On Jun 22, 2004, at 3:22 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Louise Sundin referred to a "30 million word gap" in an attempt to explain
the difference in academic performance between black and white students,
presumably a reflection of differences in exposure to the spoken language during a
child's first 3 years. One would have to read at a pace of 200 words per minute
for 15,000 hours to expose a child to that many words.
Why didn't Ms. Sundin just come out and say that black students are generally
inferior to whites as learners, at least as far as the ability to acquire
language skills is concerned, due to some defect in African-American culture?
That was certainly implied.
I think drawing such an implication is unfair. Do you deny such a vocabulary gap exists? Did the crowd go nuts or agree?
All Sundin is doing is aggregating a number that over time. Quantification, though, is not explanation, and to put words in Sundin's mouth seems unsupported by the above evidence.
You hit on a really solid theory for the gap later in your post.
Here is alternative explanation for average differences between black and
white children on cognitive ability tests at the point they enter the school
system: White people, on average, have higher incomes, and people with higher
incomes generally spend more on preschool programs. In a study of 483
low-birth-weight children from birth to age five, Greg Duncan at Northwestern University
and Jean Brooks-Gunn and Pamela Klebanov at Columbia University compared IQ
test scores of Black and White children from families with similar economic
situations. White children outscored Black children by an average of 3 points: not
a significant difference
Any reason to believe Sundin disagrees with this?
No matter what the cause, society insists public school teachers bridge these gap five years after they first open. That's a tough task even for good teachers. When I hear teachers talk about this, it's to advocate for earlier childhood education to head off learning gaps before they get worse.
I'm guessing - only guessing - this is something Doug Mann and Louise Sundin could agree on.
Peace out.
David Brauer Kingfield MPS parent
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