCOMES

Using more than 35 years of data on the Perry Preschool program, Professor James Heckman has
shown that quality early childhood education programs for disadvantaged children can dramatically improve outcomes in education, employment and health. A new study by Heckman and co-authors Rodrigo Pinto of The University of Chicago and Peter Savelyev of Vanderbilt University shows how — by developing character skills that increase motivation and reduce negative externalizing behaviors. The findings indicate that those who evaluate early childhood education programs solely on their ability to raise IQ miss the real driver of success: character skills that have far greater impact on achievement and life outcomes.

[exitseven]

I always thought the you were born with your IQ

[Kelley1]

A superior environment may not do much to increase IQ. However, a very poor environment can greatly decrease it.

[seeyounexttuesday]

There are kids of all races that live in poverty during their preschool years.

[Kelley1]

That is in no way relevant because there is a much greater percentage of blacks living in poverty than the percentage of whites and Asians. Moreover, that is not relevant to the fact that blacks have low test scores. However, it would be relevant if you made the argument that the primary reason for their low test scores may or may not be poverty during their preschool years.

[seeyounexttuesday]

100% relevant. Other races live in poverty but don't have the poor test scores. You can't prove correlation = causation if there's not even correlation.

[Kelley1]

@seeyounexttuesday Although last sentence is true, you don't have good reading comprehension.

[seeyounexttuesday]

And you can't explain while children in poverty from other races don't have low test scores.

[Kelley1]

Other than saying the primary reason for Blacks' low test scores, may or may not be poverty, I never attempted to explain the reasons. You are making invalid assumptions.

[seeyounexttuesday]

Yeah, and I'm stating that other races encounter poverty without the correlated poor test score performance.

[Kelley1]

You lack the ability for logical reasoning because that is an invalid argument. For the sake of argument, assume poverty is the reason for low test scores. If one race has 90% poverty and other races have 10% poverty, the race with the highest percent of poverty (in this case Blacks) is, on average, going to have the lowest test scores.

Whatever the reason for the low test scores of Blacks, the most straightforward explanation has been banned from public consideration, so poverty and discrimination are the favorite explanations.

[seeyounexttuesday]

Right, the most straightforward explanation is that they live in fatherless homes in a culture that doesn’t value education.

[Dargil]

Its attributable to the incompetent Department Of Education.

[beefcakebradybatson]

D**N SKIPPY, and it also applies to the white, Hispanic and Asian poor.